Guidelines for editorial moderation of referee reports

Guidelines for editorial moderation of referee reports as PDF

Practice

The Royal Society Te Apārangi, acting as the Executive support for the Marsden Fund Council, expects that referees will conduct their work objectively without personal criticism of the Investigators associated with the proposals. We also expect that referees will declare competing interests and manage them appropriately. It is our view that the comments from referees will be transmitted to the authors in full. On rare occasions, however, we will redact grades that have inadvertently been entered into the body of the report by the referee. 'Authors should recognize that criticisms are not necessarily unfair simply because they are expressed in robust language' Nature Research journals (https://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html).

The staff of the Royal Society Te Apārangi will use editorial practices consistent with those implemented by research publishers and the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/).

The staff of the Royal Society Te Apārangi are expected to act in a professional manner befitting the image of the Society and comply with Society's Code of Professional Standards and Ethics in carrying out these duties (https://royalsociety.org.nz/who-we-are/our-rules-and-codes/code-of-professional-standards-and-ethics/).

History

Policy last reviewed August 2018.