Editorial Policies and Publication Ethics

Journal Information

Aims & Scope

Stacks Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes original research across all natural and social scientific disciplines. We publish rigorously executed research that is grounded in transparent, reproducible methodology. We accept work based on methodological soundness, not the significance of its findings. Negative and null results, replication studies and protocols are welcomed. We also consider perspectives and reviews.

Stacks offers Continuous Article Publication (CAP), where articles are published online immediately after production in HTML and as a downloadable PDF. We publish a minimum of 10 original research articles per calendar year. Stacks Journal’s primary audience consists of active researchers, academic scholars, and scientific practitioners worldwide.

ISSN

ISSN: 2836-4856

Publisher & Contact

Publisher: Stacks Journal, Inc.

Ownership: Stacks Journal is owned and published by Stacks Journal, Inc., a privately held corporation.

Registered office: 5441 S Macadam Ave, Ste R, Portland OR, 97239, USA

Mailing Address: 16409 SE Division St, Ste 216 PMB 1098, Portland, OR 97236, USA

Contact Person: Dr. David Green, Editor-in-Chief

Email: contact@stacksjournal.org

Editorial Independence & Non-Discrimination

Editorial decisions at Stacks Journal are based on the scholarly merit of the work as determined by peer review. Decisions are not influenced by the nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs, career stage, institutional affiliation, or geographic location of the authors, nor by the authors' fee or discount status.

The Editor-in-Chief holds final authority over all editorial decisions and exercises that authority independently of the journal's commercial operations, its members, and its institutional members. Stacks Journal reviews its policies periodically to ensure they do not create barriers to participation for any group of authors, reviewers, or editors.

Editorial Governance

Stacks Journal is led by an Editor-in-Chief, an Editorial Board, and Editorial Staff. Together, they uphold the journal’s rigorous academic standards and oversee the evolution of its Editorial Policies. Our editorial board is listed here and their roles and responsibilities are outlined below:

Editor-in-Chief (EiC)

The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) provides strategic vision and holds final authority over the journal’s standards and publication decisions. The EiC oversees the development and revision of Editorial Policies, drafts necessary updates, solicits and synthesizes feedback from the Editorial Board, oversees the implementation of new guidelines and workflows, and ensures consistent application of the Editorial Policies.

Editorial Board Members

Editorial Board Members serve as strategic advisors to ensure the journal remains reputable and upholds the highest standards in scientific publishing. They provide high-level guidance on Stacks Journal’s scope and Editorial Policies, advise on the Author and Reviewer experiences, offer feedback on Stacks Journal’s external communications (e.g., website and public-facing materials), and contribute strategic insight to the journal’s development and growth. View our Editorial Board here.

Section Editors

Section Editors are subject-matter specialists who represent specific scientific disciplines across the journal’s scope. Serving in a targeted advisory capacity, Section Editors contribute to the ongoing refinement of editorial policies, assist with complex research ethics evaluations, and advise the Editorial Team on manuscripts with conflicting peer-review evaluations. Section Editors may also occasionally suggest qualified peer reviewers within their field, though they do not manage operational desk checks or manuscript routing.

Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff manage the day-to-day operations of Stacks Journal’s peer review and publication processes. They conduct initial manuscript screening (“Desk Checks”) to confirm compliance with formatting and scope requirements, identify, vet, and coordinate qualified reviewers, facilitate the peer review process, communicate with authors and reviewers, and manage the final stages of production including layout, proofing, and digital publication of accepted articles. Editorial Staff operate under the direction of the EiC.

Internal Publication Limits (Endogeny Policy)

To minimize publication bias and ensure a diverse scholarly record, Stacks Journal strictly monitors internal publications. The proportion of published articles authored or co-authored by the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board members, Section Editors, or active Editorial Staff will not exceed 25% of the journal's total published content within any calendar year. Any submission from an editorial team member is subject to strict recusal protocols during the peer review process to ensure completely independent, blinded evaluation.

Article Submissions

Stacks Journal publishes original research articles, in two formats (2-Pager and Long-Form), as well as reviews and perspectives. For additional information on manuscript requirements and formatting, see our Instructions to Authors. Stacks Journal retains the right to modify, update, or change these formatting requirements at any time. The requirements in force when a manuscript is submitted apply to that submission. Authors may submit their article on the Instructions to Authors webpage. Authors must have permission from all co-authors to submit their work to Stacks Journal. Articles submitted to Stacks Journal must represent original work that has not been published elsewhere*. Authors must disclose any related manuscript that is under consideration or in press elsewhere, and provide a copy if asked.

