Language Eding Services in Arcle
Standard: Correct English before submission
Express: Get the same quality as Standard, but faster!
Plus: Improve the flow and wring of your paper and get unlimited eding support

This section offers guidance and resources to assist our Editors in their roles. Browse our journals for information about specific journal Editorial Boards, editorial models, and editorial processes.

As an editor, you have exclusive access to the Editor Community, an online platform providing you with valuable features that will enhance your experience with Red Flower Publication. Log in today and receive full access to the following:

1. Editor Support – explore our extensive collection of editor resources and how-to guides to support you with all aspects of your role.
2. Community Live Feed - stay informed with weekly updates covering editor related news and other important announcements.
3. Events and conferences - share news of your upcoming conference plans with fellow editors.
4. Connect with colleagues - learn more about editors across all our journals.

Academic Editors at Red Flower Publication assess the scope and quality of each submitted manuscript and make a recommendation based on feedback from peer reviewers. Editorial Boards are collectively responsible for ensuring that the journal publishes high-quality research that falls within its scope and objectives.

One of an Academic Editor’s most important tasks is to decide whether or not a manuscript should be published in one of our journals. This guide explains the steps involved in the decision-making process and offers help for new Editors.

Red Flower Publication consults Editors when ethical issues arise with published articles. We recommend that you read their guidelines and other resources. We have a comprehensive list of Red Flower Publication’s publication ethics policies on our dedicated ethics page.

For questions or to report research integrity issues, contact info@rfppl.co.in

Special Issues are one-off issues of a journal, which focus on a specific topic or contemporary theme. Special Issues are proposed and managed by a team of Guest Editors from outside the Editorial Board. Editorial Board members are also encouraged to submit Special Issue proposals.

Publishing Editors at Red Flower Publication perform essential due diligence on all Special Issue proposals. Our team ensures that key information is present and verified, as well as assessing the likelihood of receiving sufficient submissions in response to the Call for Papers.

Editorial Board members are best placed to make a decision on whether the topic of a Special Issue is a good fit for the journal. Therefore, we contact Editors for advice on a Special Issue proposal.

We ask Editors to provide feedback on a journal’s direction or performance. We use this feedback to improve all aspects of our operations.

Our Publishing Editors serve as the point of contact for our Editors. These Red Flower Publication employees are publishing professionals who also have a research background. They provide subject-specific support to our Editors and also work to promote the journals in their areas of expertise.

We hope that our Editors will be keen to share their hard work with colleagues, collaborators, and other connections. The most successful journals are those that are supported and promoted by their Editorial Boards.

We encourage Editors to discuss their journals among their colleagues, add them to their online profiles, and promote them at conferences.

The size of the Editorial Board is determined by many factors. These include the number of submissions a journal receives, the average amount of time a manuscript takes to be processed, and the time commitment of individual board members. In the event that a board member retires, or if our analysis suggests that a larger board is required, Red Flower Publication will handle the recruitment of new Editors.

In order to be invited to become an Academic Editor, an individual must have a track record of publishing well-received papers within the journal’s scope. Red Flower Publication assesses any potential candidates before issuing an invitation.

Academic Editors at Red Flower Publication are responsible for deciding whether a manuscript should be published as an article in a journal. If you are a new Editor or a Guest Editor or if you have not handled a manuscript for some time, this guide provides step-by-step assistance for the editorial process.

Manuscripts are handled using Red Flower Publication’s online system. Editors receive an email when they are invited to handle a new manuscript.

Our team assign manuscripts based on an Editor’s field of study and current workload. Editors should be comfortable with the topic of the manuscript, but an in-depth understanding is not essential. It is the role of the peer reviewers to assess the technical details. However, if an Editor finds that a manuscript is too far from their area of expertise, they should decline to handle the manuscript.

Although we select our Editors carefully, if an Editor suspects a conflict of interest (e.g., they work in the same institution as one of the authors or are working on a competitive project), they should decline to handle the manuscript.

As a member of a journal’s Editorial Board, you need to be very aware of the risk of conflicts when handling a manuscript.

Firstly, you should assess your own potential conflicts. If you have recently co-authored with the author(s) of the manuscript, you could be perceived to be influenced by your relationship. Similarly, if you have recently shared an affiliation or employment history with the author(s), it could also be seen to be inappropriate for you to handle their work. Red Flower Publication aims to avoid assigning papers to Editors who might have conflicts, but we also expect our Editors to declare any conflicts. If you believe a conflict exists, you should refuse to handle the manuscript.

As a subject expert, the journal relies on your knowledge of the discipline to assess any conflicts declared by a submitting author. You are also uniquely placed to be able to identify any undeclared conflicts that an author might have. You should think about these factors when making a recommendation on the manuscript.

You should also consider potential conflicts when assigning the manuscript to reviewers. Typically, you should not select a referee who:

1. works or has recently worked at the same institution as the author or authors; or
2. has recently co-authored a paper with the author or authors; or
3. has a recent or current collaboration with the author or authors.

Discretion may be applied when publications are authored by a consortium.

If you have concerns about a potential reviewer, consider appointing someone else. If you believe a reviewer’s recommendation on a manuscript was made to further their own interests, you may tell the authors they do not need to address that point.

We are aware that certain specialist areas may involve a higher likelihood of association and overlap between researchers. In some instances, you may be the best-placed individual to act as Editor despite a connection with the author or authors. In this case, you should inform your Red Flower Publication editorial contact. They can then refer the case for review by our Research Integrity team.

Red Flower Publication performs essential editorial screening on all submissions, before assigning them to Editors.

On receiving a manuscript, Editors should check if it is potentially suitable for publication. They should consider whether the article suits the scientific scope of the journal, as well as the basic quality of the article.

Research published in a Red Flower Publication journal must also be:

1. Scientifically valid – adhering to accepted community standards of research.
2. Technically accurate in its methods and results.
3. Representative of a specific advance, or replication, or null/negative result, which is worthy of publication.
4. As reproducible as possible – sharing underlying data, code, and supporting materials wherever able.
5. Ethically sound — adhering to best practice with respect to animal and human studies, consent to publish and clear declaration of potential conflicts of interests, both real and perceived.

In the spirit of sharing findings through our open science mission, emphasis is not placed on novelty, interest, or perceived impact.

Submissions failing this evaluation should be rejected immediately. All other articles should be sent for formal peer review.

Editors should invite at least two reviewers to assess the manuscript. We encourage Editors to invite reviewers of their choosing, but Red Flower Publication’s software will also provide reviewer suggestions.

There are many important factors to consider when selecting a peer reviewer.

Reviewers should not work at the same institution as any of the authors, or have an active or recent collaboration with any of the authors. Avoid using any referees whom the authors have requested not be invited. If we detect a potential conflict of interest, we will ask you to assign a different reviewer. See our page on ‘Managing Conflicts of Interest’ for more information.

Reviewers should have significant experience in the relevant field. Editors can assess a reviewer’s experience by looking at their publication history. Reviewers range from post-doctoral researchers through to emeritus professors, but occasionally experts from industry may also be appropriate.

It may not be possible for a particular referee to adequately assess all aspects of a manuscript. For example, if a manuscript covers practical laboratory-based experiments and high-level theoretical work, it may not be possible to find a single reviewer with all the necessary skills. Editors should ensure that the reviewers are capable, between them, of covering the breadth of techniques employed.

Editors may choose reviewers from their existing academic network. They may have come into contact with suitable reviewers through conferences or collaboration or as colleagues. Searching for key terms in abstracting and indexing services is another excellent way to find referees. We also suggest browsing a manuscript’s reference list to discover researchers working on similar topics. Finding peer reviewers is not always easy, as appropriate candidates may not have the time to accept your invitation.

Asking those who decline an invitation to suggest similarly qualified experts, perhaps from their own research group or institution, is an excellent way of gathering further recommendations.

Reviewers may, upon request, consult with colleagues from their own research group so long as the confidentiality of the manuscript can be maintained. In such cases, we ask that they note the name of the colleague(s) in the ‘comments to the editor’ section of their report.

Having read and assessed the manuscript, each reviewer will provide a report along with one of the following recommendations:

• Publish Unaltered
• Consider after Minor Changes
• Consider after Major Changes
• Reject

Considering the reviewers’ recommendations and deciding the fate of a manuscript is not always straightforward. If a majority of reviewers suggest rejection of a manuscript, then it must be rejected. However, if just one reviewer notices a fundamental technical flaw and suggests rejection, it can warrant rejection of a manuscript despite positive recommendations from the other reviewers.

Published manuscripts must be technically sound. Concerns over the validity of the experimental process, or logic employed, should result in rejection. The perceived importance and potential impact of a manuscript should not be a primary cause for rejection, though papers should present original research and add to scientific understanding. Red Flower Publication journals publish work of significance to specialists, but replicative and highly derivative work should be rejected unless a strong scientific case supports publication.

If the reviewers raise insurmountable problems, for example if the experiments are critically flawed or the results have been presented previously, then the Editor should reject the manuscript.

Red Flower Publication supports the deposition of manuscripts in preprint servers, and does not consider this to compromise the novelty of the results.

If the manuscript could be improved to make it more suitable for publication, the Editor should invite the authors to revise and resubmit. We ask Editors to use ‘Consider after Minor Changes’ if they are confident that they are able to assess personally whether the suggested changes have been made properly. If an Editor believes they require the reviewers’ expertise to assess the changes, they should use ‘Consider after Major Changes’ instead.

If the reviewers find no fault, and deem the manuscript to be suitable for publication in its current state, the Editor may choose to use ‘Publish Unaltered’.

All manuscripts should be kept completely confidential. Editors should not use any of its insights until after publication.

Reviewers will be anonymous to the authors unless they choose to disclose their identity by signing the review report. At no time should an Editor communicate the names of the reviewers to the authors, or to anybody else in the community.

Red Flower Publication’s editorial screening team checks manuscripts and the publication record of the authors for issues including plagiarism and other types of research misconduct.

If an Editor becomes aware of any publication ethics issues on a manuscript they are handling, including plagiarism, authorship disputes, duplicate and redundant submission, or manipulation of data and figures, they should contact the Research Integrity Team via info@rfppl.co.in.

From time to time, we may consult you about ethics issues on published articles. Red Flower Publication recommend reading their guidelines and other resources of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

In recognition of Editors’ work and to provide transparency about the journal’s review process, the name of the Editor who accepts a manuscript will be mentioned in the final published version of the paper.

Through our plagcheck software highlight text overlap between a submitted manuscript and existing literature. Occasionally, our Editorial Office will send you a similarity report to assess whether there is inappropriate re-use of wording.

The report will contain a calculation of the overall percentage of reuse. This number should be taken with caution. A high percentage is not necessarily unacceptable, but only an indication that there might be plagiarism or redundancy. It is important to look through the report to see the sources of overlap and where sections of overlap occur.

• The nature of the overlap – are the similarities fragmentary or in blocks? Are complete sentences or paragraphs copied from previous works?
• Where the overlap occurs – duplication of background ideas in the introduction or common methods may be considered less significant than duplication of the discussion or conclusions
• Data duplication – this is almost never acceptable without appropriate citation
• Citation - was the source of the text overlap cited and discussed?
• Authorship - was the source written by one or more of the same authors as the Red Flower Publication submission? If so, the concern might be with copyright or redundant publication rather than plagiarism. Some overlap is allowed, e.g. with the authors’ own preprint or thesis, if those sources are mentioned.
• Could the software have miscalculated the similarity, e.g. by including large chunks of text that are properly contained within quotation marks or by flagging similarities in the references?

If you feel the level of similarity requires attention, you can request that the authors rewrite sections of their manuscript and cite any missing references prior to peer review. It may be that you regard the manuscript as too plagiarized to be further considered, and therefore it should be rejected.

If you have any questions regarding the plag report or to discuss concerns about plagiarism in an article, feel free to contact author@rfppl.co.in.

Red Flower Publication journals frequently publish Special Issues, a collection of articles that concentrates on a topical research area within the scope of a journal, proposed and edited by a team of Guest Editors. This team is responsible for handling the peer review of received manuscripts, and the promotion of the Special Issue.

Before proceeding with the launch of a Special Issue, we seek feedback from our Editorial Board Members on the appropriateness of the proposal in terms of its scope and timeliness, its likely contribution to the journal and field, and the suitability of the Guest Editor team. With the advice of our Editorial Board, Red Flower Publication’s Content Development Team then decide whether to proceed.

The following sections provide guidance on assessing a Special Issue proposal.

A Special Issue proposal takes the form of a Call for Papers. If the proposal is approved, the Call for Papers will help researchers to find the Special Issue and submit their manuscripts.

The most important thing is to assess whether the topic of the proposal is within the scope of the journal it is submitted to. The aims and scope of the journal can be found under the ‘About this Journal’ section of the journal’s website.

The scope of a Special Issue should be broad enough to attract a reasonable number of submissions but narrow enough to provide a cohesive collection of articles. The Special Issue should cover a small part of the scope of the journal, but not all of it.

The proposal should also emphasize the current relevance of the subject and indicate why new research on the subject is warranted.

The proposal should provide enough background information to entice submissions but does not need to be overly detailed. Concise proposals are more likely to catch and hold the attention of qualified researchers, leading to higher quality submissions.

The scope of the proposal should be made clear throughout the text and topics. Broad descriptions that cover the entire scope of the journal are not appropriate. The text and topics should be explicitly linked to the narrower scope of the Special Issue.

We encourage Guest Editors to structure their proposal as follows:

• The title should be succinct but descriptive and no longer than 10 words. We encourage Guest Editors to avoid phrases such as ‘recent advances in…’ or ‘new insights into…’, and ask them not to phrase the title as a question.
• One or two short paragraphs should provide a brief summary of the chosen topic and where it sits within the wider subject.

Another paragraph should then go on to explain the main challenges that research in the chosen topic is facing.

