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Peer review process

How Manuscripts Are Evaluated: Peer Review and Blind Peer Review

I. Description of the Peer-Review Process

The reviewers of Sapientia Publishing House are distinguished figures in scholarly or cultural life, recognized nationally and internationally, and hold a doctoral degree in their field of specialization.

The types of peer review carried out within Sapientia Publishing House are: peer review and blind peer review.

1. The Peer-Review Process

The peer-review process for the journals and publications of Sapientia Publishing House takes place in the following stages:

  • the texts are examined by the editorial office in order to determine whether they correspond to the orientation of the publication or to the editorial category in which they have been placed, and whether they meet the required editorial quality standards;
  • after this verification, the article texts, or the abstract and significant excerpts from the volumes, or the complete volume, as applicable, are submitted to the Reviewers’ Committee of Sapientia Publishing House;
  • the reviewers communicate their decision to the editorial office, together with their observations and requirements, where applicable;
  • the editorial office communicates the reviewers’ decision and requested changes to the author. After the requested changes have been made, the text, or the abstract and significant excerpts, are returned to the same reviewers for a final decision.

2. Blind Peer Review

Blind peer review is the process by which a team of experts evaluates and reviews a work proposed for publication. The reviewers involved in this process must come from varied scholarly and academic backgrounds, with areas of expertise related to the subject of the material submitted for evaluation.

Within Sapientia’s editorial programmes, scholarly evaluation is carried out in at least one of the following ways, depending on the specific nature of the programme:

a) Blind Peer Review

Reviewers selected from the publishing house’s general database of reviewers receive for evaluation either the complete work or the table of contents, the description of the volume, and significant excerpts from it.

Each reviewer independently assesses the text proposed for publication according to the following criteria of scholarly quality:

  • the quality of the information, with regard to the conceptual accuracy of the work;
  • the original contribution of the work and its degree of novelty;
  • the clarity of the scholarly objectives of the work;
  • the value of the methodology, where such a methodology exists or is necessary;
  • the credibility and clarity of the results in the case of research works;
  • the quality of the bibliography and the existence of references for any publication or volume of a scholarly nature;
  • originality, depth, and scholarly contribution;
  • the quality of writing and expression;
  • other criteria considered relevant by the reviewer.

Since most of Sapientia Publishing House’s programmes are based on selection rather than competition, works must receive a minimum score for all criteria in order to be accepted for publication.

For books and articles in collective volumes, the possible outcomes are: acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.

If one reviewer recommends acceptance and another recommends rejection, the work is evaluated by a third reviewer, whose recommendation is decisive.

In the case of acceptance with revisions, the author is asked to make the necessary corrections.

b) Evaluation by Invited Reviewers

In addition to the peer-review process, the Director of the Publishing House or the Editor-in-Chief may request the professional opinion of expert reviewers with substantial experience and recognition in the relevant field regarding the volume proposed for publication.

These reviewers may recommend that the publishing house accept the volume or may provide a reasoned recommendation for its rejection.

c) Reviewers Proposed by the Author

Authors are invited to propose specialist reviewers themselves when submitting a work for publication. These may include doctoral thesis supervisors, other members of the doctoral committee, and similar academic specialists.

The opinions of the reviewers proposed by the authors will be taken into consideration by the Editor-in-Chief or the Director of the Publishing House when making the final decision regarding acceptance for publication.

The recommendations of reviewers proposed by the author cannot replace the peer review carried out by reviewers appointed by Sapientia Publishing House.

II. Editorial Evaluation

All books published by Sapientia Publishing House undergo an editorial evaluation regarding their potential impact, target readership, distribution and promotion possibilities, and other relevant aspects.

During this stage, carried out by the editors of Sapientia Publishing House, the proposed print run and the amount of co-financing granted by the Publishing House or by the Roman Catholic Theological Institute are established. This co-financing may range from 0% to 100%, depending on the scholarly or cultural quality resulting from the reviewers’ evaluation.

The editorial evaluation takes into account: the development of the book market in the relevant field, the number of volumes already available on the market dealing with the same or similar topics, volumes previously published by Sapientia Publishing House on the same or similar topics, the author’s reputation, the relevance and topicality of the subject, the debate surrounding the subject in the media and in specialized literature, the impact of the author’s previous volumes as reflected in sales, citations, inclusion in bibliographies, and pre-orders for books on the same or related topics.

Any book of scholarly or cultural nature must be approved both through the scholarly and ethical evaluation process and through the editorial evaluation process in order to be published.

As an exception, books of outstanding cultural or scholarly value, but with limited market appeal, may be proposed for full funding within programmes supported by institutions such as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Iași, the Romanian Bishops’ Conference, and similar bodies.

III. Selection of Collective Volumes in the “Steps Toward Excellence” Programme

In the scholarly editorial practice of Sapientia Publishing House, collective volumes are produced within the “Steps Toward Excellence” Programme. These are of three types:

  1. proceedings of scholarly events;
  2. peer-reviewed collective volumes;
  3. collective volumes published by direct invitation.

In the case of proceedings, scholarly quality control is carried out by the scientific board of the conference, with responsibility for acceptance or rejection belonging to the chairpersons. If the conference has not submitted the full article to a peer-review process, this process is carried out within Sapientia Publishing House.

IV. Collective Volumes with an Editor and Peer Reviewers

Within the calls for publication under the Sapientia “Steps Toward Excellence” Programme, there may be general thematic calls for works from a particular scholarly area, as well as calls focused on a specific field or subfield of research.

V. Collective Volumes Published at the Invitation of the Editor

The Publishing House appoints a volume editor with recognized and significant activity in a particular field that the Publishing House considers current, relevant, or insufficiently represented on the Romanian or international market.

The editor or editors — one, or a maximum of three — are free to invite authors from Romania and abroad to contribute to the respective field. Selection is based on previous analyses of the authors’ work, as well as on the reputation and impact of their publications within the scholarly community.

The editors are responsible for the scholarly quality of the volumes. An author is invited to publish on the basis of previously published texts, not on the basis of a publication proposal. Therefore, responsibility for selecting the authors includes both an assessment of the expected quality of the article and the risk of receiving articles of marginal relevance.

The editor will submit the volume for review to reviewers of at least the same scholarly reputation as the authors, thus carrying out a peer-review selection process administered jointly by the volume editor and the Quality Committee of the Roman Catholic Theological Institute of Iași.

The standards applied are those of blind peer review and may not be lower than the general standards of Sapientia Publishing House.

VI. Standards for Acceptance and Rejection

The standards for acceptance and rejection differ according to each programme. Thus, in the case of international scholarly journals, especially those indexed or proposed for ISI indexing:

  • the minimum score required for acceptance must be at least 70% of the maximum score, and no individual indicator may fall below 50% of the maximum possible score.

The only exception is the Programme for the Promotion of Young Researchers, where both the average score and the minimum score for each indicator must be 70% of the maximum possible score.

The expected average acceptance rate is 30% for international scholarly publications indexed in international databases or for publications for which the Publishing House ensures international visibility, including open access visibility.