1. Peer Review and Editorial Procedure

Peer review is an essential part of the scholarly publication process. It helps ensure that manuscripts published in the Innovation Journal of Social Sciences and Economic Review meet appropriate standards of originality, methodological quality, ethical integrity, theoretical relevance, and contribution to the field contribution

All manuscripts submitted to IJSSER are subject to editorial screening before being sent for peer review. The initial screening is conducted by the Editorial Office or the assigned editor to assess whether the manuscript fits the journal’s aims and scope, follows submission requirements, and meets basic academic and ethical standards.

After the preliminary check, the manuscript may follow one of the following routes:

1. Desk rejection if the manuscript is outside the journal’s scope, lacks originality, has serious methodological weaknesses, does not meet ethical or technical requirements, or is not sufficiently developed for peer review.
2. Revision before review if the manuscript has potential but requires technical, structural, language, formatting, or ethical corrections before external review.
3. External peer review if the manuscript is suitable for scholarly evaluation by independent experts.

IJSSER normally seeks at least two independent review reports before making an editorial decision. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript carefully and provide constructive, evidence-based, and study-specific comments. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief, assigned editor, section editor, or guest editor, based on the reviewers’ reports, editorial assessment, journal scope, and publication standards.

Accepted manuscripts may undergo copyediting, language editing, layout preparation, metadata checking, reference checking, and final production before publication.

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2. Reviewers’ Profiles and Responsibilities

Reviewers play a central role in maintaining the academic quality and integrity of IJSSER. Reviewers are expected to provide fair, independent, confidential, and constructive evaluations of submitted manuscripts.

Reviewers invited by IJSSER should normally meet the following criteria:

• Hold a PhD or equivalent research experience in a relevant field.
• Have expertise related to the manuscript’s topic, theory, methodology, language context, cultural setting, or disciplinary area.
• Have an active research profile, preferably supported by publications, ORCID, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, or institutional profile.
• Have no direct conflict of interest with the authors.
• Not be from the same institution as the authors.
• Not have recently co-authored, supervised, collaborated, or shared funded projects with the authors.
• Be able to provide a detailed and timely review.
• Maintain confidentiality throughout the review process.
• Follow the ethical expectations of COPE and international standards of peer review.

Reviewers are responsible for assessing the manuscript’s academic quality, including its research question, originality, conceptual framing, methodology, analysis, interpretation, contribution, ethical compliance, and relevance filed contribution.

A reviewer should not accept an invitation only to provide a short, vague, generic, unrelated, or template-based report. If the reviewer does not have enough time or sufficient expertise, the invitation should be declined.

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3. Reviewers’ Benefits and Recognition

ICR Publications recognizes that peer review is a valuable academic service. Although reviewing is voluntary, IJSSER seeks to acknowledge reviewers’ contributions in appropriate professional ways.

Reviewers may receive:

• A formal reviewer certificate is awarded after completion of a satisfactory review.
• Recognition in the journal’s annual reviewer acknowledgement, where applicable.
• Consideration for inclusion in the journal’s reviewer database.
• Opportunities to contribute to the academic quality and development of IJSSER.
• Recognition of review activity through ORCID or WOS reviewer-recognition services, where available and technically supported.
• Priority consideration for editorial collaboration, special issue support, or reviewer board nomination where appropriate.

Reviewer recognition is based not only on the number of reviews completed but also on the quality, timeliness, ethical standard, and usefulness of the review reports.

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4. Reviewers Board

The Reviewer of IJSSER comprises experienced scholars who regularly support the journal by providing high-quality peer-review reports in their areas of expertise.

Reviewer members are expected to:

• Review manuscripts within their expertise when invited.
• Provide detailed, constructive, and manuscript-specific comments.
• Complete reviews within the agreed deadline or request an extension in advance.
• Decline invitations where there is a conflict of interest or a lack of expertise.
• Suggest suitable alternative reviewers when unable to review.
• Support the journal’s commitment to academic quality and ethical publishing.

Reviewer membership is normally reviewed periodically. Continued membership depends on active participation, review quality, professionalism, responsiveness, and adherence to journal policies.

Reviewermembers may receive:

• A Reviewer Board certificate.
• Listing on the journal website, where applicable.
• Formal acknowledgment of their contribution.
• Consideration for further editorial roles, subject to the decision of the Editors

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5. Volunteer Reviewers

We welcomes expressions of interest from qualified scholars who wish to serve as volunteer reviewers. Volunteer reviewers should have expertise relevant to journal scope, or related fields.