The final paragraph should set out the proposed aims and summarise the scope of the Special Issue, explaining what kind of studies the Issue is hoping to attract.

• Finally, the Call for Papers should include 5-15 suggested topics for authors. These topics are ‘signposts’ for the direction of the Special Issue, providing authors with guidance on areas in which they may wish to submit. Suggested topics are another opportunity to focus the scope of the Special Issue, but this can also result in a very narrow scope. Each topic should contain more detail than one or two keywords, and should be clearly linked to the scope of the proposed Issue.

All Special Issues are led by one Lead Guest Editor and a team of 2-5 supporting Guest Editors. The proposal states the names and affiliations of all Editors of the proposed issue.

Red Flower Publication will screen Guest Editors to ensure they meet the journal’s editorial requirements. When assessing the team yourself, determine whether you believe that the Guest Editors have sufficient expertise to handle all incoming submissions, taking into account their publication record and professional history. You can use databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, or Google Scholar to find the Guest Editor’s publications if needed.

We ask that teams include Guest Editors from multiple institutions and locations, as this diversity reduces conflicts of interest and helps the issue reach a wider audience.

Are you interested in being an editor on a Red Flower Publication journal? Or are you a current editor and wish to suggest a colleague to join your Editorial Board? Learn more about the benefits of becoming an editor on our Editor Community, or fill in the application form. We'd love to hear from you.Editor/Reviewer application and nomination form

If you would like to run your own Special Issue, the following resources will guide you through the process, from assembling your Guest Editor team and writing your proposal, through to advertising your Call for Papers and managing submissions, to celebrating your published Issue.

Find out more on Special Issues, please contact us on author@rfppl.co.in

Our editorial office is always available to offer support. If you have any questions about editorial duties at Red Flower Publication contact your Editorial Assistant.

Red Flower Publications was founded by scientists to make peer-review constructive, to bring the best technology to the service of the authors and editors, and to ensure that the active researchers within the field shape the direction of science, not publishers.

In Red Flower Publications, decisions on publication are decided by an external Editorial Board that is not financially incentivized to accept articles. This ensures an independence between the publisher's responsibility to grow and promote the Red Flower Publications journals and the responsibility of the external editors to shape the direction of research.

Red Flower Publications distributes editorial responsibility to the entire Editorial Board. Review Editors are empowered by directly interacting with the authors in the Collaborative Review Forum; Associate Editors are empowered to accept articles; Chief Editors are empowered to enhance the integrity of peer review.

Red Flower Publications has developed the most advanced IT platform for publishing in academic publishing. In particular, Red Flower Publications provides to all of its editors the state of art Digital Editorial Office and my Red Flower Publications platforms. Here they can perform all the operations required to run a Red Flower Publications journal, completely independently and at any time of the day or night.

The Red Flower Publications publishing model is an advanced model that addresses many ails of academic publishing and guarantees editorial independence and distributed power for researchers to shape the direction of research. The model is based on profound principles around peer review and evaluation of research and evolves with community feedback.

At Red Flower Publications we operate community-run journals. This means that we put our publishing platform into the hands of competent representatives of the academic community in the objective to publish articles that present sound and valid findings.

We take great care to appoint only leading experts in their fields and specialties according to strict criteria of excellence. Once appointed, researchers are empowered to take editorial decisions to accept or reject articles. Editorial power is distributed across the Editorial Boards, and focuses on the Associate Editors. We trust that these experts, selected according to strict criteria of excellence, provide a seal of approval and certify the soundness of the research presented in the articles, by disclosing their names on the published manuscript. Hence the distributed power at Red Flower Publications comes with responsibility, accountability and recognition of services to the community.

Red Flower Publications operates its programs based on a commitment to science and knowledge conducted in a collaborative spirit, openly shared, and assessed exclusively for its merit. These commitments guide us in defining our editorial policy and processes, which aim to be fair and constructive to authors, effective and efficient. Red Flower Publications seeks technological solutions for many of the routine aspects of publishing process, for which our workflows have been defined – and continue to be revised and improved – with careful consideration of our open-access principles. Gaining efficiency through technology is a central part because it allows us to provide a cost-effective and high-quality service to many authors.

The Red Flower Publications publishing model of community-run journals:

• provides a clean separation of editorial responsibility by placing the decisions related to manuscript acceptance in the hands of active researchers, in the spirit of full editorial independence; Red Flower Publications staff of Program and Journal Managers support scientists and scholars in their daily responsibilities and promote the journals and their products, but do not take editorial decisions over content.
• defines an objective quality threshold for article acceptance, based on the endorsement of the reviewers and the handling Associate Editor, who assess that the manuscript represents a valid and rigorous contribution, and who publicly validate it with their names on the published article;
• balances this responsibility across entire editorial boards, so that a broader group of leaders within any research community can shape the direction of science; the many thousands of Associate Editors at Red Flower Publications are authorized to make the acceptance decision.
• Empowers Chief Editors with technology that allows them to oversee, intervene and otherwise advise throughout the peer review process.
• Encourages all involved to act ethically and responsibly through its policy of full transparency by publishing the names and affiliations of the reviewers and handling editor on accepted articles.

