Editorial Responsibilities

Plant Science Horizons (PSH) expects every editor to protect the integrity of the scholarly record, manage peer review fairly and confidentially, make evidence-based editorial decisions, identify and manage conflicts of interest, and respond appropriately to concerns before and after publication.

Purpose of the editorial role

Editors are entrusted with evaluating manuscripts, overseeing impartial peer review, maintaining scientific quality, enforcing journal policies, protecting confidential information, and ensuring that editorial decisions are made in the interests of scholarship rather than personal, institutional, political, or commercial considerations.

Editorial authority carries corresponding responsibility. Editors should be able to explain the scientific and procedural basis of a decision and should act consistently, respectfully, promptly, and transparently.

General editorial principles

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions must not be controlled by advertisers, sponsors, donors, institutions, owners, publishers, political actors, metrics, personal relationships, author prestige, geographic origin, or external lobbying. External commentary may alert editors to a concern, but formal editorial action should be based on evidence and a fair process rather than public pressure.

Initial editorial assessment

Before external peer review, the handling editor should assess whether the manuscript:

Editorial rejection without external review

A manuscript may be declined at editorial assessment when it:

• falls outside journal scope or does not meet the intended article category;
• does not provide sufficient novelty, conceptual advance, or scientific relevance;
• has fundamental design, statistical, methodological, or reporting weaknesses unlikely to be resolved through revision;
• draws conclusions that substantially exceed the available evidence;
• is predominantly descriptive without adequate biological interpretation or validation;
• has serious ethical, authorship, data-integrity, or legal concerns;
• is so poorly organized or written that reliable scientific assessment is not feasible.

When feasible, the decision letter should briefly identify the principal reason for editorial rejection rather than using a purely generic message.

Similarity, plagiarism and redundant publication

Similarity-detection reports are screening tools and should not be interpreted using a single automatic percentage threshold. Editors should evaluate the source, location, extent, attribution, and scholarly significance of overlap.

Selecting independent and qualified reviewers

Reviewers should have appropriate subject expertise, a credible publication record, and no disqualifying conflict of interest. Editors should consider:

• technical and conceptual expertise directly relevant to the manuscript;
• independence from the authors and institutions;
• recent collaborations, supervisory relationships, shared grants, or other relationships that could create bias;
• diversity of institution, geography, career stage, and scientific perspective where appropriate;
• review quality, professionalism, responsiveness, and timeliness based on previous experience;
• whether suggested reviewer contact information is authentic and independently verifiable.

Use of suggested and opposed reviewers

Author suggestions may help identify relevant expertise but must not determine reviewer selection. Editors should independently verify identities and conflicts. Requests to exclude reviewers may be considered when a reasonable concern is provided, but the final choice remains with the editor.

Editors should be alert to fabricated reviewer accounts, non-institutional email addresses presented as professional contacts, unusually coordinated reviewer suggestions, or patterns that may indicate attempted peer-review manipulation.

Managing the review process

• Normally obtain reports from at least two independent reviewers before making a review-based decision.
• Provide reviewers with clear instructions on confidentiality, conflicts, scientific focus, professionalism, and deadlines.
• Monitor outstanding reviews and replace reviewers when delays become unreasonable.
• Do not count an obviously superficial, abusive, irrelevant, or conflicted report as adequate independent review.
• Where reports conflict substantially, obtain additional expertise or independently assess the disputed scientific issue.
• The editor, not the reviewers, makes the final editorial decision.

Unprofessional, biased or inappropriate reviews

Editors should not transmit insulting, discriminatory, threatening, irrelevant, or clearly unsupported reviewer comments to authors. Where a report contains useful scientific criticism but inappropriate language, the editor may summarize or redact the problematic wording while preserving the substantive scientific point.

Reviewers who repeatedly submit poor-quality, abusive, conflicted, fabricated, or untimely reports may be removed from future reviewer selection.

Citation requests and coercive citation

Editors should evaluate reviewer requests for additional citations critically. Citation recommendations should be scientifically relevant and should improve context, accuracy, or interpretation.

• Editors and reviewers must not require citations solely to increase citations to themselves, the journal, or associated publications.
• Acceptance must never be conditioned on adding irrelevant citations.
• Multiple requested citations from a single reviewer should be assessed for relevance and possible self-serving behavior.
• Editors should remove or disregard citation demands that do not materially strengthen the manuscript.