Applicants should provide:

• Full name and institutional affiliation.
• Academic position and highest qualification.
• ORCID ID, Scopus Author ID, Web of Science profile, Google Scholar profile, or institutional profile.
• Areas of reviewing expertise.
• Recent publications relevant to the journal’s scope.
• A declaration of any potential conflicts of interest.

Volunteer reviewer applications are assessed by the Editorial Office. Approval does not guarantee immediate review invitations. Reviewers will be invited only when their expertise matches a submitted manuscript.

Active and reliable volunteer reviewers may be considered for the Reviewer Board.

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6. Reviewer Recruitment and Selection

Reviewers for IJSSER may be selected from:

• The journal’s reviewer database.
• Reviewer Board members.
• Editorial Board recommendations.
• Author-suggested reviewers, subject to editorial verification.
• Independent searches through ORCID, Scopus, Web of Science, institutional pages, or relevant scholarly databases.
• Previous authors and scholars with relevant expertise.

The Editorial Office may check whether a potential reviewer has appropriate expertise, recent publications, institutional affiliation, and no obvious conflict of interest.

IJSSER does not appoint reviewers merely because they are available. Reviewers must be academically suitable for the manuscript. For interdisciplinary manuscripts, reviewers may be selected to cover different aspects of the study, such as theory, methodology, cultural context, language, or statistical analysis.

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7. General Guidelines for Reviewers

7.1. Invitation to Review

When invited to review a manuscript, reviewers should first read the title, abstract, keywords, and available manuscript information to determine whether they have the necessary expertise and time.

Reviewers should accept the invitation only if they can:

• Review the manuscript objectively.
• Complete the review within the given deadline.
• Provide detailed and constructive comments.
• Evaluate the manuscript within its disciplinary and methodological context.
• Declare any possible conflict of interest.

Reviewers should decline the invitation if:

• The manuscript is outside their expertise.
• They have a conflict of interest.
• They cannot complete the review on time.
• They are unable to provide a detailed academic assessment.
• They have previously been involved in the manuscript’s development.

If declining, reviewers are encouraged to suggest alternative qualified reviewers.

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7.2. Potential Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must disclose any potential conflict of interest before accepting a review invitation. A conflict of interest may be actual, potential, or perceived.

Possible conflicts include:

• Working at the same institution as any author.
• Having recently co-authored with any author.
• Having supervised or been supervised by any author.
• Having an active collaboration, grant, project, or academic relationship with any author.
• Having a close personal relationship, rivalry, or dispute with any author.
• Having financial, institutional, ideological, political, religious, commercial, or personal interests that may affect impartiality.
• Being unable to evaluate the manuscript objectively.

If reviewers are unsure whether a situation constitutes a conflict of interest, they should contact the Editorial Office before accepting the invitation.

Reviewers must not use confidential manuscript information for personal, academic, professional, or commercial advantage.

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7.3. Declaration of Confidentiality

Manuscripts under review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, discuss, circulate, upload, or disclose any part of the manuscript, review invitation, supplementary file, data, figures, tables, or review correspondence with anyone without permission from the Editorial Office.

Reviewers must not:

• Share the manuscript with colleagues, students, or research assistants.
• Use manuscript content in their own research before publication.
• Reveal the identity of the reviewer in comments intended for authors, unless the journal explicitly permits signed review.
• Upload the manuscript or any part of it to AI tools, online editing systems, translation platforms, or third-party services.
• Use unpublished data, arguments, models, or findings from the manuscript for personal benefit.

If a reviewer wishes to involve a colleague or trainee in the review process, prior permission must be obtained from the Editorial Office. The additional person must also agree to confidentiality and conflict-of-interest requirements.

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7.4. Review Reports

Review reports must be written in clear and professional English. The report should be detailed, constructive, respectful, and directly related to the manuscript under review.

A good review report should include:

1. Brief overview of the manuscript
   A short paragraph summarising the manuscript’s aim, topic, method, and claimed contribution.
2. General evaluation
   A critical assessment of the manuscript’s originality, relevance, theoretical grounding, methodology, analysis, discussion, contribution, and fit with journal Scope.
3. Major comments
   Substantive comments on issues that affect the quality, validity, clarity, or publishability of the manuscript.
4. Minor comments
   Specific comments on presentation, structure, missing details, unclear wording, tables, figures, citations, references, or formatting.
5. Recommendation
   A clear recommendation supported by the review comments.

Reviewers should avoid vague comments such as:

• “The paper is good.”
• “The manuscript needs improvement.”
• “The literature review is weak.”
• “The methodology is not clear.”
• “The English should be improved.”

Instead, reviewers should explain what exactly is weak, where the problem appears, why it matters, and how the authors can improve it.