Transparency, distribution of editorial power across many leaders in a community, and the requirement for a rigorous and constructive review process are a fundamental part of the Red Flower Publications principles to uphold integrity in academic publishing.

Adhering closely to these principles has made Red Flower Publications a recognized leader in publishing innovation. Red Flower Publications brought open access publishing to new fields of research; developed a fully digital independent editorial office that is accessible anytime; introduced article-level metrics to the publishing world in 2007; designed and implemented a Collaborative Review Forum that focuses the review on objective issues and scientific soundness and makes the review process fair, transparent, collaborative, efficient and highly rigorous; pioneered the concept of reviewer recognition by creating the Review Editor role and publishing their names on each article; built Loop, the first open research network to make researchers and their work more discoverable.

The basic editorial unit at Red Flower Publications is the Specialty Section. The Specialty Chief Editor is the editorial authority for the Section. He or she is responsible for establishing the Mission Statement for the Section, as well as for the nomination of a board of Associate Editors. As such, the Specialty Chief Editor is free to define the scope of content to be published in the Specialty Section, in consultation with the Field Chief Editor and the Red Flower Publications Editorial Office, the latter who manages questions of coordination with other journals of our program. The nomination of adequate Associate Editors is of particular importance, because they handle the review process and have the power to accept manuscripts or recommend their rejection.

A Field Journal is a collection of core communities defined by the Specialty Sections. This tiered structure provides the basis for our journals program and, notably, allows for bridging across the limits of traditional discipline boundaries through the "cross listing" of certain Specialties under two or more relevant fields. This recognizes the importance of emerging fields and improves the discoverability of content across traditional domains.

Content is organized on an even more granular level with Red Flower Publications Research Topics. These are collections of articles around a tightly defined and emerging area of research, allowing the community itself to define the direction of study. As the research landscape quickly evolves, it is becoming ever more important to offer this level of specialization, as the bigger "bins" of a traditional subject areas are no longer adequate. The Red Flower Publications web environment provides a beautiful showcase for all Research Topics, for their participants and their articles, with article-level metrics and the possibility to download the content as an e-book.

Our Editorial Boards determine the suitability and quality of scientific and academic content within each discipline, while Red Flower Publications policies ensure that the consistency of Red Flower Publications model is maintained across all of our publications. This ensures that the editors operate in the spirit of full editorial independence. Below are the descriptions of each editorial board role.

Red Flower Publications Review Editors should hold a PhD with post-doctoral experience, or an equivalent degree with several additional years of academic work, or the equivalent number of years to a recognized qualification in the relevant field of research. Review Editors should have a recognized affiliation and a proven publication record in the specialty area. Review Editors are appointed by Associate or Chief Editors, and listed on our Editorial Board pages. Individual journals may have additional requirements and restrictions for this role.

Red Flower Publications Review Editors receive regular invitations to provide an expert review of submitted manuscripts in a collaborative, transparent and efficient manner during the Red Flower Publications peer review. They provide an independent review report after which they interact with the authors directly to help improve a manuscript.

Red Flower Publications acknowledges the contribution of Review Editors by publishing their name on endorsed manuscripts upon acceptance and online publication of the article. This also ensures full transparency regarding any conflicts of interest. Red Flower Publications has in place processes to support the management of both actual and perceived conflicts of interest, including policy and checklists completed by reviewers before taking on assignments.

Red Flower Publications Associate Editors are high-impact researchers and recognized leaders in their field, with a strong publication record in international, peer reviewed journals and with a recognized affiliation. They are typically associate professor level or higher, or an equivalent position of equal standing in their field, and are appointed by the Specialty Chief Editors.

Associate Editors make an initial assessment to ensure a manuscript fits within the scope of the Specialty and is scientifically robust. They invite reviewers and directly oversee the interaction between the reviewers and authors during the collaborative peer review process. Based on the reviewers' recommendations, and ensuring all quality, validity and ethical standards have been met, Associate Editors make the final decision on acceptance or recommend a manuscript for rejection to the Specialty Chief Editor.

Red Flower Publications Specialty Chief Editors are leading academics and active experts in their field, typically full professors from a recognized institution with a proven track record of publications in international, peer reviewed journals and with editorial experience.

Specialty Chief Editors define the editorial scope for their Specialty and have the responsibility for leading and supervising the activities related to their section and providing support and guidance to the Editorial Board.

