Peer review policy

Evaluation principles
1) Articles that have not been published before or are not currently being evaluated in another journal for publication and are approved by each author are accepted for evaluation.
2) Submitted articles that pass the preliminary check are scanned for plagiarism using Ithenticate software.
3) The European Chemistry and Biotechnology Journal (EUCHEMBIOJ) conducts a double-blind peer review process. All studies will first be evaluated by the editor for suitability for the journal. Articles deemed appropriate are sent to at least two independent expert referees to evaluate the scientific quality of the article.
4) The Editor-in-Chief evaluates the articles independently of the authors' ethnicity, gender, nationality, religious beliefs, and political philosophy. It ensures that articles submitted for publication are fairly evaluated by double-blind referees.
5) Chief editor; It does not allow conflict of interest among authors, editors and referees.
6) The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles. The editor's decision is final.
7) Editors are not involved in decisions about articles written by themselves or their family members or colleagues, or that relate to products or services in which the editor is interested. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures.
Referees must ensure that all information regarding submitted articles remains confidential until the article is published, and if they notice any copyright infringement or plagiarism on the part of the author, they must report it to the editor. If the referee does not feel qualified about the subject of the article or does not seem able to provide timely feedback, he/she should inform the editor of this situation and ask not to include him/her in the referee process. During the evaluation process, the editor clearly states that the articles sent to the referees for review are the private property of the authors and that this is a privileged communication. Referees and editorial board members cannot discuss articles with other people. Care should be taken to keep the identity of the referees confidential.

Evaluation process
Evaluation type: Double Blinding
Double blinding: After the plagiarism check, the eligible articles are evaluated by the editor-in-chief in terms of originality, methodology, importance of the subject covered and compatibility with the scope of the journal. The editor ensures that the articles go through double-blind refereeing in a fair manner and, if the article complies with the formal principles, submits the incoming article to the evaluation of at least two referees from home and/or abroad, and if the referees deem it necessary, they approve its publication after the requested changes are made by the authors.
Review Time: Pre-Release
Author-referee interaction: Editors mediate all interactions between referees and authors.
Time in Review: The time until the first decision is approximately 15 days for research articles taken into the peer review process at EUCHEMBIOJ.
Acceptance rate: We publish 33 percent of the articles that reach our journal (22.07.2024). Approximately one-third of all applications are rejected in preliminary review before being sent for peer review.
Plagiarism checking: Yes –Ithenticate scans articles to prevent plagiarism.
Number of referees reviewing each article: Two-three
Allowed time: 20 days. This period can be extended by adding 10 days.
Decision: In order for the article to be accepted for publication by the Editor, at least two referees must make an acceptance decision.
Suspicion of ethical violation: When reviewers suspect misconduct in research or publication, they must report the situation to the Editor. The editor is responsible for carrying out the necessary actions in accordance with COPE recommendations. The Editor-in-Chief reviews the research article on the day it is submitted, and if s/he thinks the article is worthy of further consideration, s/he sends it to the deputy editor for further review. For research articles, the assistant editor usually reads each article from cover to cover. We aim to reach an initial decision within two or three weeks for all manuscripts, but usually an initial decision is made within a few days of submission. If we do not think EUCHEMBIOJ is the right journal for the study, we notify authors immediately so that they can submit their work elsewhere without delay. The usual reasons for rejection at this stage are insufficient originality and the topic being outside the scope of the journal.

The next step for your research article is our Editorial Board meeting. Members will read your article and discuss its importance, originality and scientific quality. To make editorial decisions for research articles, we mainly focus on the research question. Even if the subject of the article is relevant to the scope of the journal, current and important, we may reject the article if it does not have a research question. Of course, the work will be rejected if it has serious flaws. Everyone attending the article meeting is asked to declare any relevant conflicting interests at the outset, and anyone with a significant conflicting interest either leaves the room or speaks last while the relevant article is discussed (depending on the nature and extent of their interests). If your article is suitable for EUCHEMBIOJ, the section editor will send your article to two external referees. Reviewers make recommendations to editors, who make the final decision. We ask referees to approve their reports and declare any conflicts of interest on the article we send to them. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief after external peer review processes.

Some articles may also be viewed by EUCHEMBIOJ's ethics editor and by third parties deemed appropriate by the editor in cases where serious research misconduct is suspected. For all articles, we aim to reach a final decision on publication within 4 to 6 weeks of submission. If we propose a publication subject to revision, we usually ask authors to revise their articles and upload them to the system within the next month. Accepted articles are published at https://www.euchembioj.com as they are prepared. Once published, articles are selected for the rolling-on issue. EUCHEMBIOJ provides open access to articles as part of its commitment to readers and authors. All our articles are freely accessible online. If you notice any errors in your published article, email the editor-in-chief who will let you know if corrections will be made.

Peer review process principles for the work of the Editorial Board
Editorial articles and analysis articles written by EUCHEMBIOJ's own editors are not subject to external peer review. Original research articles are sent to at least two external referees under blind peer review. During this period, those editors' roles are suspended.

Responsibilities of authors
The author must comply with research and publication training. 
The author should not attempt to publish the same work in more than one journal.
The author must fully state in the bibliography the works s/he used in writing the article.

