Principles of Peer Review

The peer review process is carried out in accordance with the rules presented in the publication Good Practices in Reviewing Procedures in Science (Dobre praktyki w procedurach recenzyjnych w nauce) published in Warsaw in 2011.

• By submitting their text, the authors consent to the review process.
• Authors may submit suggestions for potential reviewers to the Editor along with the article, as well as identify individuals who should not review due to a conflict of interest. The Editorial Board is not obliged to consider these proposals.
• Articles within 30 days of submission are subjected to preliminary evaluation by the Editorial Board. Its subject is the formal qualification of the text (article, review article, review, etc.), compliance with the profile of the journal and scientific level. All members of the Editorial Board gain access to the submitted text and are informed of the preliminary evaluation by the instructor. The decision to reject or refer to the review procedure is made by the Editor-in-Chief or his Deputy at the request of the handling editor.
• Accepted texts are sent for review. They are always evaluated by at least two external reviewers from a scientific and research area compatible with the subject of the paper, who are not members of the journal's Editorial Board (they may be members of its Advisory committee).
• The reviewers are selected by the Journal’s Editorial Board.
• Reviews are in writing.
• Articles are not sent to reviewers from the author's affiliated institution; if possible, reviewers from another center are invited, and especially in the case of texts written in a foreign language - from a country other than the author's nationality and current affiliation.
• The Journal uses double-blind review: reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa.
• An article is assigned a code that identifies it at a later stage in the peer-review process. The author is always informed about the results of the review.
• Reviewers evaluate the text within 60 days.
• The review containing critical comments and suggestions is sent by the Editor-in-Chief to the author who is obliged to make the required corrections.
• The author has 30 days to make corrections and submit the final text to the Editors.
• After corrections, if their scope was significant, the article may be returned to the reviewer for approval.
• The final decision to publish an article is made by the Editor-in-Chief after consultation with the Editorial Board. Acceptance of the article for publication is conditional on two positive reviews.
• A polemic between the author and the reviewer is allowed (in the case of critical comments of the reviewer regarding substantive issues).
• In exceptional cases, where the author does not accept reviewers’ ratings, the article might be withdrawn on its author’s request.
• The list of reviewers cooperating with the editorial office is published on the Journal’s website.
• Complaints against the Editor-in-Chief's decision to reject a text at the preliminary evaluation stage or after the review procedure should be sent to the editorial address in English. They will be made available to the Scientific Council together with the texts submitted to the volume. Information about submitted complaints will be included in the invitation distributed to the members of the Council before its annual meeting. A grievance will be considered at this meeting if requested by at least one member of the Editorial Board or Council.
• In justified cases, the Editorial Board may proceed non-compliance with any of the above-mentioned rules; this non-compliance and its justification are made known to the Scientific Council and in the published article.

In cases of doubt, and especially in cases of suspected ethical violations, the Editor is guided by the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics.