Editorial Submissions Policy — IJAERD
📋 Editorial Submissions Policy
IJAERD — International Journal of Advance Engineering and Research Development
Manuscripts from editorial team members receive independent double-blind review with full recusal.
📄 Overview
This policy governs the handling of manuscripts submitted to IJAERD by members of the editorial team and the active reviewer pool. Its purpose is to eliminate any actual or perceived conflict of interest arising when an editor or active reviewer submits their own research to the journal. The full statement of editorial independence is on the Editorial Independence page; this page sets out the operational protocol applied to every such submission.
1. Scope — Who Is an Editorial Submitter?
This policy applies to any manuscript on which one or more authors holds, at the time of submission, any of the following roles:
➤Editor-in-Chief
➤Publication or Managing Editor
➤Associate Editor
➤Section Editor
➤Proofing Editor or Copyeditor
➤Active reviewer (reviewed for IJAERD in the preceding 24 months)
An article is counted as an editorial submission if any one of its listed authors holds an editorial role or is an active reviewer at the time of submission, regardless of the other authors' positions.
2. Operational Protocol
1
Independent Editor Assignment
The submission is assigned to an editor who is not the author, is not in a direct reporting line with the author, and does not share an institutional affiliation with the author. Where no internal editor satisfies these criteria, the Editor-in-Chief invites an external editor to handle the submission.
2
Full Recusal of the Author-Editor
The author-editor is completely recused from any editorial discussion, decision, or workflow access concerning the submission. The author-editor's access to the submission record is removed for the full duration of editorial handling.
3
Double-Blind External Peer Review
The submission undergoes double-blind external peer review by a minimum of two reviewers who are not members of the journal's editorial team and who declare no conflict of interest with the author-editor. Author and reviewer identities are both concealed.
4
Independent Decision
The acceptance, revision, or rejection decision is made by the independent handling editor solely on the basis of the external peer-review reports, without consultation with the author-editor at any stage.
5
Transparency Declaration
Every published article that is an editorial submission carries an explicit declaration in its acknowledgements section noting the independent handling, following this standard wording: "This article was submitted by a member of the journal's editorial team. In accordance with the journal's Editorial Submissions Policy, the manuscript was handled by an independent editor, underwent double-blind external peer review, and the author was fully recused from the editorial workflow."
6
Audit Trail
The journal retains a complete editorial workflow record for every editorial submission, including evidence of editor assignment, reviewer assignments, and recusal. This record is available on request to indexing bodies for audit purposes.
3. Public Commitment on Proportion
IJAERD commits to keeping the proportion of articles authored by editorial team members and active reviewers below 15% in any rolling 12-month period. This figure is monitored by the Editor-in-Chief on a per-issue basis.
How the 15% threshold is calculated: The proportion is measured at the level of articles, not authors. An article counts as an editorial submission if any one of its authors holds an editorial role or is an active reviewer at the time of submission. The 15% ceiling applies to a rolling 12-month window and is intentionally conservative.
4. Annual Reporting
The journal publishes an annual transparency note in the first issue of each calendar year, stating the proportion of editorial submissions published in the preceding year and the actions taken to maintain editorial integrity. This note is archived on the journal's home page notice board.
ℹ For the full statement of editorial independence, including the rationale for the 15% ceiling, audit mechanisms, and publisher independence, see the
Editorial Independence page. For queries, contact the Editor-in-Chief at
editor.ijaerd@gmail.com.
