On Peer Review of Materials Submitted to "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies"

1. All materials submitted for publication in the Journal must be registered by members of the editorial board or board secretary with the date of receipt of the manuscript. The decision to publish (with the date of the publication) or to reject the manuscript is accepted by Chief Editor. The authors should be informed of the decision no later than 75 days from the date of receipt of the manuscript.

2. All materials (articles, bibliographic reviews), received for publication in the Journal , subject to mandatory pre-screening by Chief Editor for compliance with the formal requirements established in published materials, such as the correspondence between the title and the content of the article, allowable volume, structure, design, presence of keywords, library ID, summary in Russian and English, bibliography, correct use of digital data, formulas, calculations, availability of the necessary contact information. It checks for signs of misuse in drawing text, images, and tables. Preliminary checks held in a period not exceeding 18 days from the date of receipt of the manuscript to the journal’s editorial board.

3. All materials that are not rejected by the preliminary tests are subject to mandatory blind review by at least two independent experts in the field as close to the subject of the article as possible. Experts should have a doctor or candidate degrees assigned by the leading Russian universities or similar degrees (PhD, Dr. Sci.) assigned by leading foreign universities. It can be an additional review by former or new experts by decision of the Chief Editor including the case of repeated author’s representations of the material after its completion.

4. The scientific review may be carried out by any qualified experts having over the last three years, publications on the topic close to the peer-reviewed article. It is desirable that one of reviewers has not been an employee of St. Petersburg State University while the second can be named, including members of the journal’s editorial board in the case of absence of conflict of interest (official subordination of the author and the reviewer, co-authorship or scientific supervision, etc.). In the case of conflict of interest Reviewer should informed the contributing editor and renounces to review the manuscript.

5. The author does not own the information about the reviewer.

6. According to the results of the scientific peer review its resume is sent to the author with a consolidated list of comments and suggestions of scientific reviewers. The author is proposed to take them into account when finalizing the article.

7. Conducted peer review of manuscripts should lead to a reviewer’s reasoned response on the following questions:
1. Is it available and, if so, what is the research and informational novelty of the material;
2. What is the correspondence of peer-reviewed material with existing literature, published data and current research on the issue;
3. Whether there are indications of illegal loans or other author’s forms of violation of scientific ethics when writing the material;
4. Is it available and, if so, what is the practical significance of the material;
5. How clearly set out the material, whether it corresponds to the general and special requirements to the structure of publication, its language and style, used terminology, visibility of tables, charts, figures and formulas; whether the findings and conclusions obtained data; whether registration of footnotes and bibliography is correct;
6. Has peer-reviewed material interest to the reader (if yes, what kind).

8. According to the results of the scientific peer review should be given one of the following recommendations:
1. Material may be published as submitted (without improvements and revisal);
2. Material may be published if the author will take into account the comments of reviewers; no more than a one-time completion of the submitted for publication material is allowed;
3. Material is rejected without the right to resubmission.

9. Confidentiality of any information about the manuscript transferred to the peer review is provided by the editorial board. It is not allowed to discuss the reviewed manuscript with any third parties. Reviewers may not use or rely on peer-reviewed materials before publishing.

10. Editorial board defines the criteria by which decisions about publishing are made.

11. The presence of positive reviews is not sufficient for the publication of the article. Final decision on the publication or rejection of materials is accepted by the editorial board. It’s fixed in the protocol of the editorial board’s meeting. If there is a discrepancy in the editorial board, the final decision is taken by the Chief Editor of the Journal.

12. Reviews are submitted to the editorial office of the Journal together with the materials of the corresponding issue and are stored here in within 5 years from the date of the decision to publish or reject a manuscript.