All submissions are reviewed first by the Editorial Board Coordinator who decides (without being told the author's identity) whether to pass it for further review to an Executive Editor (one of our Board of Executive Editors). She or he then decides (without being told the author's identity) whether to send it for peer review. Papers not making it past these two stages are returned with very little, if any, editorial comment, but relatively quickly: within four weeks of initial submission.

For papers going to peer review, the Executive Editor learns the author's identity and affiliation, to assist her or him in the selection of two independent, anonymous expert referees (who will not be told the author's identity).

After receiving the referees' reports, the Executive Editor decides on one of the following.

• Recommend to the Board that the submission be accepted for publication. All Executive Editors vote on this recommendation, without (except for the proposing Editor) being told the author's identity.
• Reject the submission.
• Invite a resubmission in light of the referees' comments. (Resubmissions re-enter the process at the stage at which referees are solicited. We seek to have resubmissions refereed by the same people who refereed the original.)

Outcomes and Processing Times

To give authors an idea of our processing times and outcomes, we looked to a recent window of submissions all of which have completed their path through the process: submissions between September 1 and December 31, 2019. There were 139 submission in this window. Their outcomes and processing times are given in the diagram.

(In the diagram, "Average time" is the average of days from initial receipt by the Editorial Board Coordinator, to final disposition. That receipt date is a few days from when an author uploads their paper to Editorial Manager.)

Among these 139 submissions, 10 got an interim "Revise and resubmit'' and of those, 7 were ultimately accepted. Only 1 got an acceptance on initial submission.

Resources

Introductory resources for peer reviewers can be found on Cambridge Core here.

Ethics

Guidance on ethical peer review can be found on Cambridge Core here.