Editor's responsibilities
The editor evaluates articles in terms of scientific content, regardless of the authors' ethnicity, gender, citizenship, religious belief or political opinion. The editor conducts a fair double-blind peer review of articles submitted for publication and ensures that all information regarding submitted articles is kept confidential before publication. The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. Referees and the editorial board cannot discuss the articles with other people. The anonymity of referees must be ensured. In certain cases, the editor may share a reviewer's review with other reviewers to clarify a particular point. The editor is responsible for the content and overall quality of the publication. It is also his/her responsibility to issue a correction note or retract when necessary. Editor; It does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and referees. Only the Editorial Board has full authority to appoint referees, and the Editorial Board is responsible for the final decision regarding the publication of articles in the journal.

Responsibilities of referees
Reviewers should not have any conflict of interest regarding the research, authors and/or research funders. The referees' evaluations must be objective. The language and style used by the referees should not be offensive to the author. Reviewers must ensure that all information regarding submitted articles remains confidential until the article is published. If referees notice copyright infringement or plagiarism in the work they review, they must notify the editor. A referee who feels inadequate to review a manuscript or who thinks that he/she cannot complete the review within the specified time should withdraw from the review process. During the referee process, referees are expected to make their evaluations by taking into account the following issues: Does the article contain new and important information? / Does the abstract clearly and neatly describe the content of the article? / Is the method described in a complete and understandable manner? / Are the interpretations and conclusions substantiated by the findings? / Are sufficient references given to other studies in the field? / Is the language quality sufficient? The "Article template" used in EUCHEMBIOJ can be viewed on the journal website.

Preliminary review and plagiarism screening
Article is reviewed by the editor for compliance with the journal publishing principles, academic writing rules and the APA Citation System, and is scanned for plagiarism using the iThenticate or Turnitin program. The preliminary review is completed within 15 days at most. The plagiarism similarity rate must be less than 20%. Even though the similarity rate appears to be 1%, if citation and quotation are not made properly, plagiarism may still occur. In this respect, citation and quotation rules should be known by the author and applied carefully:

Citation/Indirect citation
If a reference is made to an idea, discussion or determination in a source and the cited opinion is put into words in the citing researcher's own words, a footnote mark (1) should be placed at the end of the sentence. If the reference is to a specific page or page range of the work, a page number should be given. If there is a reference to the entire study, that is, if it is cited in a way that requires the reader to examine the entire study, a footnote will read "See about this.", "See about this opinion.", "See about this discussion." or just “see.” The source must be stated after the statement.

Conflict of interest
The authors must declare any conflict of interest.

Quotation
If the relevant part from the referenced source is taken exactly as it is, without touching the dot and comma, the quoted part is given in double quotes and the source is stated by giving footnote number 1 at the end. Quotations within the directly quoted text are written using 'single quotes'. If the directly quoted part is longer than three lines (more than forty words), it is shown as a separate paragraph. In order to distinguish long quotations from the main text, it should be preferred to write them in a font size one smaller than the normal text size and the entire paragraph should be indented from the left at the beginning of the line. Some words, sentences and paragraphs can be omitted from the directly quoted text, provided that it does not change the meaning. Three dots (…) are placed in place of the removed parts. It would not be right to write the part quoted verbatim from a source without enclosing it in "double quotes" and to just write the source at the end. If these rules are not followed, the author may be accused of publishing ethics violation (Plagiarism).

Field editor review
The work, which goes through the Preliminary Examination and Plagiarism Screening phase, is examined by the relevant field editor in terms of problematic and academic language-style. This review is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Referee process (academic evaluation)
The study, which is reviewed by the field editor, is submitted to the evaluation of at least two external referees who have a doctoral thesis, book or article on the subject. The peer review process is carried out confidentially within the framework of double-blind arbitration. The referee is requested to state his/her views and opinions about the study he/she reviewed either in the text or to justify it with an explanation of at least 150 words on the online referee form. The author is given the right to object and defend his/her opinions if he/she disagrees with the referee's opinions. The field editor ensures mutual communication between the author and the referee while maintaining confidentiality. If both referee reports are positive, the study is submitted to the Editorial Board with a proposal to consider its publication. If one of the two referees has a negative opinion, the study is sent to a third referee. Studies can be published with the positive decision of at least two referees.

Revision phase
If the referees request corrections/revisions in the text they review, the relevant reports are sent to the author and he is asked to correct/revise his/her manuscript. The author makes corrections/revisions in the Word program with the "Track Changes" feature turned on or indicates the changes in the text in red. The corresponding author submits the corrected/revised text to the field editor.

Field editor control
The field editor checks whether the author has made the requested corrections/revisions in the text.

Referee control
The referee who requests correction/revision checks whether the author has made the requested corrections/revisions in the text.

Expansion of the abstract section
Authors of manuscript deemed "publishable" by two referees are asked to expand the abstract part of their articles to 350-500 words.

Language check
Manuscripts that go through the referee process are examined by the English Language Editor and, if necessary, corrections are requested from the author. The checking process of the English language editor is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Editorial board review
Articles that have passed technical, academic and linguistic reviews are examined by the Editorial Board and it is decided whether they will be published or not. The Board decides by majority vote. In case of a tie, the final decision is made by the editor.

Typesetting and layout stage
The works decided to be published by the Editorial Board are typed and layouted, made ready for publication, and sent to the author for review. This phase lasts a maximum of 15 days.

Data sending to national and international indexes
The data of the published publication is transmitted to the relevant indexes within 15 days.