To ensure global discoverability and compliance with international indexing standards, all manuscripts submitted to Stacks Journal must be written entirely in English. Additionally, all article titles, abstracts, and author keywords must be provided in English, and all bibliographic references must be formatted in Roman script. We strongly encourage corresponding authors to provide an ORCID iD at submission.

* Posting a manuscript on a recognized preprint server prior to submission does not constitute prior publication and is permitted. Authors may submit manuscripts that have previously appeared as preprints. Prior presentation at conferences, publication of abstracts, or inclusion in a thesis or institutional repository is also acceptable. Manuscripts that have been formally published in a peer-reviewed journal, or are under consideration elsewhere, are not eligible for submission to Stacks.

Authorship & Contributorship

Submission of a manuscript to Stacks Journal implies that all listed authors fulfill the criteria as described by ICMJE and fully endorse the content, confirm its accuracy, approve of its submission, and agree to be accountable for the entire work. The Corresponding Author is responsible for managing all communication related to the manuscript. We require all articles to have a clear statement of contributorship following the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) as outlined in the Instructions to Authors. Each author must have made a substantial contribution, approved of the final version, and agreed to be accountable for the work. Those that do not meet the author requirements can be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Authors should acknowledge contributors who are declared non-authors in the Acknowledgments section. Authors may use their preferred or legal names.

Authorship changes during the revision stage must be approved by all of the co-authors and approved by editorial staff. Stacks Journal reserves the right to request a signed statement of agreement supporting any changes in the authorship of any manuscript. Authorship changes after acceptance are generally not considered; after publication, a change to the author list is made through a Correction (see Corrections).

Stacks Journal emails each listed co-author to confirm their involvement in the submission. Disputes about authorship are referred to the authors' institutions, following COPE guidance, and the manuscript is paused while a dispute is open.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as Large Language Models (LLMs) cannot be listed as authors or coauthors under any circumstance because they cannot take legal responsibility for the published work or manage conflicts of interest.

Data, Materials, Protocol Accessibility, & Code (Data Sharing)

Stacks Journal is committed to maximizing research transparency and reproducibility. Authors must ensure that all elements necessary to replicate their findings are readily available to readers, aligning with FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

Data Availability Statement

Authors are required to include a clear Data Availability Statement within their manuscript. This must specify the location and means of access for all data supporting the results. We strongly encourage publishing data with the manuscript in Stacks Journal or in recognized repositories (eg., Dryad, Zenodo, Figshare). If authors cannot make data publicly available due to ethical, legal, or privacy restrictions, then authors must explicitly state these limitations and provide clear justification.

Materials & Protocols

For complete reproducibility, authors must provide detailed information about the materials used and the exact experimental or analysis protocols in the manuscript. When listing reagents, include the manufacturer's name, catalog number (and lot number for antibodies) for all reagents used (including fluorochromes and stains). For any cell lines used, provide the source, derivation and authentication method. If materials or protocols are proprietary, authors should describe alternative methods for readers to reproduce the experiment or analysis where possible.

Code Accessibility

If the research relied on custom code or software, authors must detail how this code can be accessed. Where applicable, code should be published in Stacks Journal as supplementary material or archived in a repository that issues a persistent identifier (e.g., Zenodo, which can archive a release from GitHub or GitLab). Any restrictions on code accessibility must be clearly stated and justified.

Research Ethics

General Requirements

Any manuscript reporting human participants, materials derived from humans, human tissues, associated data, or research involving animals must confirm compliance with internationally accepted ethical standards. In addition to journal policies below, all authors must ensure full compliance with their respective institutional regulations and country-specific laws governing research involving human and animal subjects. The Editorial Team may request additional information for studies involving human participants or animals.

Authors must follow the appropriate reporting guidelines when presenting data as outlined below.

Human Subject Research

For human research, authors must adhere to the ethical standards set forth by the Declaration of Helsinki (2024 revision). All research involving humans must be conducted in a fair and ethical manner and, where required, must be approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB), an independent ethics committee, or another designated oversight body before the research begins. Authors must state in the manuscript the full name of the approving committee or institutional body and the protocol or approval number. If the research was exempt from review, authors must say so and name the body that granted the exemption: whether approval is needed is decided by an ethics committee or IRB, not by the authors (see Non-Interventional Studies and Handling of Identifiable Data).