Specialty Chief Editors are expected to build and maintain a strong board of Associate Editors to ensure manuscripts are handled by relevant experts and that the peer review is of the highest quality, efficiency and transparency. The Specialty Chief Editors are empowered to act at all levels and at any stage of the peer review process in a system of editorial "checks and balances."

Red Flower Publications Field Chief Editors have an established academic career with an overarching understanding of their whole field and an extensive network of collaborating experts with a very strong track record of publications in international, peer reviewed journals and typically with editorial experience.

As recognized authorities in their area of research, Field Chief Editors define the overall scope of the journal and supervise all activities related to the Field Journal, with the aim to build the community of researchers in the field, drive publications to fully represent the research activity of the community, and build the quality and reputation of the field. They are expected to maintain a strong board of Specialty Chief Editors and to provide support and guidance to the editorial board.

The Field Chief Editor leads the college of Specialty Chief Editors in the implementation of the Red Flower Publications publishing model and collaborative review guidelines, monitoring their tasks, encouraging team spirit, and taking the lead on building the reputation of the journal.

Red Flower Publications staff span a wide range of expertise from scientists to software engineers, who support the operations of the journals and research network. The Editorial Office includes dedicated Journal Managers and Coordinators, who are the main contacts for the Chief Editors at Red Flower Publications. Together with their teams, the managers support editors in using the platform and ensuring journal growth and stewardship. The Editorial Office staff also include teams that coordinate the peer review process and assist authors, editors and reviewers. A further team ensures that submitted and published papers are fit for peer review and adhere to established ethical guidelines.

Each Red Flower Publications article strives for the highest quality, thanks to genuinely collaborative interactions between authors, editors and reviewers, who include many of the world's best scientists and scholars. Red Flower Publications is well aware of the potential impact of published research both on future research and on society. Quality is assured by requiring that all submitted manuscripts adhere to the highest ethical standards and demonstrate rigorous and insightful research methodology and conclusions. Inclusion of appropriate reporting guidelines and the adherence of community standards for data availability to support reproducibility are also strict requirements. Failure to meet these requirements precludes review. Research must then be certified by peers before entering a stream of knowledge that may eventually reach the public - and shape society. Therefore, Red Flower Publications only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews, established in the high standards of the Red Flower Publications Review System.

Red Flower Publications has a number of procedures in place to support and ensure the quality of the research articles that are published:

1. Only leading experts and established members of the research community are appointed to the Red Flower Publications Editorial Boards. Chief Editors, Associate Editors and Review Editors are all listed with their names and affiliations on the Journal pages and are encouraged to publicly list their publication credentials.

1. Associate Editors oversee the peer review and take the final acceptance decision on manuscripts. Editorial decision power is distributed in Red Flower Publications, because we believe that many experts within a community should be able to shape the direction of science for the benefit of society.
2. Submitting authors can choose a preferred Associate Editor to handle their manuscript, because they can judge well who would be an appropriate expert in editing their manuscript. There is no guarantee for this preference of choice, Associate Editors can decline invitations any time, and the handling Associate Editor can also be over-ridden by the Chief Editor before she/he is invited to edit the article or at any other stage.
3. Associate Editors are mandated to only accept to edit a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest.
4. Should it become clear that the Associate Editor has a conflict of interest or is unable to perform the peer review timely and adequately, a new Associate Editor can be assigned to the manuscript by the Chief Editor, who has full control to intervene in the peer review process at any time?
5. The Associate Editor initially checks that the article meets basic quality standards and has no obvious objective errors.

1. The Associate Editor can then personally choose and invite the most appropriate reviewers to handle the peer review of the manuscript, including Review Editors from the board or external reviewers.
2. The Associate Editor is aided in this by the Red Flower Publications Collaborative Review Forum software and interface, which suggests the most relevant Review Editors based on a match between their expertise and the topic of the manuscript. Associate Editors can however choose any reviewer they deem adequate.
3. After a certain timeframe and if no reviewers have in the meantime accepted to review the manuscript, the Red Flower Publications platform and algorithmic safety-net steps in and invites the most appropriate Review Editors based on constantly updated and improved algorithms that match reviewer expertise with the submitted manuscript.
4. Review Editors and reviewers are mandated to only accept to review a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest.
5. Red Flower Publications algorithms are constantly fine-tuned to better match Review Editors with manuscripts, and additional checks are being coded into the platform, for example regarding conflicts of interest.
6. Should it become clear that a particular reviewer has a conflict of interest or is unable to perform the peer review timely and adequately, he or she shall be replaced with an alternative reviewer by the Associate Editor or the Chief Editor, who will be alerted and has full control to intervene in the peer review process at any time.

