Submission policy

Guidelines for submitting, processing, reviewing, and publishing original research papers and discussions in Geophysical Research Journal

1. Manuscript Submission

1.1. Original manuscripts can be submitted to the Journal:

• by e-mail to gr@ifz.ru;
• on electronic storage devices (preferably on CD) by mail to the Editorial Board of the Journal at the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPE RAS), Bolshaya Gruzinskaya str., 10-1, Moscow, 123242, Russia.

1.2. Submission materials should include

• Electronic files with the text of the manuscript (MS Word version 6.0 and higher), figures, tables, figure captions and table titles, formatted in accordance with the GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS.
• Integrated file of the manuscript, containing text and figures, tables, figure captions and table titles placed along the course of the presentation (see GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS).
• The complete information on all authors including the first, middle, and last names, affiliations, phone number, postal and e-mail addresses.
• Cover letter indicating the corresponding author (indicating his current contact mobile and work phone number and e-mail address).

1.3. Submitted manuscripts are registered by the Editorial Secretary and are kept for three years after the submission date.

2. Processing and Peer Reviewing of Submitted Manuscripts

2.1. For all manuscripts the Editor-in-Chief or his/her Deputy assigns an Executive Member of the Editorial Board responsible for processing of the manuscript. All submitted manuscripts are pre-screened by assigned Executive Member and the Editorial Secretary for acceptance for processing. If submitted manuscript fits the scope and standards of the Journal (see Section 2 of the Journal Regulations), it is sent for peer review to leading Russian and/or international experts in the subject field of manuscript. Reviewer should have publication on the topic of the reviewing paper during last 3 years.

2.2. The decision on the number (at least two) and the names of the reviewers is made at the meeting of the Editorial Board or by the Executive Member of the Editorial Board responsible for processing of the manuscript.

2.3. Peer review of manuscripts submitted to the Journal and accepted for editorial processing is blind by default. By his/her will, a reviewer may disclose, either personally or through the Editorial Board, his/her name to the author(s) of the manuscript.

2.4. By accepting invitation to review and adhering to ethical principles listed in Section 4 of the Journal Regulations, the reviewer agrees:

• to provide an objective evaluation of submitted manuscript within a month after receiving the manuscript;
• to reply to the Questionnaire approved by the Journal Editorial Board;
• to provide a written review including the substantiate recommendation on acceptance (as it is or after revision) or rejection of the manuscript and, if any, comments (technical corrections can be introduced directly into the printed or electronic version of the manuscript);
• to indicate whether a review of revised manuscript is required if, in the opinion of the reviewer, the manuscript should be significantly revised, and whether the reviewer agrees to review revised manuscript,

2.5. The Executive Member of the Editorial Board responsible for processing of the manuscript considers obtained reviews and decides on manuscript publication, revision or rejection.

2.6. Reviews that contain questions, and/or critical comments together with decision of the Executive Member are sent to the authors who may

• withdraw the manuscript.
• revise the manuscript by addressing questions and critical comments of all reviewers and by providing a detailed explanation which of the reviewers' suggestions were (fully or partly) incorporated during manuscript revision.
• if the authors reject (fully or partly) the reviewers comments, they should provide a thorough and substantiated reasoning of the rejection in their reply.

The authors should revise the manuscript according to recommendations of the reviewer(s) and resubmit it with highlighted changes within three months after the decision on the manuscript is received by the corresponding author. Revised manuscript submitted after this deadline is processed by the Editorial Board as a new submission.

2.7. After receiving the revised manuscript, the Executive member of the Editorial Board responsible for processing of the manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief, or the Deputy Editor-in-Chief, based on the reviews and the authors reply, either recommend the manuscript for publication (accept), or pass the revised manuscript for additional reviewing if necessary, or forward the manuscript for further consideration at the session of the Editorial Board. In case of additional review, new comments of the reviewers can be sent to the authors for further work on the manuscript.

