Editorial Process

The articles are published on an ongoing basis. Articles that are not allocated to special expenses are allocated to annual expenses. 

Possible article formats include qualitative and quantitative studies, theoretical papers, literature reviews and reports (e.g., via forums or conferences). sustain welcomes the further development of scientific publication formats, e.g. through the submission of speculative articles or experimental formats. The articles can be written in German or English. 

Involved in the submission process are: the authors themselves, editors-in-chief or guest editors (for special issues), reviewers from the Editors Board and Advisory Board and editorial staff.

Procedure for submission, review and publication

With the exception of literature reviews and reports, the articles undergo an open peer review process according to the following procedure:

  1. Submissions are made via the Open Journal System (OJS). Submissions should follow the Guidelines for authors.
  2. Upon receipt of submissions, an editor-in-chief or guest editor checks the formal criteria (completeness, compliance with scientific standards) and the thematic fit with the journal and decides whether
    a. the submission is to pass through the review procedure or
    b. is rejected due to a lack of thematic fit. 
  3. The editors-in-chief or guest editors ask two persons from the Advisory Board/Editors Board (excluding editors-in-chief) to each provide a review. In individual cases, reviews from persons outside the boards may also be taken into account.
  4. The reviews should be based on the Guidelines for expert opinions and are entered into the form in the Open Journal System. The reviews result in a recommendation for one of the following options:
    a. Acceptance without revision
    b. Decision on acceptance after revision
    c. Rejection without the possibility of revision
    d. Recommendation for submission to another journal
  5. The editors-in-chief or guest editors decide on the further procedure in accordance with the options listed under (4), taking into account the reviews.
  6. The authors will be informed of the decision. For option a, continue with point 8.
  7. After the authors have uploaded the revision to the OJS, the editors-in-chief or guest editors will review it again and decide on one of the following options:
    a. Acceptance, if all major points of criticism have been dealt with.
    b. Obtaining new reviews, if the revisions go beyond the suggestions and feedback from the reviews to such a considerable extent that the content of the article changes or if significant points of criticism are rejected in the arguments.
    c. Rejection, if there is no response to significant points of criticism.
  8. After an article has been approved by the editors-in-chief or guest editors, the editorial team edits the article for orthographic or similar errors, generates a DOI and a PDF/A file containing the DOI number and releases the PDF/A file for publication via the OJS.

The entire process takes place within the OJS.

The editors-in-chief or guest editors can call in a third review at any time. The editors-in-chief or guest editors do not review the articles in the sense of point 4.

With their submission, the authors declare that neither the article as a whole nor excerpts from it have been previously published elsewhere, not even in another language, and that the same article has not been submitted for publication elsewhere.

For the literature review and report formats, the review is carried out by the editors-in-chief.

Selection of reviewers

For ongoing submissions, two reviews are provided by the Editors Board and/or Advisory Board.

In the case of special issues, reviews from among the submitting authors (distributed peer review) may also be consulted at the discretion of the editors-in-chief or guest editors.

The decisive factor for the acceptance of a review is the assessment of the editors-in-chief or guest editors that the reviewer has the necessary technical expertise to assess the submission. In the case of distributed peer reviews, it is assumed that all submitting authors are sufficiently familiar with the topic to be able to provide a review.

Under no circumstances are reviewers engaged who are likely to have conflicts of interest.

Withdrawal, revision or correction

If circumstances become known after publication that call into question the scientific integrity of an article, the Editors Board can decide by simple majority to withdraw the publication. In the event of disagreement, the Advisory Board also votes on how to proceed. Instead of the article, the reason for the retraction then appears on the journal website.

Articles may be revised after publication and this will be indicated in the article by visible deletions and corrections. The published article will be supplemented by the revised article on the journal website.

A correction by the authors is possible in the form of a comment. Comments can also be written by persons who are not authors. Comments are published as separate PDF/A files at the bottom of the article. Comments must comply with the journal’s ethical principles and will be reviewed by the editors-in-chief before publication.