1. In the Independent Review Stage the assigned reviewers perform an in-depth review of the article independently of each other to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.
2. The reviewers are aided by an online standardized review questionnaire – adopted to article types – with the goal to facilitate rigorous evaluation according to objective criteria and the Red Flower Publications Review Guidelines.

1. The Associate Editor assesses the reviews and activates the "Interactive Review" – informing the authors of the extent of revisions that are required to address the reviewers’ comments, and starting the Interactive Discussion Forum where authors and also the reviewers get full access to all review reports.
2. Manuscript and review quality at this stage are enhanced by allowing authors and reviewers to discuss directly with each other until a final version of the manuscript is endorsed by the reviewers.
3. Reviewer identity is protected at this stage to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.
4. Reviewers can recommend rejection at this stage if their requests to correct objective errors are not being met by the authors or if they deem the article overall of insufficient quality.
5. Should a dispute arise, authors or reviewers can trigger an arbitration and will alert the Associate Editor, who can assign more reviewers and/or bring the dispute to the attention of the Chief Editor. The Associate Editor can also weigh in on the discussion and is asked to mediate the process to ensure a constructive revision stage.

1. The manuscript can only be accepted by the handling Associate Editor if at least two* reviewers endorse the submission for publication (*for full-length article types).
2. The names of the Associate Editor and reviewers are disclosed on published articles to encourage in depth and rigorous reviews, acknowledge work well done on the article and to bring transparency and accountability into peer review.
3. Associate Editors can recommend the rejection of an article to the Chief Editor, who needs to check that the authors' rights have been upheld during the peer review process, and who can then ultimately reject the article if it is of insufficient quality, has objective errors or if the authors were unreasonably unwilling to address the points raised during the review.
4. Chief Editors can at any stage of the peer review step in to comment on the review process, change assigned editors, assign themselves as a reviewer and even as the handling editor for the manuscript, and therefore have full authority and all the mechanisms to act independently in their online editorial office to ensure quality.

1. Only leading researchers acting as Associate Editors, who are not part of Red Flower Publications staff, can make acceptance decisions based on reviews performed by external experts acting as Review Editors or reviewers. None have a financial incentive to accept articles, i.e. they are not paid for their role to act as Associate or Review Editors, and any award scheme is not linked to acceptances of manuscripts.
2. Chief Editors receive an honorarium if their Specialty Section or Field reaches certain submission levels. However, this honorarium is based on the total number of submitted articles during a calendar year, and not the number of accepted articles. Therefore they also have no financial incentive to accept manuscripts.

1. The Red Flower Publications platform enables post-publication commenting and discussions on papers and hence the possibility to critically evaluate articles even after the peer review process.
2. Red Flower Publications has a community retraction protocol in place to retract papers where serious concerns have been raised and validated by the community that warrant retraction, including ethical concerns, honest errors or scientific misconduct.

Red Flower Publications has a highly interactive and transparent publishing model which was established, in part, to engage all the players in scholarly publishing to act responsibly and professionally. All papers are published with the names of the handling editor and the reviewers, who have publicly validated the soundness and academic/scientific validity of each article. However, our duty as a publisher includes correcting the literature whenever it is brought to our attention that an article contains scholarly errors or that authors have committed unethical or illegal acts in relation to their published work. The aim of our policy for comments and complaints is to reflect the founding principles of Red Flower Publications to provide a mechanism that is community-driven through our editors, and that fosters scholarly debate.

If errors are identified in an article, the authors have the possibility of publishing a correction or amendment as a corrigendum. If ethical, legal or scholarly concerns are raised or identified after publication of a journal that could warrant further action, including retraction, Red Flower Publications follows the steps outlined below in order to consult the editors and carry out their decisions.

Readers have the option of highlighting issues related to a specific article to the academic community by:

• using the comments section found on each article page
• submitting a commentary on the article

The vast majority of expressions of post-publication comments or concerns can be legitimately expressed in this manner. General Commentaries on articles are peer reviewed.

Red Flower Publications reserves the right to edit or remove comments perceived to be derogatory and/or do not contribute to a scholarly debate on the topic. Authors are automatically notified of comments on their articles by our publication platform. Authors of comments must use their real identity; pseudonyms are not allowed as Red Flower Publications stands for accountability and transparency in the academic discourse. Where Red Flower Publications considers that authors of comments have not followed this policy, appropriate action will be taken, which may include moderation or deletion of the comment, and deletion of their account.

Many complaints are subjective. Conflicts or accusations for which there can be no reasonable expectation of objective assessment by our boards of external editors will not be considered in the context of this policy. Red Flower Publications will only act on official complaints made directly to the Chief Editors and the Red Flower Publications Editorial Office.

