The Review Process

The review process for submissions to Demographic Research is designed to ensure high quality and rapid turn-around. Quality will be ensured by peer reviews similar to those employed by academic journals. Rapid turn-around will be accomplished through an expedited review system that will use electronic communication and streamlined procedures. Reviews will be carried out by Scientific Review Board members, all of whom have been selected by the editor and the publisher of the journal. We draw our reviewers from the most prominent scientists working in demography and related disciplines.

The Review Process

Submissions to the journal go through a two-phase review process. All content submitted to the journal must first pass pre-review with the Editor, an Associate Editor, or a Guest Editor of a collection. Any editor may chose to reject a submission in this phase, a decision which will be conveyed to the author within a few weeks of first submission. Only after editorial approval has been given, can a submission proceed to the second phase: to peer review with appointed members of our Scientific Review Board. Persons with the same primary institutional affiliation as any of the authors of the submission will be excluded from review.

The Decision Process

Scientific Review Board members have agreed to make recommendations quickly. Usually the author will be notified three to four weeks after peer review has started. The Editor or designated Associate Editor reserves the right to override recommendations of the Scientific Review Board, and it is an editor who gives final approval to material reviewed by the Board. Authors will receive comments that Scientific Review Board members and the Editor address to them. However, full details of referee reports, as well as the Editor’s decision made on a particular manuscript, are not discussed with the authors.

The Review Process for Reflexions

Reflexions submitted to Demographic Research are usually brief contributions that critically assess various aspects of content published in the journal. Reflexions may also focus on currently-discussed or "hot topic" demographic research findings, data, theory, tools, methods, or publications which have not been previously discussed in the journal. Most reflexions are reviewed by a process similar to that used for articles. However, the reviewer pool for a reflexion which comments upon a particular article in Demographic Research will consist of: (1) the original reviewer pool for the article eliciting the commentary and (2) the corresponding author of that article. Reflexions can be in written format (text) or multimedia format (video or sound-clip). As in all cases, final decision for publication is taken by an editor.