Authors must confirm that they obtained informed consent from all human participants, and state whether consent was written or oral; if it was oral, they must say why written consent was not obtained and how oral consent was documented. For subjects considered vulnerable (e.g., minors/children), written, informed consent from a legal guardian is mandatory, as is the verbal or written assent of the participant, where age-appropriate. If an ethics committee officially waived the requirement for consent as it is not mandated by local legislation, then authors must explicitly and clearly document this exception within the manuscript. The manuscript should not include identifiable information unless it is strictly needed, and only with written consent.

Where a study reports participants' sex, gender, race or ethnicity, authors must explain how these categories were defined and assigned (for example, whether they were self-reported) and why they were used. Studies that report sex and gender should follow the SAGER guidelines.

Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry before the first participant is enrolled. Acceptable registries include those recognized by the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), such as ClinicalTrials.gov and other equivalent national registries.

Authors must provide the trial registration number and registry name in the manuscript at the time of submission. Manuscripts describing clinical trials that were not prospectively registered may be declined unless a clear and justified explanation is provided.

Research Involving Animals

Authors must ensure that all research involving animals is conducted ethically, responsibly, and in accordance with institutional, national, and international guidelines. Relevant frameworks include (but are not limited to) the EU Regulations for Animal Research, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines, the NC3Rs, and the ARRIVE guidelines. Studies should adhere to the principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement (3Rs) to promote humane and scientifically justified animal use. Authors must obtain approval in advance from their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or an equivalent animal ethics committee, and provide the committee name, any relevant permit numbers, and other key experimental details at the time of submission. The Editorial Team may request additional information including details needed to assess animal welfare or experiments that use death as an endpoint.

Field Research, Permits & Specimens

Research carried out in the field, or on specimens, samples or materials collected from the wild, must have every permit and permission it needs. In the Methods, authors must name the permits and the authorities that issued them; say whether the work took place on private or protected land, and that the owner or managing authority gave permission; and say whether any protected or threatened species were sampled. Collecting and exporting specimens or samples must comply with the laws of every country involved, with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and, where it applies, with the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing. Stacks Journal does not publish research based on specimens that were obtained or exported illegally.

Specimens described or figured in an article — including type, voucher and fossil specimens — must be deposited in a permanent, publicly accessible collection, with their catalog or accession numbers given in the manuscript. Wildlife studies must also meet the requirements under Research Involving Animals, and studies that use camera traps, drones or other remote recording must protect the privacy of any people recorded.

Authors naming a new animal species must register the name in ZooBank before publication and give the registration identifiers in the manuscript, as the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature requires for works published online. Names of plants, fungi and other organisms follow their own codes and registries (for example IPNI or MycoBank).

Where research is carried out in a country other than the authors' own, or uses samples, data or knowledge from local or Indigenous communities, local researchers who meet the authorship criteria should be included as authors, and other contributors acknowledged. Authors must describe the local permits and approvals they obtained.

Non-Interventional Studies and Handling of Identifiable Data

Many surveys may require IRB review, particularly if identifiable information is collected or if questions address sensitive topics. In certain cases, such as anonymous, low-risk surveys, the study might qualify for Exempt status or expedited IRB review, but this decision should be made by the IRB or Ethics committee, not the authors. If a survey was determined to be exempt from IRB approval, the authors should supply institutional documentation confirming this. For all non-interventional research, the authors have an obligation to provide participants with clear information regarding: the objective and purpose of the research, how the data are utilized, any potential risks associated with participation, and the measures taken to ensure participants’ anonymity and confidentiality.

All patient data must be anonymized if it is not essential for the relevance or core details of the reported study. If case details, personal data, and/or photographs that could potentially identify a patient are necessary for the manuscript, it is required to acquire from the patient or their legal representative a separate signed informed consent specifically authorizing the publication of this identifiable information.

Reporting Guidelines

Authors should follow recognized reporting standards appropriate for their study design to ensure transparency and reproducibility. Authors must follow the established reporting guideline for their study design where one exists, such as CONSORT for randomized clinical trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, STROBE for observational studies, ARRIVE for animal research, and CARE for clinical case reports. Authors must include the completed checklist for randomized trials (CONSORT, with its flow diagram) and for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA), and should include it for other study designs.

For quantitative work, authors should report the sample size and how it was determined; the statistical tests used, including whether they were one- or two-sided; exact P values; effect sizes with confidence intervals; how outliers and multiple comparisons were handled; and the software and versions used. Where a study was pre-registered, authors must cite the registration and explain any departure from it.

