We have begun extending our “Feedback Programmes” to Editors for structured feedback, and to Reviewers – who also play key roles in the evaluation process, for their opinions.

A comment which we repeatedly receive from Reviewers, is that they feel they are too frequently asked to review manuscripts which are of an insufficient quality from a purely technical viewpoint, i.e. poor language, incomplete, inconsistent or outdated references, uninformative abstract, poor quality illustrations, non-adherence to the “Guide for Authors”, etc.

Reviewers are becoming increasingly overloaded with requests to review manuscripts, and there is an increasing feeling that we, as the Publisher, should perhaps take more active measures to ensure that all manuscripts which are sent out for peer review, should at least adhere to a set of minimum technical standards. We also realise that you as Editor, would rather spend your time evaluating research on the basis of its creative and intellectual content, rather than having to spend time and effort annotating the technical insufficiencies of the manuscript.

On the basis of this feedback, and in order to reduce Reviewers’ workload, we have instituted a new programme whereby all submitted manuscripts will be initially screened, purely on the basis of technical standards, to evaluate whether they are suitable for passing through into the formal peer review process. Manuscripts which do not meet this set of minimum technical standards will be first returned to the submitting Author(s) with a check-list of missing or insufficient items. The Author(s) will be given the opportunity to resubmit after attending to these technical insufficiencies. We believe that this technical screening will not only provide useful feedback to Authors, but will also help to resolve the issue of Reviewers receiving papers for review which are technically sub-standard.

Since the advent of online submission, we have noticed a general surge of submissions from developing countries, where Authors are often less familiar with the conventions of international journals, and thus particular attention will be paid to manuscripts from these countries, although all submitted manuscripts will be screened in principle.

With an increasing number of the submissions coming from Asian countries, this technical screening process will be coordinated from our Beijing office, but will be fully integrated into the ongoing EES work process, with which you are already familiar.

To implement the technical screening initiative for your journal, please contact your Publishing Editor