Bio Integration

BIO Integration uses a single-blind peer review process. For each manuscript that proceeds to peer review, an Editorial Board Member with appropriate subject expertise is assigned to manage the external peer-review process, including the selection of suitably qualified external reviewers.

1. Pre-Check

Once a manuscript is submitted for publication, the manuscript will be reviewed by the editorial office to ensure it is suitable for peer review.

2. Executive Editor or Co-Editors-in-Chief Review

After the pre-check is complete, the manuscript is sent to the Executive Editor of the journal for review.

If the Executive Editor determines during the initial editorial assessment that the manuscript is of insufficient quality to proceed to external peer review or falls outside the scope of the journal, the Executive Editor may reject the manuscript without external peer review. For manuscripts that proceed to external peer review, the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision following consideration of the editorial recommendation.

If the Executive Editor determines that the submitted manuscript is of sufficient quality and falls within the scope of the journal, the manuscript will be assigned to an Editorial Board Member who is familiar with the topic of this manuscript.

Note: If the manuscript is written by the Executive Editor, the manuscript will be handled and inspected by the Co-Editors-in-Chief. If the manuscript is submitted by a Co-Editor-in-Chief, it will be handled by the Executive Editor in accordance with the journal’s Conflict of Interest Policy.

3. Peer Review

BIO Integration uses a single-blind peer-review process.

The external reviewers may or may not be from the list of potential reviewers suggested by the authors. The assigned handling Editorial Board Member can select at least two reviewers for a particular manuscript depending on the knowledge and experience of the specified reviewers.

A review report provides the Editors with feedback on the quality of the manuscript under consideration. It also supplies authors with explicit insight on how to improve their papers to make them suitable for publication in the journal. Although confidential comments to the editors are not relayed to authors, any remarks that may help improve the quality of the manuscript will be forwarded to the authors for their consideration. Reviewers are expected to provide advice on the following points in their review reports:

Is the manuscript written comprehensively enough to be understandable? If not, how could it be improved?
Have adequate proofs been provided for the declarations?
Have the authors addressed the previous findings fairly?
Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology to reproduce the experiments?
BIO Integration encourages authors to publish detailed protocols as supporting information online. Do any particular methods used in the manuscript warrant such a protocol?

The reviewers are expected to provide their reports in a timely fashion (within two weeks) since a prompt review leads to the timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only for the authors but for the scientific community as well.

The reviewers submit their reports on the manuscripts along with their recommendation of one of the following actions to the assigned Editorial Board Member:

Accept Submission
Major/Minor Revisions Required
Decline Submission

Once the required external review reports have been received, the assigned Editorial Board Member completes the peer-review stage and refers the manuscript and reviewers’ reports to the Executive Editor. The Executive Editor considers the reviewers’ reports and makes an editorial recommendation to the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final publication decision.

4. Editor Decision

The review reports are edited by the Executive Editor if the comments contain confidential information. Reviewers should include such comments in the confidential section of the review form, which is intended to be read by the editors only. If a review report is considered inadequate or if additional expert assessment is required, the assigned Editorial Board Member may appoint an additional suitably qualified external reviewer. The Executive Editor may also request that the assigned Editorial Board Member obtain an additional external review where necessary.

When all reviewers have submitted their reports, the Executive Editor can make one of the following editorial recommendations to the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief:

Accept Submission
Major/Minor Revisions Required
Decline Submission

If the Executive Editor recommends “Accept Submission”, the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief is notified so he/she can inspect the manuscript and the review reports. The assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief can either override the Executive Editor’s recommendation in which case the manuscript is rejected or approve the Executive Editor’s recommendation in which case the manuscript is accepted for publication.

If the Executive Editor recommends “Major/Minor Revision Required”, the recommendation is communicated to the authors. The authors are expected to revise their manuscripts in accordance with the changes recommended by the reviewers and to submit their revised manuscript in a timely manner. Once the revised manuscript is submitted, the original reviewers are contacted with a request to review the revised version of the manuscript. Along with their review reports on the revised manuscript, the reviewers make a recommendation which can be “Accept Submission” or “Revisions Required” or “Decline Submission”. The Executive Editor can then make an editorial recommendation which can be “Accept Submission” or “Revisions Required” or “Decline Submission”. The Executive Editor’s recommendation is referred to the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final publication decision.

During the initial editorial assessment, the Executive Editor has the authority to reject a manuscript where, for example, its subject is inappropriate for the journal, its quality is insufficient, or there are concerns regarding the validity of its results. For manuscripts that proceed to external peer review, the assigned Editorial Board Member manages the external peer-review process and, once the required review reports have been received, refers the manuscript and reviewers’ reports to the Executive Editor. The Executive Editor considers the reviewers’ reports and makes an editorial recommendation to the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final publication decision. Where a manuscript is submitted by a Co-Editor-in-Chief, the Executive Editor will make the final publication decision in accordance with the journal’s Conflict of Interest Policy. The Executive Editor cannot assign themselves as a reviewer of the manuscript. This separation of responsibilities helps ensure a high-quality, fair and unbiased peer-review process. Manuscripts accepted for publication must have undergone the journal’s required editorial assessment and, where external peer review is required, the applicable peer-review process, with final approval given by the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief, except where the Conflict of Interest Policy requires an alternative unconflicted editor to make the final decision.

Conflict of Interest

BIO Integration respects requests not to have manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have a competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; we therefore expect reviewers to inform the Co-Editors-in-Chief or the Executive Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or the editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out a review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.

Special Issues

Special Issues (SIs) are collections of papers centred around a subject of special interest and are organized and led by subject experts who serve as Guest Editors for the Special Issue.

Guest Editors are responsible for overseeing the editorial and peer-review process for submissions to their Special Issue. Their responsibilities include identifying suitable topics, inviting contributions, selecting at least two suitably qualified external reviewers, managing the peer-review process, and providing recommendations on manuscripts based on the reviewers’ reports.

All final publication decisions are made by the assigned Co-Editor-in-Chief in accordance with the journal’s editorial policies.

All Special Issue submissions follow the same rigorous peer-review process and ethical standards as regular submissions and must be submitted through the journal’s online submission system. Guest Editors and invited authors must comply with all journal Editorial Policies.

BIO Integration is indexed in EBSCO, EMBASE, Scopus, CAS, DOAJ, Research4Life, Ulrich’s web, OCLC, WorldCat, Primo Central (Ex Libris), Sherpa Romeo, CNKI Scholar (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure) and Summon Databases.