Editorial Office and Peer Review Management
Pubrica provides editorial office and peer review management for journals, societies and publishers. Our editorial office specialists run peer review operations inside your own submission system, covering triage, reviewer identification, invitations and reminders, decision letter preparation and author correspondence. We handle the administration so that your editors can concentrate on editorial decisions, and we report on where submissions are waiting and which stages are slow.
- Work carried out in your own system: ScholarOne, Editorial Manager, eJournalPress or the system you already use, with no migration required
- Editorial independence preserved: we administer peer review and your editors make every decision, a boundary that is fixed in every arrangement
- Reviewer identification that widens the pool, instead of repeatedly inviting the same small group of reviewers
- Systematic reviewer follow-up, which has the greatest effect on time to first decision
- Reporting your editors can act on: where submissions are sitting, which stage is slow and which reviewers are reliable
Submission triage and completenessIncluded
Reviewer identification and invitationIncluded
Chasing, reminders and correspondenceIncluded
Decision letter preparationPrepared by us, signed by the editor
Editorial decisions on papersAlways made by your editors
Submission → triaged → reviewed → chased → decision
- Run in your own system
- Editorial independence preserved
- Reviewer pool widened systematically
- Reminders sent to a defined schedule
- Reporting your editors can act on
Deliverables
Four Components of Every Editorial Office Engagement
Each engagement covers one journal and its editorial policy. Your policy governs, and we operate within it.
From the triageWhen an editor opens a submission and finds a missing ethics approval number, editorial time has been spent on an administrative problem. Triage prevents this.
From the reviewer searchInvited 3 reviewers, 1 accepted after 11 days.Twelve candidates identified across four groups, conflicts checked, invitations staggered in waves of four with a 72-hour response window. Two accepted within four days.
From the operationsTime to first decision depends far more on consistent follow-up than on editorial factors, and follow-up is the task editors rarely have time for.
From the workflowThis boundary makes outsourcing acceptable to an editorial board, and it should be written into the arrangement.
The samples shown are illustrative and anonymised. Hover over a sample to replay it.
Compliance and Standards
Editorial Office and Peer Review Standards
Your journal policy governs. These are the standards it is expected to meet.
COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics)
Sets out the flowcharts a journal follows when a problem arises and the standards it is expected to operate to.
ICMJE Recommendations (authorship and conduct)
Covers authorship criteria, editorial independence, peer review conduct and the declarations an article carries.
Submission systems (ScholarOne, Editorial Manager, others)
We work inside your system under your permissions, so the record remains yours and no migration is needed if the arrangement ends.
Quality management (cert. H3CR9TCU20251212INDQM10N)
Covers how the work is run, recorded and released, and how confidentiality is maintained.
Responsible Use of AI
Our Approach to AI Use and Disclosure
AI tools support specific, checkable tasks. Editorial judgement, final wording and sign-off remain with Pubrica subject specialists.
Why We Do Not Publish an AI Accuracy Figure
Accuracy figures for AI tools are usually reported by the companies that sell them.
Pubrica therefore does not quote a self-generated accuracy figure, because it would carry the same conflict of interest. Instead, we tell you which tool was used on your project, at which stage, and what a specialist changed afterwards.
Our Process
How We Take Over Your Editorial Office
We hand over editorial office work in stages, and your editors remain in control throughout.
Policy and permissions
We document your editorial policy, decision rights, templates, house style and escalation routes, and then set up system access under your permissions.
Staged handover
We take over triage first, then reviewer operations, then correspondence. Each stage is stable before the next begins, so no submission is missed during the transition.
Editorial desk management
We carry out triage, reviewer identification and invitation, follow-up, report collation and decision letter preparation according to your policy and schedule.
Reporting and review
We report where submissions are waiting, which stages are slow and how reliable reviewers are, and hold regular reviews with your editors on what to change.
Our experts
Your Editorial Office Team
A named team of subject specialists stays with your project from scoping to delivery. Your project coordinator introduces each team member by name before work begins.
Reviews the scientific content for accuracy and confirms that each conclusion is supported by the evidence. Each expert is matched to your field of research.
Edits for clarity, grammar, structure and consistency while preserving the author voice and scientific meaning.
Checks the finished work independently against the agreed scope and the applicable checklist. Findings are logged and resolved before delivery.
Manages the timeline, keeps you informed at each stage and coordinates the team so that questions are answered and deadlines are met.
Packages
Editorial Office Service Packages
Pricing depends on submission volume and on how much of the editorial desk you want us to cover.
Triage and screening
For journals whose editors spend too much time on administration
Quoted per projectOn submission volume
Delivery By arrangement
- ✓Completeness and scope screening
- ✓Compliance statement checking
- ✓Similarity and integrity screening
- ✓Author correspondence on administrative matters
- ✓Submissions passed to editors ready for assessment
This is the lowest-cost option and often the one that saves editors the most time.
Deliverables Request a quoteFull editorial office
For journals and societies outsourcing peer review operations
Quoted per projectOn volume and scope of service
Delivery By arrangement
- ✓Everything in triage
- ✓Reviewer identification, invitation and chasing
- ✓Report collation and quality checking
- ✓Decision letter preparation for editor sign-off
- ✓Author and reviewer correspondence
- ✓Operational reporting to your board
Your editors make every decision, and we manage the workflow.
Deliverables Request a quoteSend three months of submission data and we will analyse, free of charge, where the time is being spent. The answer often differs from what editors expect.
FAQs
Editorial Office Services FAQs
If your question is not listed here, ask an expert. No quote is required.
No, and that boundary is written into the arrangement. We administer peer review; your editors decide. Decision letters are prepared for an editor to review, amend and sign.
An editorial office that made decisions would compromise editorial independence, which editorial boards do not accept.
No. We work inside the system you already use, whether ScholarOne, Editorial Manager, eJournalPress or another, under permissions you grant and can revoke.
This also simplifies ending the arrangement: the record stays in your system, so no migration is needed.
They are separate services. Pre-submission peer review is for authors who want their manuscript assessed before submission.
Editorial office services operate a journal’s peer review process on behalf of the publisher. The clients and the work are different, and the two services never handle the same manuscript.
All submissions are handled confidentially. For every reviewer invitation, we check for conflicts against the author list and institutions.
Where we have another relationship that could affect a submission, we declare it to the editor, and the submission is handled by a different team member or returned to you.
In most cases it does, mainly through consistent follow-up. Most delay comes from invitations that were not followed up and reports that were not collated.
We do not estimate an improvement before seeing your data. Send three months of submission data and we will show you where the time is being spent.
Related services
Related Editorial and Production Services
Editorial office work connects with submission screening, research integrity and production. These related services cover those areas.
1SCREENING BEFORE EDITORIAL ASSESSMENTat submission
Compliance statement checkingEthics, funding, COI and data. Plagiarism and AI screeningSimilarity and authorship screening.2SPECIALIST REVIEWmethods and integrity
Statistical reviewMethods and analysis checked. Forensic and quality auditIntegrity and documentation review.3POST-PUBLICATION AND INDEXINGafter publication
Research integrity casesCorrections and retractions handled to COPE guidance. Journal indexing applicationsDOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science.Request a Free Analysis of Your Submission Data
We will analyse, free of charge, where the time is being spent. Reviewer follow-up is often a significant source of delay.