2.8. The rejection of a manuscript is ultimate. The reviewers' comments together with the decision of the Editorial Board are sent to the authors of the rejected manuscript. The subsequent requests from the authors on rejected paper are not considered and are not replied by the Editorial Board. If rejected manuscript is resubmitted as a new submission, but without a substantial revision, it is not considered by the Editorial Board and is not accepted by the Journal.

3. Processing Peer-Reviewed Manuscripts

3.1. All manuscripts that passed the peer review process are discussed at the meeting of the Editorial Board together with comments of the reviewers, authors' replies, and, if any, additional reviews of revised manuscripts. Discussion of every peer-reviewed manuscript is summarized by the Editorial Board which makes the corresponding decision, namely

• accept the manuscript for publication (in case of positive reviews and/or additional conclusions);
• reject the manuscript (in case of negative reviews and/or additional conclusions);
• pass the manuscript for additional peer review to the other expert(s) if objectiveness or competence of reviewer(s) raises doubt or if review does not provide a substantive judgment on quality of the submission;
• pass the reviews (or additional review(s)) to the corresponding author for manuscript revision and response to the reviewers' comments if not done previously;
• pass the author(s) reply to the reviewer(s) for additional review of the revised manuscript if not done previously;
• invite the authors to consider publication of their manuscript in the Discussion section of the Journalin accordance with the guidelines specified by the present Regulations;

3.2. The reviews and authors' replies on the reviewer's comments (if any) are kept in the Journal Archive for five years and are provided on request to the authors and expert councils of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation.

4. Publication in the Discussion Section of the Journal

4.1. Manuscripts based on guesswork or hypotheses that can neither be proven nor rejected at the present-day level of scientific knowledge as well as the debate manuscript with focus on positive criticism of scientific contributions published in any journals, books and other sources are considered for publication in the Discussion section of the Journal at the initiative of the authors or Editorial Board with consent of the authors.

4.2. If the Editorial Board has recommended moving their manuscript from the regular to the Discussion section of the Journal and the authors disagree, the article can be rejected.

4.3. The Discussion section does not publish manuscripts which fall under the provisions specified in section 2.3 of Journal Regulations.

4.4. If manuscript intended for publication in the Discussion section contains criticism of other scientific publications, it can be sent to the authors of the criticized publications or to members of the scientific community addressed by the criticism with the invitation to enter in the discussion hosted by the Journal. The materials published in the Discussion section can also be debated by any other concerned scientists.

All materials published in the Discussion section, including responses to the discussion article, are subject to mandatory peer review according to standard reviewing procedure in the Journal.

The Editorial Board should promote prompt publication of replies to materials published in the Discussion section and, wherever possible, include the replies in the same issue with the debate article.

5. Processing of manuscripts accepted for publication

5.1. Manuscripts accepted for publication are transferred to the Printing and Publications unit for preparing them for production.

5.2. After acceptance for publication, only stylistic and technical editing of manuscripts is allowed. The corrections are introduced by the technical editor only after their approval by the author(s).

5.3. The body text and other elements of the manuscript (tables, figures, list of references, author information) should be provided to the Editorial Board in strict correspondence with the Guidelines for Authors. If the formatting requirements are ignored, manuscript publication can be delayed or manuscript can be rejected due to technical inconsistency.

6. Author's Responsibility

6.1. Authors of original research articles and discussions published in the Journal take full responsibility for the compliance with the legislation on copyright issues, official secrecy and commercial confidence, publication of materials covered by the copyright transfer agreements, contracts, or other juridical documents, patents, and licenses.

6.2. When submitting their manuscripts to the Editorial Board, authors confirm that the manuscript was not published (in full or in part) elsewhere and that it is now submitted for publication to another journal. Authors should provide one copy of the Copyright Agreement signed by all manuscript authors, by which the copyright on the publication (in Russian or English depending on language of submission) is transferred to the publisher. By transferring the manuscript to the Journal, the authors agree with the publication on the Journal website (both Russian and English versions) of the abstract of their article, list of references, and the author information and with subsequent (six months after printed copy issue) publication of the full text of the paper in the language of submission.