Peer Review Process

PhD Studies in Administrative and ICT Law applies a peer-review procedure in order to ensure the academic quality of the manuscripts published in the journal. Only manuscripts that fit the journal’s scientific profile, comply with the formal and ethical requirements of the journal, and are supported by the editorial decision made on the basis of written review reports may be published.

Purpose of the Peer Review Process

The purpose of peer review is to ensure the academic soundness, originality, methodological consistency, adequate use of sources and scientific contribution of manuscripts submitted to the journal.

The review process also provides authors with substantive professional feedback on the strengths of their manuscript, the points requiring improvement, and the revisions necessary for publication.

Preliminary Editorial Assessment

All submitted manuscripts are subject to preliminary editorial assessment. This assessment examines in particular whether the manuscript:

• fits the scope of the journal;
• complies with the basic formal requirements set out in the author guidelines;
• contains the necessary author declarations;
• meets the basic citation, ethical and originality requirements;
• is suitable for external peer review.

The editorial team reserves the right to reject manuscripts without external peer review if they clearly fall outside the scope of the journal, lack academic character, contain serious formal deficiencies, or raise publication ethics concerns.

Appointment of Reviewers

Manuscripts sent for peer review are assigned to reviewers with appropriate expertise in the relevant field. Each manuscript that passes the preliminary editorial assessment is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with expertise relevant to the subject matter of the manuscript.

When appointing reviewers, the editorial team takes into account the subject matter, methodology and disciplinary context of the manuscript, as well as possible conflicts of interest.

Role of Review Reports

The journal decides on the publication of manuscripts on the basis of written review reports. Review reports provide the professional basis for the editorial decision; however, the final decision is made by the editorial team.

In the case of substantially divergent review reports, the editorial team may request an additional review or may make an editorial decision after considering the reports received.

Review Criteria

Reviewers are requested to assess manuscripts according to the following criteria.

1. Relevance to the Scope of the Journal

The reviewer assesses whether the manuscript is related to administrative law, ICT law, public law, digital regulation, technological development, data protection, platform regulation, artificial intelligence, electronic public administration or other fields relevant to the profile of the journal.

2. Originality and Scientific Contribution

The reviewer assesses whether the manuscript contains independent academic findings, new interpretative perspectives, systematic analysis, comparative insights, empirical results or an identifiable contribution to the existing literature.

3. Research Question and Objectives

The reviewer assesses whether the manuscript clearly defines its research problem, research question, hypothesis or analytical focus, and whether the structure of the manuscript is consistently aligned with that focus.

4. Methodological Soundness

The reviewer assesses whether the chosen research method is appropriate for answering the research question, whether the methodology is clearly presented, and whether it is applied consistently.

5. Use of Sources and Literature

The reviewer assesses whether the manuscript relies on relevant, current and academically reliable literature, legal sources, case law, policy documents or other justified sources. The reviewer also evaluates whether the author has adequately considered the key domestic and international literature relevant to the topic.

6. Quality of Legal Analysis and Argumentation

The reviewer assesses whether the reasoning is logical, coherent and sufficiently substantiated. The conclusions should follow from the analysis, and the manuscript should adequately address possible counterarguments, interpretative uncertainties or regulatory dilemmas.

7. Structure and Readability

The reviewer assesses whether the manuscript has a clear and logical structure, whether the sections build upon each other, whether the academic style is appropriate, and whether the language of the manuscript is suitable for publication.

8. Citation and Formal Requirements

The reviewer and the editorial team assess whether the manuscript complies with the citation and formal requirements of the journal. Particular attention is paid to proper attribution of sources, accuracy of citations, completeness of bibliographic data and consistency of the citation system.

9. Publication Ethics

The reviewer assesses whether the manuscript complies with the requirements of originality, proper attribution of sources, conflict of interest disclosure, funding statement, data availability statement and, where relevant, declaration of the use of artificial intelligence.

10. Overall Recommendation

On the basis of the above criteria, the reviewer provides an overall recommendation regarding the manuscript.

Review Recommendations

Reviewers may make one of the following recommendations:

1. Accept without substantial changes
   The manuscript is suitable for publication from an academic, formal and ethical perspective.
2. Accept subject to minor revisions
   The manuscript is generally suitable for publication but requires minor substantive, formal, linguistic or citation-related corrections.
3. Resubmit after major revisions
   The topic and general direction of the manuscript are suitable, but the manuscript requires substantial substantive, methodological, structural or citation-related revision. The revised version may be subject to further editorial or peer review.
4. Reject
   The manuscript does not meet the academic, methodological, substantive, formal or ethical requirements of the journal.

Author Revisions

If revisions are required, the editorial team sends the relevant reviewer and editorial comments to the author. The author is expected to address the comments in the revised manuscript or to explain why certain recommendations have not been followed.

Where necessary, the revised manuscript may be sent for further review.

Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality

Reviewers are required to inform the editorial team of any conflict of interest that may affect the impartiality of the review. A conflict of interest may arise, in particular, from a direct professional, institutional, employment-related, hierarchical, co-authorship or personal relationship with the author, where such relationship may influence the impartiality of the assessment.

Manuscripts received for review, including their data, findings and results, must be treated as confidential. Reviewers may not disclose the content of the manuscript to third parties and may not use it in their own research or publications before publication.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Review Process

Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents. Uploading the manuscript or any part of it to an external artificial intelligence-based service is only permitted if this does not violate confidentiality, data protection or copyright requirements and if the editorial team has expressly authorised such use.

The reviewer remains fully responsible for the professional content of the review report. The use of artificial intelligence may not replace the reviewer’s independent academic assessment.

Editorial Decision

The final decision on acceptance, revision or rejection is made by the editorial team, taking into account the review reports, the author’s revisions, the scientific profile of the journal and publication ethics requirements.

The editorial decision may be:

• acceptance;
• acceptance subject to minor revisions;
• request for major revisions;
• rejection.

Transparency of the Process

The journal operates the peer-review process in a transparent and verifiable manner for authors, reviewers, readers and indexing organisations alike. To this end, the journal publicly discloses the main stages of the peer-review process, the core reviewer evaluation criteria and the available recommendation categories.

The editorial team regards peer review as a fundamental instrument of academic quality assurance, publication ethics compliance and professional accountability.