Decision categories

Writing decision letters

• State the decision clearly and avoid ambiguous terminology.
• Where reviewer reports conflict, explain which concerns are decisive.
• Identify essential revisions separately from optional suggestions when possible.
• Do not require authors to satisfy every reviewer request when the requests are scientifically unnecessary or contradictory.
• For rejection, explain the principal scientific or editorial reasons sufficiently for the authors to understand the outcome.
• Maintain a respectful and professional tone even when serious deficiencies are present.

Assessment of revisions

The handling editor should assess the authors' point-by-point response, revised manuscript, and any new analyses or data. A manuscript does not need to be returned automatically to all previous reviewers.

• Minor revisions may be evaluated directly by the editor.
• Major scientific revisions should normally be returned to one or more appropriate reviewers when independent reassessment is important.
• Editors should distinguish genuine non-compliance from scientifically justified disagreement with a reviewer.
• New experiments should be required only when necessary to support the paper's central conclusions, not simply to broaden the study without clear justification.

Editorial conflicts and mandatory recusal

Editors must not handle a manuscript when a personal, financial, professional, competitive, institutional, supervisory, collaborative, or family relationship could reasonably compromise or appear to compromise impartiality.

When a conflict exists, the manuscript must be reassigned to an independent editor. Recusal should occur before the editor accesses or influences confidential review information whenever possible.

Manuscripts submitted by editors or editorial-board members

Editors and editorial-board members may submit scholarly work to PSH, but they must have no involvement in the editorial handling, reviewer selection, review correspondence, or decision on their own manuscripts.

Such papers should be assigned to an independent editor with appropriate expertise and processed using the same peer-review and publication standards applied to other submissions. Where useful for transparency, the published article may include a statement that the author held an editorial role and was excluded from the decision process.

Confidential handling of manuscripts and peer review

• Submitted manuscripts are confidential documents before publication.
• Editors must not share manuscripts, unpublished data, reviewer identities, or editorial correspondence outside the legitimate editorial process.
• Unpublished information must not be used for an editor's research, grant application, teaching material, commercial activity, or competitive advantage.
• Confidentiality obligations continue after a manuscript is rejected, withdrawn, or published.
• Information may be shared with the publisher, ethics advisers, institutions, or other journals when necessary for a legitimate research-integrity investigation and consistent with applicable policy.

Use of generative AI by editors and reviewers

Editors and reviewers must protect manuscript confidentiality when using digital tools. Manuscripts, reviewer reports, unpublished figures, data, or identifiable editorial correspondence should not be uploaded into public or third-party generative AI systems when doing so could expose confidential material.

• AI tools must not replace expert scientific judgment or editorial accountability.
• Any AI-assisted evaluation must be checked independently for factual accuracy, bias, fabricated references, and inappropriate conclusions.
• Editors remain personally responsible for the content and fairness of editorial decisions.
• Suspected inappropriate AI-generated reviewer reports should be evaluated for accuracy, confidentiality breaches, and reviewer-policy violations.

Recognizing research-integrity concerns

Responding to suspected ethical breaches

Editors should distinguish suspicion from established misconduct. Concerns should be documented, evaluated objectively, and communicated to authors in a manner that allows a reasonable opportunity to respond.

When the journal cannot investigate matters within an institution's authority—such as fabrication, falsification, or researcher conduct—it may contact the relevant institution, funder, ethics committee, or another appropriate body while preserving confidentiality as far as reasonably possible.

Requests for underlying evidence

Editors may request raw data, original images, uncropped blots, microscopy files, analysis code, laboratory records, repository accessions, or other underlying materials when necessary to assess reliability.

Failure to provide reasonable supporting material should be considered in the context of the study, data-retention expectations, and the explanation provided; it should not automatically be interpreted as proof of misconduct.

Plant materials, permits, genetic resources and biosafety

Where relevant, editors should confirm appropriate reporting of:

• species, cultivar, accession, genotype, and source of biological materials;
• permits for collection of protected or regulated plant material;
• legal and ethical access to genetic resources and applicable benefit-sharing requirements;
• biosafety and containment for genetically modified, gene-edited, quarantine, or pathogenic organisms;
• repository or voucher information needed to verify biological identity;
• field location and experimental conditions sufficient for scientific interpretation.

Studies involving humans or animals

Although PSH primarily publishes plant science, some studies may include human sensory research, animal feeding studies, toxicity testing, ecological animal interactions, or other components requiring ethics oversight.

Editors should verify that appropriate approval, consent, welfare, and reporting statements are provided and should seek clarification when ethical compliance is incomplete or ambiguous.

