All Brieflands journals follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on appeals against editorial decisions and on complaints about a journal’s handling of peer review. COPE asks every publisher to describe its complaints process clearly; this page is that description. See also the COPE guidance on complaints and appeals.
Direct Connection to Us
You can raise a complaint or an appeal in either of these ways:
- Submit a ticket through Publisher Support. Every journal has an internal ticket link that uses your registered contact details.
- If you would rather not be identified, submit the ticket anonymously through the same support portal.
Post-Publication Comments
Any reader can post a comment on an article’s page as post-publication peer review. The publisher moderates the comment and forwards it to the journal’s editor. read more
Approach to a complaint
- Readers may open a discussion — anonymously if they prefer — about a decision taken by an Editor-in-Chief, a reviewer or an associate editor. Set out the substance of the complaint precisely and attach the supporting documents.
- You receive a ticket ID as soon as the ticket is submitted. A standard investigation takes up to four weeks from that date.
- Every complaint or appeal is screened first by the Head of the Ethics Department and then handled through the same two-tier ethics committee structure that Brieflands uses for allegations of misconduct: a preliminary decision from the Primary Ethics Committee, seven working days for the authors to respond, and, on objection or complexity, referral to the Secondary Ethics Committee and to the COPE council. See Ethics Committees at Brieflands for the composition of each committee and the escalation rules.
- No further action is taken on the manuscript or the published article until the process concludes. The conclusion reached by the COPE council and the Secondary Ethics Committee is final, and it binds every party to the case, including Brieflands.
While a complaint is still open
A complaint about a published article does not change that article while it is being examined; the article stays available and unaltered. Where the examination cannot be concluded quickly and the case is referred to the Secondary Ethics Committee, the journal publishes an Expression of Concern linked to the article, so that readers are alerted that a serious question is open. It is replaced by a correction, a retraction, or a notice of resolution once the case closes.
Who decides an appeal against an Editor-in-Chief
An Editor-in-Chief takes no part in deciding an appeal or complaint about their own decision, or about their own handling of a manuscript. This applies at both tiers of the ethics committee structure, and it cannot be waived.
- On the Primary Ethics Committee, the seat normally held by that journal’s Editor-in-Chief is filled, for that case only, by the Editor-in-Chief of another Brieflands journal, appointed by the publisher.
- The same substitution carries over to the Secondary Ethics Committee if the case escalates.
- The Editor-in-Chief concerned has no access to the case file, the reviewer identities, or the committee correspondence.
- They are invited to give their account in writing, as a party to the case — the same right the author has — and nothing more.
- The outcome is communicated to the author by the publisher, not by the Editor-in-Chief whose decision was appealed.
The same rule applies to any committee member with an interest in the case. Committee composition and the escalation route are in Ethics Committees at Brieflands; the general declaration and recusal duties for editors are in Conflict of Interest.