Review procedure

1. Organization of the Peer Review Process

1.1. All scientific articles submitted to the editorial office are subject to mandatory peer review. The peer review of manuscripts submitted to the scientific journal “The Actual Problems of Regional Economy Development” is organized by the editorial board. The review period is 14–20 days.

All manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo a structured peer review process to ensure scientific quality, originality, and compliance with the journal’s scope.

1.2. After submission, the manuscript undergoes an initial screening by the editorial office for:

• originality and absence of simultaneous submission to other journals;

• compliance with the journal’s scope;

• adherence to formatting requirements;

• compliance with ethical standards, including plagiarism check.

Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements may be rejected without further review.

1.3. Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are assigned to a handling editor, who sends them for review to at least two independent experts in the relevant field.

At least two independent reviewers are involved in the review process.

Highly qualified researchers with expertise closest to the topic of the manuscript, as well as members of the editorial board, may serve as reviewers. A reviewer cannot be the author or co-author of the reviewed work. Reviewers are informed that the manuscripts sent to them are the private property of the authors and contain confidential information that must not be disclosed. Reviewers are not allowed to make copies of the manuscripts.

1.4. The peer review process is conducted confidentially under the principles of double-blind peer review, where neither the author nor the reviewer knows each other’s identity. Communication between them is carried out through the executive secretary of the journal. The author of the article is given the opportunity to review the text of the peer review.

Anonymity may only be breached if the reviewer reports plagiarism or falsification of the data presented in the manuscript.

1.5. If the review contains recommendations for revision and further review, the executive secretary sends the review to the author with a proposal to consider the recommendations when preparing a revised version of the manuscript or to provide a reasoned rebuttal.

In case of revision, authors submit the revised manuscript along with a response to the reviewers’ comments. The editorial office checks the completeness of revisions before final acceptance.

The revised manuscript is sent for re-review.

1.6. If a reviewer does not recommend the manuscript for publication, the editorial board may return it to the author for revision based on the comments provided and/or send it to another reviewer.

1.7. The final decision on publication is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

1.8. After the decision to accept a manuscript for publication, the executive secretary informs the author and specifies the publication timeline.

1.9. Reviews of manuscripts must be stored by the editorial board for five years from the date of publication.

2. Requirements for the Content of the Review

2.1. The review must contain a qualified analysis of the article, an objective and well-reasoned evaluation, and substantiated recommendations.

2.2. The review should pay special attention to the following aspects:

• overall assessment of the scientific level, terminology, structure, and relevance of the topic;

• whether the content corresponds to the title of the article;

• evaluation of the manuscript in terms of language and style, and compliance with formatting requirements;

• scientific rigor of the presentation, and compliance of the methods, methodologies, recommendations, and research results with current achievements in science and practice;

• appropriateness of the article’s length as a whole and of its individual elements (text, tables, figures, references); justification for the inclusion of tables and illustrative material and their relevance to the topic; recommendations for reducing the length (indicating which elements should be reduced);

• the place of the reviewed work among other publications on similar topics: its novelty and differences; whether it duplicates works of other authors or previously published works of the same author (in whole or in part);

• inaccuracies and errors made by the author; detailed description of the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

2.3. The reviewer must provide recommendations to the author. Comments and suggestions should be objective and constructive, aimed at improving the scientific and methodological quality of the manuscript.

2.4. The final part of the review must contain well-founded conclusions about the article as a whole and a clear recommendation regarding its suitability for publication in the journal “The Actual Problems of Regional Economy Development” within a specific scientific field.

The reviewer’s conclusion and the final decision of the Editor-in-Chief must result in one of the following decisions:

• accept for publication;

• accept after minor revisions;

• resubmit for major revisions with re-review;

• reject.

3. Confidentiality and Integrity

All manuscripts are treated as confidential documents. Reviewers and editors are not allowed to use unpublished materials for their own purposes.

The journal adheres to the recommendations of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) in cases of suspected violations of publication ethics.