Peer review policy

Any  submission is first reviewed for completeness and only then a Managing editor assignes an Editor. The Associated editor sends the paper for single-blind peer review. Editor  will consider the peer-reviewed reports when making a decision. A concern raised by a peer reviewer or the Editor themself may result in the manuscript being rejected. Authors receive peer review reports with the editorial decision on their manuscript. Where an Editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial board will be assigned to oversee peer review.

All submissions will be reviewed against relevance, originality, significance, soundness, and clarity. Authors are responsible for the opinions expressed by them and for the plausibility of their data. All submissions are crosschecked against plagiarism. If an author used any source without citing it, this will be consider as plagiarism and the submission will be rejected.

Reviewers are expected to observe the COPE ethical guidelines for peer reviewers.

Review process

  • Manuscripts are initially screened for completeness and adherence to the formal aspects of the Author guidelines and instructions on formatting the manuscripts submitted for publication. Manuscripts may be returned to authors to remedy issues before further progression.
  • Managing editor assesses submissions and decides whether they are suitable for progression to the next stage of the review process on the basis of fit to the scope of journal and publishing standards.
  • Papers that pass the stage will be assigned an Associate editor with the requisite subject area expertise (depending on the particular subject area of the manuscript). The Associate editor assesses the manuscript and decides if it warrants progression to the peer review stage and if so, selects  reviewers and oversees the subsequent review process.
  • Based on the reviewers' report and on its own opinion, the Associate editor will recommend to the Managing editors a decision on the manuscript.
  • The final decision rests with the Managing editors.

Special cases

  • Editors are excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or have contributed to a manuscript. In such cases the review process and publication decision will be overseen by an alternate Editor.
  • The review process for UNCTAD Insights articles adheres to the same rigour as for externally submitted papers, but it is adjusted to reflect the nature of UNCTAD Insights (see Editorial Statement). The review is overseen by the Editors. Articles are typically assessed in the first instance by a member of the editorial team and then peer reviewed by experts with requisite subject and technical expertise drawn from UNCTAD, other international organizations and academia.

Communications with authors

At each stage of the review process, authors will be provided reasoned and constructive feedback about the decisions on their manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

Assigned reviewer should inform the Associated editor of any potential conflicts with the assigned manuscript, for instance, resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions. In such instances they should inform the Associated editor and recuse themselves from the review process.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. The confidentiality of participants in the review process is protected.

Appeals

Appeals against editorial decisions require a formal appeal letter with point-by-point evidence supporting the appeal. In line with generally accepted standards, appeals are considered only on the basis of (i) reviewers’ potential technical errors in their assessment of the manuscript, (ii) new information or data that has come to light since submission of manuscript, and (iii) evidence as to potential conflicts of interest of reviewers. Appeals against an editorial decision must be submitted within 7 days of the decision notice.

One appeal per manuscript is allowed. The Managing editors  will consult the editorial team. The decision of the Managing editors  is final.

Appeal letters should be addressed to the Managing editors  and should be submitted to the editorial office (annuaire@fmi.uni-sofia.bg).

Copyright

  • All articles in the Annual are published as Open Access articles and also follow Open Data policy
  • Copyright on any open access article in the journal is retained by the author(s)
  • Authors grant the journal to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher
  • Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified
  • The Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles in the Annual

Authors requiring a variation of this type of licensing should contact the editorial office via annuaire@fmi.uni-sofia.bg during or immediately after submission of their article. Changes to the copyright line cannot be made after publication of an article.

Promoting your publication

Articles in the Annual are widely promoted through email updates, table of contents, email alerts, postings on the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia University website, and press releases to the general and scientific press - all resulting in increasing levels of accesses for each article. The Annual is promoted at many major scientific conferences to bring your work to the attention of professionals in your field. You can also promote your article via your own email lists, online links, listservs, distribution at conferences and any other innovative techniques you wish to adopt.

Self-archiving policy

Preprints

The Annual encourages posting of preprints of primary research manuscripts on preprint servers of the authors’ choice, authors’ or institutional websites, and open communications between researchers whether on community preprint servers or preprint commenting platforms.

Preprints are defined as an author’s version of a research manuscript prior to formal peer review at a journal, which is deposited on a public server; preprints may be posted at any time during the peer review process. Posting of preprints is not considered prior publication and will not jeopardize consideration at the journal.

Self-archiving of papers published in the Annual

When an article is accepted for publication, authors are permitted to self-archive the accepted manuscript on their own personal website and/or in their funder or institutional repositories, for public release six months after publication. Authors should cite the publication reference and DOI number on the first page of any deposited version, and provide a link from it to the URL of the published article on the Annual's website.

The requirement to link to the Annual's website is designed to protect the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record, with the online published version on Annual's web site clearly identified as the definitive version of record.

To help authors in self-archiving, the Annual organizes a local archive on the  Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia University website.

Fees and funding

There are no fees or article processing charges associated with submitting to or publishing in the Annual.

All processing fees are covered by the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (SU).

All additional fees (for example for distribution) are also covered by FMI-SU.