For authors
The twelve journals work to a common model: editor-led assessment, independent peer review, open access and no author charge at present. The details that differ between titles are stated on each journal’s own site.
A manuscript should make an argument that a reader can identify, contest and check. It should be within the journal’s field, and it should arrive in a form that a reviewer can assess without guessing at the author’s meaning.
Each journal sets out its own requirements for length, citation and anonymisation. Where a requirement is not yet settled, the journal marks it as to be announced.
An editor reads every submission. The first questions are whether the work belongs to the journal and whether it is ready for review.
Work that is out of scope, or that cannot yet be assessed, is returned with a reason. A quick return is a courtesy: it leaves the author free to place the work elsewhere.
Submissions that pass editorial assessment are sent to independent reviewers who know the field.
Reviewers are asked to judge the argument: its claim, its evidence, its use of sources, and what it would take for the claim to be wrong. Reports are confidential, and reviewers are not asked to police an author’s conclusions.
Review is a form of scholarly labour. The journals treat it as such, and they do not treat a review as a vote.
A decision states its reasons. Where revision is invited, the editor says what would need to change for the argument to succeed.
Revision is a negotiation about the argument, not an exercise in compliance. Authors may disagree with a reviewer, and should say so, with reasons.
Accepted work is made available in open access. Reading it requires no subscription, and no article processing charge is levied at present.
Open access is not a tier or an upgrade. It is the condition on which these journals are being established, and it applies to the whole of each journal.
Authors should disclose what a reader needs in order to judge the work: funding, competing interests, the source of data, and any earlier appearance of the argument.
Authorship should reflect substantive contribution, and every named author should have agreed to the submission.
The record is corrected in the open. Errors are corrected where they are found; a retraction is stated as a retraction, with its reason.
Quotation should be exact, attribution should be complete, and the work of others should be described as they would describe it.
Requirements differ between fields. Each journal’s site carries its own guidance, its editorial arrangements and its submission information; where a detail is not yet confirmed, it is marked to be announced.
