Peer Review Policy

In order to be approved for publication, all submissions, regardless of genre, have to undergo a process of double peer review by two independent experts in the relevant academic fields. The experts are not affiliated with the same academic institution as the author of the submission.

The referees of the Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies are prominent scholars from Bulgaria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Bosna and Herzegovina, Italy, Hungary and Poland. For the purposes of the review process, the Editorial Board maintains a list of potential referees which is continuously supplemented and updated.

The review process for submissions to the Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies consists of the following stages:

1. The Editors-in-Chief evaluate whether the submission may be admitted and allowed to undergo double-blind peer review depending on whether it is in line with the thematic scope of the Journal and the generally accepted requirements for a scholarly text.

If the submission is not allowed to proceed to the next stage of the review process, the author is sent a message concisely informing him or her of the decision and the motives of the Editors-in-Chief.

2. An anonymised version of the submission where all data about the author and file metadata has been removed is submitted for review to two independent experts in the appropriate academic field who are not affiliated with the same academic institution as the author of the submission.

The referees are selected by the Editors-in-Chief of the Journal in accordance with the subject of the submission.

3. The referees fill out an anonymous review card in Bulgarian, English or German. The review card contains recommendations for the improvement of the submission and a general evaluation of the suitability of the submission in its current state for publication in the Journal. In case of contradictory evaluations, the submission is sent to a third referee.

4. Based on the content of the review cards and upon deliberation, the Editorial Board takes the final decision on whether or not the submission is to be published in the Journal and, if necessary, makes further additions to the referees’ recommendations for improvement of the submission.

5. The author is informed of the conclusions and recommendations of the referees and the decision of the Editorial Board. The author is asked to implement the recommendations for improvement of the text and to submit it again in a revised form.

6. If the submission has been revised in accordance with the recommendations of the referees and the Editorial Board, it is edited and prepared for publication in the issue of the relevant year.

If plagiarism, unreliability of the scientific findings or other violations of research integrity are detected in a submission, it is rejected.

Manuscripts that have already been published, are forthcoming (“in press”) or are due to be published elsewhere are not accepted for publication.