Special issues

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Special issues matter to us more than to most new journals: a conference partnership is our single best answer to the cold-start problem (blueprint §10). They are also where new journals most often lose control of their own standards, because a guest editor arrives with papers already chosen.

Who decides

The Editor-in-Chief approves or declines every special issue proposal, appoints its guest editors, and remains responsible for everything published in it. This responsibility cannot be delegated to a guest editor. Where the Editor-in-Chief has any involvement in the proposing conference or group, an associate editor with no involvement takes the decision instead.

Proposing one

A proposal is made to the Editor-in-Chief and must contain: the theme and why it fits our scope; the proposed guest editors with affiliations, ORCIDs and a short record of relevant work; the expected number of papers; the timeline; and a declaration of any commercial or organisational interest.

Guest editors

Guest editors are verified before appointment — affiliation, publication record, and no history of retraction or misconduct. They handle assignment and make recommendations. They do not make final decisions; the Editor-in-Chief does.

A guest editor may not handle any paper they authored, co-authored, or on which they have a conflict. Those papers go to an independent editor with no connection to the special issue.

Review is identical

Papers in a special issue go through exactly the same review as anything else: double-anonymous, at least two independent external reviewers, the same structured form, the same decision types, the same timelines. There is no lighter route. A special issue is a theme, not a standard.

The exception, and it is the same one as elsewhere: an editorial introducing the issue is not externally reviewed, and is labelled as an editorial.

Limits that protect the issue

• Guest editors' own papers may not exceed 25% of the issue. (DOAJ requirement.)
• The journal-wide endogeny cap still applies: papers by our editors, board or reviewers may not exceed

25% of the latest two issues, and a special issue does not get its own allowance.

• A special issue with fewer than five papers is published as ordinary articles under a collection

label instead. A three-paper "special issue" advertises weakness.

Labelling and fees

Every paper states, on the article itself, that it belongs to a special issue, names the issue, and names the guest editors. A reader must never have to work out how a paper was handled.

Fees are exactly the journal's fees — including the rule that the rate in force on the submission date applies (01-editorial-policies.md §15). Where a conference or institution sponsors the issue, the sponsorship is declared on the issue page, and it buys publication of nothing: sponsorship does not affect acceptance, and papers that fail review are not published.