British Archaeological Reports - BAR Publishing

We operate a single-blind peer review process, using a combination of author-recommended and independently contacted subject specialists. Authors will not know who has been chosen to provide peer review, but reviewers know the identity of authors and can waive their right to anonymity if desired. Each manuscript is reviewed by between 2 and 4 reviewers, and the decision on including author-recommended reviewers is at the discretion of the handling editor. For publications in a sub-series, the series editors will be contacted to recommend appropriate reviewers, and members of the sub-series editorial board will also be considered as reviewers.

Once peer reviews have been received, these will be sent to the author in the form of a review summary. Authors will then be invited to read and respond to these reviews, and their responses will be considered by the publishing commitee when deciding whether to contract the project. Where appropriate, elements of the author responses may be forwarded back to the original reviewers, for example if the author has requested further clarification on their comments. The anonymity of the reviewer will be maintained throughout this process.

All reviewers are asked to confirm that they have no conflict of interest before accepting the role as a peer reviewer. If any misconduct is alleged or suspected, peer review will be paused while we investigate. In such cases, COPE guidelines will be followed to ensure best practice in resolving the issue. We take any allegations of misconduct – whether pre- or post-publication – extremely seriously, and we expect all reviewers to act in accordance with the COPE guidelines on ethical peer-review. Where a review is identified as biased, it will not be considered by the publishing commitee while they are deciding whether to contract the project .