For example:

“The literature review discusses intercultural communication broadly, but it does not clearly identify the specific research gap addressed by this study. The authors should explain how their study differs from recent work on intercultural competence, identity negotiation, or cross-cultural adaptation, particularly in relation to the selected context.”

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7.5. Use of AI Tools in Peer Review

We expects reviewers to provide independent expert judgement. Review reports must reflect the reviewer’s own reading, interpretation, and scholarly assessment of the manuscript.

Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, figures, tables, data, supplementary materials, review forms, or editorial correspondence to generative AI tools or external platforms. Doing so may violate confidentiality, copyright, data protection, and publication ethics.

Limited use of language-support tools may be acceptable only for improving the grammar, spelling, clarity, or structure of the reviewer’s own comments. However, such tools must not be used to generate the substance of the review or replace the reviewer’s academic judgment.

The following are not acceptable:

• AI-generated review reports.
• Generic reports that do not engage with the manuscript.
• Template-based comments unrelated to the study.
• Reports that discuss statistical tests, theories, literature, or methods not present in the manuscript.
• Reports that contain fabricated claims about the manuscript.
• Reports that recommend acceptance or rejection without clear academic justification.
• Reports that appear to be produced without reading the manuscript.

If the Editorial Office determines that a review report is generic, irrelevant, unreliable, or likely generated without proper expert assessment, the report may be canceled and excluded from the editorial decision. The reviewer may also be removed from the reviewer database or not invited again.

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7.6. Evaluation Criteria for Research Articles

When reviewing original research articles, reviewers should consider the following questions.

Relevance

• Is the manuscript clear, relevant to the field, and presented in a well-structured manner?
• Is the study relevant to the journal’s international readership?
• Are most of the cited references recently published (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Does the manuscript include an excessive number of self-citations?

Research problem and originality

• Is the research problem clearly stated?
• Is the research gap convincing?
• Are the research questions, objectives, or hypotheses clearly presented?
• Does the manuscript offer a meaningful contribution to existing knowledge?
• Is the novelty clearly explained rather than merely claimed?

Literature review and theoretical framework

• Does the literature review engage with recent and relevant scholarship?
• Are key theories, concepts, and debates clearly discussed?
• Does the manuscript avoid unrelated or excessive citations?
• Are citations accurate and properly connected to the claims made?
• Is the theoretical framework appropriate for the research problem?

Methodology

• Is the research design appropriate?
• Are the sample, data sources, instruments, and procedures clearly described?
• Are the methods suitable for answering the research questions?
• Is the data analysis transparent and sufficiently explained?
• For quantitative studies, are the statistical tests appropriate and correctly interpreted?
• For qualitative studies, are the coding, interpretation, trustworthiness, and analytical procedures adequately explained?
• For mixed-methods studies, is the integration of methods clear and justified?

Results and analysis

• Are the findings clearly presented?
• Are tables, figures, excerpts, or statistical outputs necessary and properly explained?
• Are results interpreted accurately?
• Are claims supported by evidence?
• Are there inconsistencies between the results and the discussion?

Discussion and contribution

• Does the discussion connect the findings to previous literature?
• Does the manuscript explain its theoretical, practical, methodological, or policy contribution?
• Are the implications realistic and supported by the findings?
• Does the manuscript avoid overgeneralisation or unsupported causal claims?

Ethics and transparency

• Does the manuscript include appropriate ethical approval or consent information where required?
• Are participant rights, confidentiality, and data handling properly addressed?
• Are funding, competing interests, and data availability statements included where applicable?
• Are there concerns about plagiarism, duplicate publication, image manipulation, data reliability, or citation manipulation?

Language and presentation

• Is the manuscript clearly written?
• Is the structure logical?
• Are the abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion properly developed?
• Are references complete, relevant, and formatted according to journal requirements?

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7.7. Evaluation Criteria for Review Articles

For review articles, reviewers should assess whether:

• The review topic is relevant to the journal scope.
• The purpose and scope of the review are clearly stated.
• The review identifies a meaningful gap in the literature.
• The search strategy, inclusion criteria, and selection process are transparent, where applicable.
• The literature is current, relevant, and sufficiently comprehensive.
• The manuscript does more than describe previous studies; it should analyse, compare, synthesise, and evaluate them.
• The conclusions are supported by the reviewed literature.
• The review provides a clear conceptual, theoretical, methodological, or practical contribution.
• The article avoids excessive self-citation or selective citation.

Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses should provide sufficient methodological detail to allow readers to understand how studies were identified, selected, analysed, and synthesised.

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7.8. Rating Manuscripts

Reviewers may be asked to rate the manuscript using several criteria. These ratings should be consistent with the written comments.