Complainants should begin by contacting the corresponding author and attempting to resolve the issue directly, before sending their concerns to the journal. It is appropriate to involve the journal in cases where there are valid reasons for not contacting the authors, if the authors were unresponsive when contacted, or if the discussion in the first instance did not resolve the concerns. When contacting the journal the following procedure should be followed:

1) A reader who would like to raise a concern or complaint regarding a published article in a Red Flower Publications journal should email the relevant Red Flower Publications editorial office with a letter addressed to the Specialty Chief Editor outlining the complaint. The letter must contain the following information:

• article [title, authors, journal, publication date, doi]
• complainant [title, current affiliation and position, other proof of expertise]
• complaint [academic/scientific validity, ethical or legal; summary of main points; adverse consequences anticipated]
• details of the complainant’s previous contact with the author or authors of the article
• statement that the complainant has no conflict of interest, or declaring any actual or potential conflicts of interest
• an annotated PDF of the article should be provided that clearly marks the passages concerned and the reasons why they are of concern

2) Only complaints regarding the scientific/academic validity or ethical or legal aspects of the work or its review will be considered. Complaints will not be considered if they contain personal criticisms of the authors, inappropriate or derogatory language, or where the complainant has used a false or misleading identity. All complaints will be investigated, including anonymous complaints. However, unless a specific and valid reason can be provided for wishing to remain anonymous, Red Flower Publications reserves the right not to update the complainant on the outcome of the investigation. Complainants can request Red Flower Publications and the Chief Editors to handle their complaint confidentially to the extent that this can be accommodated by our internal protocols.

3) Complaints are brought in the first instance to the attention of the Specialty Chief Editor.

3.1) The Specialty Chief Editor, in consultation with the handling Associate or Guest Associate Editor if he/she is available, and / or with additional experts from the editorial board, decides whether there are sufficient grounds for the complaint to be considered further. If they feel that further investigation is warranted, then the authors and Field Chief Editor(s) are informed of the complaint. In certain cases, the publisher or the editors may publish an Expression of Concern indicating that serious objections have been raised. They may also close the case as unsubstantiated at this stage. In this event the complainant is informed that no further action will be taken.

3.2) For complaints having legal implications, Red Flower Publications will seek advice from its legal counsel, who might also contact the editors, the complainant or the authors for further information. Red Flower Publications reserves the right to retract articles that are, or are considered likely to be, in violation of applicable legal principles.

3.3) For ethical concerns, Red Flower Publications will execute the decision of the editors, who will follow widely accepted guidelines such as those by the Committee on Publication Ethics as closely as possible, including concerns around suspicions of data manipulation and data fabrication; if it appears probable that such falsification has taken place, the case can be referred to the authors’ institutions for investigation.

4) If the complaint is upheld by the Chief Editor (as under 4.1), the resulting investigation can result in any of the outcomes detailed below as decided by the Chief Editors:

4.1) The complaint is deemed unsubstantiated – No further action is taken and the complainant is informed that the case has been closed. Further communication by the complainant on the subject will only be considered if additional information to substantiate the concerns is brought forward.

4.2) Investigation into the complaint identifies errors that justify the publication of a corrigendum – The Chief Editors will detail to the authors the points needed to be addressed in the corrigendum. Red Flower Publications will work with the authors to ensure a corrigendum is published that satisfactorily deals with the issues identified in the Chief Editors’ decision. If the authors refuse the Chief Editors will proceed without the authors’ consent to correct the literature and/or may initiate retraction.

4.3) Investigation into the complaint reveals author bias on a contentious or controversial subject – The editors decide on the most appropriate action to address the concerns, which can range from retraction to, for example, inviting a commentary on the article providing a balanced and objective context. The Chief Editors will decide on the potential authors to be invited to write the commentary. The commentary will be peer reviewed by a handling editor and reviewers not associated with the original article.

4.4) Investigation into the complaint indicates that a retraction needs to be considered and further examined – An Expression of Concern may be published to notify readers of an ongoing investigation. The editors may consult further experts or the institutions concerned to reach a decision and under exceptional circumstances may form a committee to ensure a broader representation of views.

4.5) Investigation into the complaint exposes an irrefutable reason for a retraction – The editors endeavour to work together with the authors to retract the article, but can do so even without the authors’ consent. The Committee on Publication Ethics retraction guideline will be followed where applicable. A retraction notice will be published detailing the reasons for retraction.

5) Complainants should note that investigations may take some time to conduct. Red Flower Publications is under no obligation to divulge the status of the investigation until a decision has been reached by the editors. When a notice is published, it will be brought to the attention of the complainant; Red Flower Publications has no obligation to provide the complainant with additional detail concerning the decision. Furthermore, Red Flower Publications reserves the right to cease communication with complainants who do not remain cordial in their contacts with Red Flower Publications staff or Editors.