Peer Review Process

Double-anonymized peer review

The journal uses a double-anonymized peer review system, where the identities of both authors and reviewers are concealed throughout the review process.

A separate title page must be submitted, including any anonymized information or removed details, such as author affiliations or identifying information. This title page will not be shared with peer reviewers.

Flow of the peer review process

1. Manuscript Submission
Authors submit a manuscript via the online submission system, and this will receive a unique identification number.
2. Technical Checks
The Editorial Office checks if the manuscript’s formatting and style is in accordance with the Instructions to Authors.
3. Form Submission
All authors receive e-mail notification to confirm and complete their authorship and Conflict of Interest Declaration forms. Authors must return the completed forms to the journal via the online submission system.
4. Initial Editorial Screening
The Editor-in-Chief screens the manuscript and decides whether or not to send it for full peer review. If the decision is not to send the manuscript for review, the Editor-in-Chief will send an e-mail to notify the author of rejection.
5. Editor Assignment
If the Editor-in-Chief decides to send the manuscript for a full peer review, the Editor-in-Chief assigns an Associate Editor who will be responsible for selecting reviewers and evaluating the manuscript.
6. Reviewer Assignment
The Associate Editor selects, in general, two independent reviewers who are experts in the relevant field to evaluate the manuscript.
7. Peer Review
Reviewers, who agreed to review the manuscript, submit their review comments to the Associate Editor.
8. Recommendation
The Associate Editor reviews the reviewers’ reports and makes a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief on the manuscript’s suitability for publication. The recommendation may include suggestions to the Editor-in-Chief, such as asking the author to change the type of the manuscript, if appropriate (e.g., original article, short report, case report, etc.).
9. Decision
The Editor-in-Chief reviews the reviewers’ and the Associate Editors’ reports and makes a final decision.
10. Notification to Authors
Authors are notified of the decision, along with the reviewer’s feedback.
11. Revision and Resubmission
If the authors are given the opportunity to revise the paper, they revise the paper based on the feedback provided by the reviewers. The authors should respond by indicating the places where revisions have been made in accordance with the suggestions or by stating their reasons for disagreeing with the suggestions. The revised manuscript should be marked or highlighted to indicate changes. The paper then goes through the same process above, but the Editor-in-Chief may choose to accept the paper without further review by the reviewers.

Reviewer selection, timing, and suggestions

Reviewers are selected based on their expertise, reputation, recommendations, and/or prior experience as peer reviewers for the journal, regardless of geographic location.

Reviewers are asked to submit their first review within 3 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the Editorial Office as soon as possible.

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would like included in or excluded from the peer review process. The Associate Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation, and assignment of peer reviewers are at the Associate Editor’s sole discretion.

Reviewer reports

It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form. However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information, or other inappropriate material.

Acceptance criteria

Manuscripts are evaluated on their correspondence and adherence to the journal’s Aims and Scope and the various policies outlined within this document. In detail, these include whether the study aims are clearly stated and logical; the rationale/justification for conducting the study is clear; the methods are described in sufficient detail so that the experiment can be reliably reproduced; the study design is robust and appropriate to the stated aims; the conclusions are supported by the data; the discussion is critical and comprehensive; and the references are appropriate in number and up to date.

Furthermore, FMJ prioritizes the following elements in its decision making:

• 1.Original research is carried out in a scientifically sound way.
  2.The authors adhere to bioethics and the responsible conduct of research.
  3.The manuscript is prepared in a standard scientific fashion and adheres to the journal’s guidelines.

While poor English usage alone will not result in rejection, manuscripts with low or unclear language quality may be returned to authors for revision. Authors are required to improve the language to ensure clarity and readability.

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor-in-Chief may recommend rejection.

Editorial independence

The Fujita Medical Society has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. The Fujita Medical Society will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.

Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests.

Appeals

Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where and when relevant.

Confidentiality in peer review

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors and reviewers will not:

• ・disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for such disclosure;
  ・discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review;
  ・use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications; or
  ・use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

In addition, reviewers will not reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript or involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or Ph.D. student) without first requesting permission from the Editor.

Errata and retractions

An Erratum is published when the Editor-in-Chief considers it appropriate to inform the journal readership about an error and to correct it in the published article. The Erratum appears as a new article in the journal, and it cites the original published article.

Retractions are considered and published when there are severe errors in an article that invalidate the conclusions. Retractions are also made in cases where there is evidence of publication malpractice, such as plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research.

In cases of Errata and Retractions, no changes are made to the original article.

An Expression of Concern is considered and published by the Editor-in-Chief as an attachment to the original article if the article is under investigation for severe errors or publication malpractice, or if conflicting opinions exist between the journal’s editors and an institutional investigational board regarding the article’s integrity.

Please address any questions relating to research and publication integrity to the journal’s Editor-in-Chief: igakukai2@fujita-hu.ac.jp

The journal may assign external professionals to adjudicate in complaints that cannot be resolved internally or that are related to the conduct of the journal’s editors.

Editors as authors in the journal

Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief, who is an author of a submitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review and decision process of their own manuscript. Within the journal’s online manuscript submission and tracking system, they will be able to see their manuscript as an author but not as an editor, thereby maintaining the confidentiality of peer review.

In cases where the Editor-in-Chief is an author of a manuscript submitted to the journal, an independent Associate Editor is responsible for making the final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal. A manuscript authored by an editor of the journal is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal. The manuscript submitted by editors or Editorial Board members, the journal should include a statement that declares their personal conflict of interest with the journal.

Responding to potential ethical breaches

The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines, standards, and materials of COPE. The journal also follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on Scientific Misconduct, Expressions of Concern, and Retraction.

The journal takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts where research misconduct has occurred. The journal will never encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.