Key rating areas include:

Originality

Does the manuscript present a new perspective, dataset, context, framework, argument, or empirical finding?

Scope fit

Does the manuscript clearly belong within the field of the journal's scope or a closely related area?

Significance

Does the manuscript address an important academic, social, cultural, methodological, or practical issue?

Methodological quality

Is the research design appropriate, transparent, and sufficiently rigorous?

Theoretical contribution

Does the manuscript engage meaningfully with relevant theories and concepts?

Quality of analysis

Are the findings clearly presented, accurately interpreted, and supported by evidence?

Ethical quality

Does the manuscript meet appropriate ethical standards?

Clarity of writing

Is the manuscript readable, coherent, and professionally presented?

Overall merit

Does the manuscript make a sufficient contribution to justify publication in IJSSER?

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7.9. Overall Recommendation

Reviewers should provide one of the following recommendations.

Accept

The manuscript is suitable for publication in its current form or requires only very minor editorial corrections.

Minor Revision

The manuscript is generally sound but requires limited improvements, such as clarification of arguments, minor literature updates, improved explanation of methods, correction of tables or references, or language refinement.

Major Revision

The manuscript has potential but requires substantial improvement before it can be considered for publication. Major revision may be appropriate where the research gap is unclear, the theoretical framework is underdeveloped, the methodology needs stronger explanation, the analysis is incomplete, or the discussion does not sufficiently connect findings to the literature.

Reject

The manuscript is not suitable for publication because of serious problems such as a lack of originality, poor scope fit, major methodological flaws, unsupported conclusions, ethical concerns, insufficient scholarly contribution, or failure to meet the journal’s academic standards.

Reviewers should ensure that their recommendation is clearly supported by the content of the report. A rejection recommendation must be justified with specific academic reasons.

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7.10. Ethical Concerns and Research Integrity

Reviewers should immediately inform the Editorial Office if they identify or suspect:

• Plagiarism.
• Duplicate or redundant publication.
• Fabricated or falsified data.
• Manipulated images, figures, or tables.
• Unethical research involving human participants.
• Missing ethical approval where required.
• Citation manipulation.
• Undeclared conflicts of interest.
• Misleading authorship.
• Inappropriate self-citation.
• Serious mismatch between citations and references.
• Use of irrelevant or fabricated references.
• Unreliable statistical reporting.
• AI-generated or non-human-authored manuscript content that raises integrity concerns.

Reviewers should not investigate suspected misconduct independently by contacting authors. Concerns should be reported confidentially to the Editorial Office.

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7.11. Guidance on Review Tone and Professional Conduct

Reviewers should maintain a respectful and professional tone. The purpose of peer review is to help editors make informed decisions and help authors improve their work.

Reviewers should avoid:

• Personal criticism of authors.
• Offensive or dismissive language.
• Unsupported accusations.
• Demands for unnecessary citations.
• Requests to cite the reviewer’s own work unless clearly relevant.
• Comments based on nationality, institution, language background, gender, ethnicity, religion, or personal identity.
• Overly brief reports that do not provide usable feedback.

A strong review is critical but fair. It identifies weaknesses clearly while explaining how they affect the manuscript’s quality.

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7.12. Guidelines for Depositing Review Activities into ORCID

Where supported by the journal’s editorial system, reviewers may be able to record their review activity in ORCID or other recognized reviewer-record services.

Only verified review activity should be deposited. Reviewers must not disclose confidential manuscript details unless the journal has an approved open peer review policy or explicit permission has been granted.

The review record should normally identify the journal and year of review, but should not reveal manuscript content, author identity, or confidential editorial information.

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8. Review Report Structure Recommended

Reviewers are encouraged to structure their reports as follows:

A. Brief summary of the manuscript

Provide a short summary of the study’s aim, method, context, and main contribution.

B. General assessment

Comment on the manuscript’s overall quality, originality, relevance to the journal scope, and scholarly contribution.

C. Major comments

Discuss major issues that must be addressed, such as:

• unclear research gap;
• weak theoretical framework;
• mismatch between objectives and methods;
• insufficient literature review;
• unclear sampling or data collection;
• weak analysis;
• unsupported conclusions;
• lack of connection to field contribution;
• ethical or data concerns.

D. Minor comments

Comment on smaller issues such as:

• unclear sentences;
• missing citations;
• table or figure formatting;
• reference style;
• terminology consistency;
• abstract improvement;
• keyword relevance;
• typographical or formatting issues.

E. Recommendation

Provide a clear recommendation with justification.

