Towards establishing a higher acceptance rate for PEPTIDES - the peer review process and criteria for acceptance or rejection

The process of scientific publication is based on the principle of peer review which normally involves two or more referees. These reviewers certainly cannot be related to the authors nor should they have common publications within the last five years, although this can sometimes lead to difficulties because of a narrow field or multi-author papers. The referees should, of course, be experts with ample experience in the field and in publishing in peer-reviewed journals. The increase in the number of scientific journals and total publications has led to a clear shortage of these experts. Consequently, any journal needs a preliminary screening system in order to protect the time of our highly appreciated referees and the first task of the editors is to evaluate whether the manuscript has the potential to improve in the review process and be eventually published in the journal.