Peer review

«Clinical microbiology and antimicrobial chemotherapy» use double-blind peer review for all scientific manuscripts submitted to the editorial staff. This means that both reviewers and authors are concealed from each other throughout the review process.

1. External independent experts are active in the relevant field of medicine in the last five years, invited to perform peer reviews. Editor-in-chief, associate editor-in-chief or deputy editor-in-chief choose readers (at least two) for peer review.
2. The review period is 2 weeks, though at the request of the reviewer it can be extended in some cases.
3. A reviewer must disclose to editors any potential conflicts of interest that could complicate their review of the manuscript (for example, personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious) and declines to review of the manuscript.
4. After reading the manuscript, the reviewer is expected to present the following recommendations to the editor board:
   
   • to accept the manuscript in its current form;
   • invite the authors to revise the manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached;
   • reject the paper outright on lack of novelty of the information, outdated references, major technical/interpretational problems;
5. If the reviewer has recommended any improvements, the editorial staff would suggest the author either to implement the corrections or to dispute them reasonably. All the authors are kindly requested to limit their revision to 4 weeks and send back the adapted manuscript along with a point-by-point response to the reviewer comments within this period for final evaluation.
6. If the authors do not return the revised version after 4 weeks from the date of sending the initial review, the editorial staff removes the manuscript from the register and notifies the authors.
7. The editor in chief resolves the conflict in case of insoluble contradictions between the reviewer and the author of the article.
8. When the editors have reached a final decision to reject a paper according to reviewers’ recommendations, the corresponding author is notified by email. The editorial staff does accept the rejected manuscript for reconsideration.
9. When a manuscript is rejected, all copies of manuscript are deleted from our editorial systems.
10. If an author wishes to appeal against an editorial decision, the appeal must be made in writing and confined to the scientific case for publication.
11. After the manuscript is accepted for publishing, the editorial staff notifies the corresponding author by email
12. A positive review does not guarantee acceptance; Editors are responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article.
13. Original reviews and copies of submitted manuscripts are stored for 5 years.