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9. Minimum Standard for an Acceptable Review Report

A review report submitted to IJSSER should normally:

• Be specific to the manuscript.
• Refer to the manuscript’s actual topic, theory, method, data, and findings.
• Identify both strengths and weaknesses.
• Provide actionable comments.
• Explain the reason for the recommendation.
• Maintain professional language.
• Avoid generic, irrelevant, or AI-generated content.
• Respect confidentiality and publication ethics.

Reports that are too short, unrelated to the manuscript, copied from templates, or not based on actual scholarly evaluation may be rejected by the Editorial Office.

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10. Discount Voucher Use Policy for Reviewers

The International Collaboration for Research & Publication Ltd. (ICRP) recognizes the valuable contribution of reviewers in supporting the quality, integrity, and academic standards of ICRP journals. As a gesture of appreciation, ICRP may issue discount vouchers to eligible reviewers who complete peer-review assignments in accordance with the journal’s editorial requirements.

The reviewer discount voucher is provided as a non-cash recognition benefit for reviewers who contribute their time and expertise to the peer-review process. The voucher may be used to reduce the Article Processing Charge (APC) for a future manuscript submitted to an eligible ICRP journal.

Eligibility for Receiving a Voucher

A reviewer may be eligible to receive a discount voucher when they:

• Complete an assigned peer review within the required deadline or within an approved extension period;
• Submit a constructive, relevant, and academically useful review report;
• Comply with the journal’s confidentiality, conflict-of-interest, and publication ethics requirements;
• Provide a review that assists the editor in making an informed editorial decision.

ICRP reserves the right not to issue a voucher if the review is incomplete, irrelevant, extremely brief, biased, abusive, unethical, or unsuitable for editorial use.

Who Can Use the Voucher

The voucher may be used only by the eligible reviewer to whom it was issued. To apply the voucher to a manuscript, the reviewer must be the submitting author and/or the corresponding author of that manuscript.

The voucher cannot be transferred to another author, co-author, colleague, institution, research group, supervisor, student, or third party. A reviewer may not give, sell, exchange, assign, or donate the voucher to another person.

If the reviewer is listed only as a co-author and is not the submitting or corresponding author, the voucher will not normally be applied unless approved by ICRP in exceptional circumstances.

Use for Individual, Institutional, or Funded APC Payments

The voucher may be applied to APCs paid by individual authors, universities or institutions, research grants or funded research projects, sponsors, departments, laboratories, or other approved funding bodies.

However, the voucher remains personal to the eligible reviewer. Even where the APC is paid by an institution, funder, or research project, the reviewer must still be the submitting author and/or corresponding author of the manuscript.

The voucher reduces the APC amount payable on the invoice. It does not create a cash refund, reimbursement, credit balance, or payment to the reviewer, author, institution, or funder.

Ethical Safeguards

The voucher system is designed only to recognise reviewer service. It must not influence editorial decisions, reviewer recommendations, manuscript acceptance, reviewer selection, or author treatment.

Reviewers must provide independent, fair, and objective reviews. A reviewer must not request acceptance of their own manuscript in exchange for completing reviews. Editors must not use vouchers to pressure reviewers into giving favourable recommendations.

Misuse, Cancellation, and Revocation

ICRP reserves the right to cancel, suspend, or revoke a voucher if there is evidence of misuse, fraud, false identity, duplicate accounts, unethical peer-review conduct, authorship manipulation, plagiarism, peer-review manipulation, or violation of journal policies.

If a voucher is wrongly issued due to a system error, duplicate record, or administrative mistake, ICRP may correct, cancel, or replace the voucher.

AI Use and Voucher Eligibility

• A reviewer discount voucher is issued only for a genuine, human-conducted, academically useful peer-review report. The use of AI to generate a review, replace the reviewer’s own assessment, or produce generic comments will not qualify as a valid review for voucher eligibility.
• ICRP reserves the right to withhold, cancel, or revoke a voucher if the reviewer misuses AI tools, breaches manuscript confidentiality, submits a fabricated review, relies on AI-generated judgement, or violates peer-review ethics.
• The voucher is a recognition of the reviewer’s personal scholarly contribution. Therefore, the reviewer must personally complete the review and must remain fully responsible for the content, accuracy, tone, and recommendation provided in the review report.

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11. Final Statement

The Innovation Journal of Social Sciences and Economic Review values reviewers as essential contributors to academic quality and research integrity. Reviewers support the journal not only by helping editors make decisions but also by strengthening the quality, clarity, and contribution of published scholarship.

ICR Publications expects all reviewers to act with professionalism, independence, confidentiality, fairness, and respect. A strong review should help the editor reach a justified decision and help the author understand how the manuscript can be improved.

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