Peer Review Policy
The Indian Society of Plant Genetic Resources (ISPGR) publishes the IJPGR. The Journal is run on an entirely voluntary gratis basis, by members of the Editorial Staff, The IJPGR has no commercial interest and advertisements. Publication of Journal is supported by subscription from individuals/libraries and grants from ICAR, with zero profit. Conflict of interest is taken care by the Editor during the review process.
- Role of Reviewers: Reviewers of IJPGR play the most critical role in maintaining the scientific, technical and ethical standards of publishing and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following a standard procedure described here.
- Initial evaluation of manuscripts: Editor-in-Chief evaluates all the manuscripts upon submission. Manuscripts that (i) lack originality; (ii) are written in poor language; (iii) have scientific and technical flaws; (iv) fall outside the scope of IJPGR; and (v) do not clearly declare source of plant genetic resources may be rejected at this stage. Authors are intimated about the exact reason and are invited to resubmit after attending to the flaws. The principle is to ensure all the relevant PGR research is communicated to the PGR community. In case of invited articles or those that are full-papers emanating from the conference/symposium organized by ISPGR, undergo review by one of the Editors.
- Review: Manuscripts meeting the minimum criteria are assigned to an Editor. The Editor scrutinizes the manuscript for apparent plagiarism as well as ethical issues. Editor then invites three experts (usually two in the same crop/crop group and one outside) to review the manuscript.
- Type of review: IJPGR employs single-blind peer review. The identities of the reviewers remain anonymous but the authors’ name and affiliation are retained on the paper.
- Reports by reviewers: Reviewers provide evaluation in a structured format that include scope; adherence to format; originality; suitability of every section from title to conclusions; figures and tables; language and syntax; references; nomenclature, units and abbreviations; and recommendation (accept/minor revision/major revision/reject). Reviewers are encouraged to provide additional comments and annotations on the manuscript.
- Duration of the review process: Time required to complete the review process depends entirely on the availability and response of the reviewers. A good reviewer is usually available at the cost of time. Journal office makes all efforts to request reviewers for an expedited evaluation of manuscripts. In case of excessive delay from one of the reviewers, a new expert is invited to review the manuscript. Revised manuscripts with “major revision” are sent to reviewers again for recommendation. Occasionally, when it becomes extremely difficult to obtain two reports timely and if one reviewer’s report has thoroughly convinced the Editor, decisions at this stage to accept, reject or ask the author for a revision are made on the basis of only one report.
- Final Decision: Editor-in-Chief takes the final decision on the acceptance of the manuscript based on the inputs of handling Editor along with the recommendations made by the reviewers (original as well as on the revised versions of the manuscripts).
- Publication: During the process of copy editing and proof reading (by authors and editors) there can be minor change in the manuscripts. These usually result from photos and images failing to meet the printing standards and layout adjustments.