Peer review process

All the manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board of the serial (novitataes@binran.ru), are necessarily registered within 3 working days after receiving, to facilitate observing the sequence of their consideration. Upon receipt of a manuscript, the Editorial Board evaluates its general its compliance with the scope of the serial and the guidelines for authors. The manuscripts in accordance with these requirements are passed on reviewers.

The serial follows a single-blind peer review: reviewers receive manuscripts with specified name(s) of their author(s); the reviewers' names remain unknown to the author(s), unless the reviewer explicitly expresses desire to disclose their name.

Each article is evaluated by two independent peer reviewers. An exception may be made for nomenclatural notes which do not contain taxonomic decisions: they may be evaluated by the Chief Editor or a member of the Editorial Board. The author(s) may offer one or two persons desirable to send them the manuscript for review, as well as one or two persons undesirable to send them the manuscript. The author's wishes will be taken into account by the editors when possible.

The manuscripts are peer-reviewed by experts in taxonomy, morphology and flora of vascular plants, whenever possible, in the field close to the subject of the article under expertise. The evaluation period is one month. The review should contain the following points: compliance of the article with the scope of the serial, relevance and novelty of the research, scientific and practical significance, observation of the guidelines for authors, other comments and suggestions. The reviewer should give one of the following recommendations to the Editorial Board: (a) to accept the manuscript unconditionally (accept as it is), (b) to accept with recommendation to the author(s) to improve it in certain ways (minor revision), (c) to recommend major revision, (d) to reject.

The reviews together with the manuscript are passed to the Secretary of the Editorial Board. If both reviews are positive and contain only minor (technical) remarks, then the article is subject to technical editing and placed to the cluster of articles of the current volume. If the manuscript needs improvement or revision, it is together with the review (anonymous) is passed to the author(s) for correction of deficiencies and introduction of additions. The authors are required to make corrections or, when necessary, to revise the article in accordance with the reviewers' comments, or to raise reasoned objections. A corrected manuscript and the response to the reviewer's comments should be passed back to the Editorial Board within two months after the receipt of the review, or within the term specified by the Editorial Board. If the manuscript is not returned to the Editorial Board within the specified time, or if it needs more than two improvements, its the original registration date will be cancelled, and the new date of submission will be that of receipt of the final version of the article. The improved version is passed again to the reviewers, who give conclusions on the sufficiency and adequacy of the corrections made, and on possibility of publishing the article.

All documents related to article evaluation shall be kept for 5 years.

In case of two negative reviews, the article is rejected and passed to the author(s) together with a reasoned refusal to publish. In case of one negative and one positive evaluation, the final decision on publication is taken at the Editorial Board meeting, with involvement of the members of the Editorial Council, where appropriate. If necessary, the article can be passed on additional evaluation. Also, the Editorial Board is responsible for resolving all contentious issues, that might arise between authors and reviewers. The Editorial Board reserves the right to make abridgements and editorial changes of manuscripts.

The works dealing with most crucial problems of taxonomy, as well as containing fundamentally new information, may be, by decision of the Editorial Board, published out of order.

If a submitted manuscript does not match to the scope of the serial, has poor content quality and/or is formatted in contrary to the guidelines for authors, the Editorial Board will pass a reasoned refusal to consider the article.

Manuscript evaluation form