Peer Review Policy

The Pakistan Journal of Clinical Research (PJCR) enforces a comprehensive double-blind peer review framework to guarantee the scientific integrity, clinical validity, and overall academic quality of all published biomedical literature. Every submitted manuscript undergoes a structured and transparent evaluation pipeline managed entirely through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) editorial workflow, ensuring that all publication decisions remain completely independent of commercial, political, or personal influence. All submissions (except those explicitly categorized under specific exemptions) are scrutinized in full accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Version 4), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations, and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) principles.

1. Initial Editorial Screening and Pre-Review Evaluation

Upon formal submission, all manuscripts undergo an initial internal screening by the Editor-in-Chief or designated Section Editors. This preliminary evaluation checks for strict alignment with the journal’s scope, basic formatting adherence, data completeness, and absolute ethical compliance. This includes automated plagiarism screening using sophisticated digital detection tools, alongside verification of mandatory ethical approvals for all human or animal experimental studies. Manuscripts that exhibit substantial structural deficiencies, clear ethical non-compliance, or a complete lack of clinical relevance will be desk-rejected at this stage without entering external review, and authors will be notified promptly with a brief justification.

2. Double-Blind External Review Mechanism

Manuscripts that pass the initial technical triage are assigned to a **minimum of two independent external peer reviewers** who possess verified academic or clinical credentials and specific subject expertise in the manuscript's exact medical sub-specialty.

To ensure an unbiased evaluation, the journal utilizes a strict **double-blind review system** where the identities of the authors are completely concealed from the reviewers, and the identities of the reviewers are permanently hidden from the authors. Authors are required to submit completely anonymized manuscripts with all identifying institutional metadata, author names, acknowledgments, or revealing self-citations stripped from the files prior to assignment. Editorial staff perform rigorous pre-flight checks for digital metadata leakage.

Reviewer Independence: To safeguard peer review integrity, chosen reviewers must not be members of the journal’s active editorial board or internal administrative staff. Reviewers must have no recent direct collaboration or institutional affiliation with the authors’ home institutions.

PJCR Peer Review Process

Stage 1 Manuscript Received
 
Stage 2 Editorial Triage
 
Passes Screening?
✕ Desk Reject
✓ To Review
 
Stage 3 Double-Blind Review
 
Stage 4 Editorial Evaluation
 
Board Decision
✕ Rejection
⟳ Revisions
✓ Acceptance
 
Stage 5 Production & Pub

3. Review Criteria and Evaluative Parameters

External reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on strict criteria centered on scientific rigor, methodological soundness, clinical originality, statistical accuracy, data integrity, clarity of presentation, and reproducibility. Reviewers must provide constructive, evidence-based, and objective feedback while completely avoiding personal criticism. Reviewers are required to explicitly declare any potential financial, institutional, or personal conflicts of interest before accepting a review assignment, and they must treat all manuscript materials as strictly confidential.

4. Editorial Decisions and Appeals Framework

The final decision authority rests exclusively with the Editor-in-Chief or the designated Handling Editor, based on the collective recommendations provided by the external reviewers. Editorial decisions are categorized as: Accept without revision, Minor revision, Major revision, or Reject. In cases of sharply conflicting reviews, an independent third reviewer will be invited to evaluate the manuscript. Authors receiving revision decisions must submit a detailed, line-by-line response to all reviewer critiques within the specified timeline.

Appeals Path: Authors may formally appeal an editorial rejection within 14 days of notification by submitting a written appeal to the editorial office. Appeals are adjudicated independently by a senior editor who was completely un-involved in the original decision framework, following strict COPE procedural guidelines. The outcome of this formal appeal is final.

5. Transparent Review Timelines

To ensure predictable workflows and support transparency metrics required by indexers, PJCR operates under the following turnaround expectations:

  • Initial Editorial Screening & Triage: 7–10 days from submission.
  • First Decision After External Review: 3–5 weeks from reviewer assignment.
  • Author Revision Window: 2–4 weeks (dependent upon the depth of revisions needed).
  • Final Decision Post-Revision: 2–3 weeks.

*Any unavoidable operational delays resulting from field-specific reviewer scarcity will be communicated transparently to the corresponding author.

6. Special Issues Governance Policy

PJCR may occasionally commission special thematic issues under strict structural oversight. All special issue articles undergo the exact same rigorous double-blind external peer review process as standard manuscripts. Guest Editors are thoroughly vetted for scientific credentials prior to appointment and **do not possess unilateral final acceptance authority**. The Editor-in-Chief retains ultimate accountability over all content. Furthermore, papers submitted by Guest Editors themselves receive independent handling entirely separate from their issue, and are strictly limited to **no more than 25%** of the total papers published within that specific issue. All special issue articles are explicitly labeled as such upon publication.

7. Ethical Standards, Misconduct, and Independent Governance

PJCR maintains a zero-tolerance policy regarding scientific misconduct. The journal actively enforces COPE protocols regarding data fabrication, image manipulation, duplicate publication, plagiarism, reviewer masking breaches, and concealed conflicts of interest. Any suspected ethical anomalies will be investigated systematically; verified misconduct will result in standard sanctions including desk rejections, formal post-publication retractions, or direct notifications to the authors' sponsoring institutional boards.

Editorial Independence: All scientific judgements are strictly ring-fenced from commercial, institutional, political, or personal influences. There is a absolute operational separation between the journal's editorial governance mechanisms and its production or administrative business frameworks.

8. Policy Exceptions

Only clearly and explicitly marked editorial material (e.g., core Editorials, historical obituaries, or invited commentaries by senior leadership) may be exempted from external peer review processes. Any supplementary data packages, large tables, or media files associated with an empirical paper are subject to the identical review criteria and scrutiny as the main manuscript text.

9. Global Governance Alignment

This Peer Review Policy is entirely aligned with, and operationally adheres to:

  • The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices guidelines
  • The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals
  • The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy Statements
  • The DOAJ Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Version 4)