Editorial Policies Journal of Peptides

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Evidence is weighed against the claims a manuscript actually makes. The journal applies no chemical, structural, mechanistic, clinical, novelty or experimental requirement uniformly across every kind of contribution; the basis for eligibility is set out on the Aims and Scope page.

Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. Reviewers assess experimental design, the adequacy of the data presented, the interpretation of results, and whether the work is reported in enough detail to be built on.

For double-blind review, authors remove identifying information from the reviewer manuscript and supply it separately; the handling rules that apply to authors are in the Instructions for Authors, and those that apply to editors and reviewers are in the Editors Guidelines and Reviewer Guidelines.

Authorship is limited to those who made a substantial contribution to the work: to its conception or design, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the data; who contributed to drafting or revising the manuscript; who approved the version submitted; and who accept accountability for it.

Contributors who do not meet those conditions are acknowledged rather than listed as authors. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors and the editorial office.

Research involving human participants, human material or animals must have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee, and the manuscript must name the approving body and state that informed consent was obtained where it applies.

Manuscripts must be original, must not be under consideration elsewhere, and must attribute prior work properly. Submissions are checked with Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate; a similarity report is read in context by an editor and is not an automatic ground for rejection.

Allegations of misconduct are investigated with the authors and, where necessary, their institution, following established publication-ethics practice.

Authors disclose financial and non-financial interests that a reader could reasonably consider relevant, together with the funding that supported the work. A statement appears in every published article, including where there is nothing to declare.

Reviewers decline an invitation where they have a competing interest. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions and on work by close collaborators; those manuscripts are handled independently.

The statement says where the data supporting the findings can be obtained and on what terms. Where a recognized repository exists for the data type — sequences, structures, spectra, crystallographic or mass-spectrometric data — deposition there is expected, and accession identifiers are reported in the manuscript.

Authors are expected to make materials and protocols needed to reproduce the work available to qualified researchers on reasonable request.

The published version is the version of record. Where an error affects the reader’s understanding, the journal issues a correction that is linked to the article and carries its own date; where findings are invalidated or the work is found to breach publication ethics, the journal issues a retraction notice that states the reason and who is issuing it.

Articles are not removed from the record. A correction or retraction notice is published alongside the original so that the record remains complete and citable.

The same terms are published on the Article Processing Charges page, alongside the charge itself.