Authorship and contribution disputes

Editors should not independently determine who deserves authorship when a substantive dispute exists. The journal may request author-contribution information and written agreement for changes, but unresolved disputes involving contribution or researcher conduct may require institutional resolution.

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission should be documented and should include a reasonable explanation and agreement from affected authors before the change is approved.

Preprints, related manuscripts and overlapping datasets

Editors should distinguish legitimate preprint posting or conference dissemination from duplicate publication. Closely related manuscripts, shared datasets, or companion studies should be assessed to determine whether the current submission is sufficiently distinct, transparently cross-referenced, and not being used to fragment one coherent study into minimally differentiated publications.

Editorial oversight of guest-edited content

• Special-issue proposals should have a legitimate scholarly rationale and fit PSH scope.
• Guest editors should be appropriately qualified and their identities, affiliations, publication records, and conflicts should be assessed before appointment.
• Guest editors must receive clear instructions on peer-review standards, confidentiality, conflicts, reviewer selection, and decision-making.
• The journal's Editor-in-Chief or designated senior editor retains oversight and may intervene in any manuscript or decision.
• Submissions authored by a guest editor must be handled independently by another editor.
• Guest-edited papers must meet the same scientific and ethical standards as regular submissions.
• Special issues should not be used to bypass normal peer review or generate excessive publication volume at the expense of quality.

Independence in guest-edited collections

Guest editors should recuse themselves from manuscripts involving recent collaborators, current institutional colleagues where impartiality may reasonably be questioned, close personal relationships, direct competitors in a sensitive dispute, or other material conflicts. The central editorial office should assign an independent editor in such cases.

Efficient and responsible editorial handling

Editors should manage manuscripts without unnecessary delay while avoiding pressure to make decisions before adequate scientific evaluation. When an editor is unavailable for an extended period or cannot handle a paper promptly, the manuscript should be reassigned.

Speed must not be prioritized over reviewer quality, ethical assessment, or fairness.

Responsible use of journal metrics

Editors must not manipulate citation metrics through coercive citation, preferential acceptance designed solely to influence indicators, or coordinated citation practices. Impact metrics may inform journal strategy but must not override scientific merit or editorial integrity.

Appeals of editorial decisions

Authors may appeal when they identify a substantive scientific misunderstanding, factual error, conflict of interest, or procedural concern that could reasonably have affected the decision.

Appeals should normally be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or another senior editor who was not the sole decision-maker on the original manuscript. An appeal does not guarantee external re-review or reversal of the decision.

Complaints concerning editorial conduct or process

Complaints about editor conduct, reviewer behavior, confidentiality, conflicts, delays, policy application, or other procedural matters should be considered separately from scientific appeals where appropriate.

Complaints involving the Editor-in-Chief should be referred to an appropriate independent senior representative of the journal or publisher.

Concerns raised after publication

Editors should take credible post-publication concerns seriously regardless of whether they are raised by authors, readers, reviewers, institutions, or other sources. The objective is to determine whether the published record requires clarification or correction.

Public allegations or social-media discussion alone should not be treated as proof of wrongdoing; evidence should be assessed through a documented and procedurally fair process.

Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions

Role-specific responsibilities

Appointment, participation and performance

Editorial appointments should reflect relevant expertise, professional standing, diversity, ethical reliability, and willingness to contribute. Participation may be reviewed periodically.

Persistent non-participation, undisclosed conflicts, repeated poor editorial performance, abusive conduct, confidentiality breaches, coercive citation, peer-review manipulation, or other serious violations may result in removal from the editorial board.

Editorial records and audit trail

Significant decisions, reviewer invitations, conflicts, ethical concerns, author responses, appeals, and post-publication actions should be documented within the journal's editorial system or another authorized secure record. Editors should avoid conducting substantive editorial decisions exclusively through private channels that leave no reliable record.

Standards informing editorial practice

PSH editorial practice is intended to be consistent with recognized principles of publication ethics, transparent peer review, editorial independence, confidentiality, conflict management, research integrity, responsible citation practice, and correction of the scholarly record. Editors should follow current journal policies and seek senior editorial or ethics guidance when a case is not adequately addressed by routine procedures.

Editorial stewardship of the scientific record

Editors of Plant Science Horizons are entrusted with maintaining rigorous peer review, fair decision-making, scientific quality, confidentiality, ethical oversight, and transparent scholarly communication. Editorial authority must always be exercised with independence, documented reasoning, professional conduct, and responsibility to the long-term integrity of the literature.