Peer Review & Editorial Processes

All submissions to Stacks Journal, including articles as part of Special Issues, undergo a rigorous and independent peer review process. The entire process is double-anonymized (i.e., double-blind), meaning neither the authors' nor the reviewers' identities are disclosed during peer review. Our peer review is transparent; we publish peer review reports and reviewer identities alongside all accepted articles. This process is the same for all manuscripts, including those submitted to Special Issues. Editorials, Correction Notices and other notices published by the journal are not peer reviewed. In short, each article submitted to Stacks Journal goes through a Desk Check to ensure it is ready for peer review, followed by a rigorous peer review process in which the share of reviewers who must accept an article for it to be published depends on how many of them completed a review; the thresholds are set out under Final Decision. More information is detailed below. Henceforth, the “Editorial Team” includes the Editor-in-Chief and Stacks Journal’s editorial staff.

Desk Check

After submission, the Editorial Team reviews each manuscript to: ensure it has all of the required article sections as outlined in the Instructions to Authors, confirm author identities, check manuscripts being considered for peer review for plagiarism using iThenticate, and confirm compliance with Stacks Journal’s Editorial Policies.

We do not screen articles for perceived novelty of the research, only for their adherence to Stacks Journal’s Editorial Policies.

If the submission is within scope but requires minor alterations (e.g., inclusion of missing, non-critical components), the Editorial Team will return the manuscript to the authors. Authors must complete these necessary edits before the submission can be considered for peer review.

The Editorial Team desk rejects submissions that are incomplete, lack the essential sections outlined in the Instructions to Authors, outside the scope of Stacks Journal, or are otherwise not ready for peer review. Manuscripts rejected at Desk Check are not eligible for resubmission to Stacks Journal.

Preparing an Anonymized Manuscript

Because review in Stacks Journal is double-blind (i.e., double-anonymized), authors must remove information that identifies them before they submit. Our platform removes the Authors, Acknowledgements, Author Contributions and Funding sections before a manuscript reaches a reviewer. It cannot remove identifying details from the rest of the text, so authors should:

• cite their own earlier work in the third person ("Smith et al. showed", not "we showed"), and leave out citations that would identify them;

• replace institution names, study locations and grant numbers that would identify them with "[removed for review]" or “[Blinded]”;

• give the name of the approving ethics committee and the approval number as "[removed for review]" during review, and restore them after acceptance;

• remove their names from file names, figure files and document properties.

Posting a preprint is permitted (see Article Submissions), but it means a reviewer could find the authors' identities. Authors who have posted a preprint should tell the Editorial Team at submission. Reviewers must not search for the authors of a manuscript they are reviewing, and a reviewer who recognizes the work or its authors must tell the Editorial Team. After publication, authors should update their preprint with a link to the published article.

Peer Review

Once the manuscript passes Desk Check, the journal’s Editorial Team invites qualified reviewers who have previously published peer-reviewed articles and have expertise in the subject matter. Authors will also have the opportunity to nominate reviewers for approval by the Editorial Staff. The Editorial Team vets a nominated reviewer from their own publication record and contacts them using details it finds independently, never only those the author supplied. All reviewers must disclose any potential Conflicts of Interest and must adhere to our Conflicts of Interest Policy.

A minimum of two, and a maximum of eight, subject-matter experts review each manuscript. Reviewers assess the manuscript together with any supplementary information it includes, and may examine the data and code that the authors make available. Review takes place during two phases. First, reviewers receive the article for two weeks to perform an independent review. Then, for the following two weeks there is a single collaborative document where reviewers can anonymously add their line-by-line feedback, comments, and interact with the other reviewers.

The review process is completed when reviewers submit their Final Thoughts Form, which requires detailed commentary on the article’s study design, interpretation, reproducibility, and ethics. In this form, reviewers must vote for their suggested outcome for the manuscript:

• Accept with no revisions and no more peer review

• Accept with minor revisions and no more peer review

• Require major revisions and another peer review

• Reject

During peer review, the Editorial Team may remove reviewer comments that are offensive, harmful, insulting, violate professional standards, or compromise confidentiality.

The collaborative document becomes part of the published record, so reviewers should argue the science there rather than lobby other reviewers for their votes, and must not reveal their own identity or speculate about anyone else's. A reviewer who suspects misconduct — fabrication, plagiarism, an undisclosed conflict of interest, or an ethics breach — should raise it privately with the Editorial Team at contact@stacksjournal.org rather than in the shared document. That correspondence is not published.

Reviewers must participate in all rounds of peer review and submit a Final Thoughts Form each time to be considered a reviewer for the article. A reviewer who does not complete a later round is not counted among the completed reviewers for that decision. What they contributed — their Final Thoughts Forms, comments and line-by-line suggestions — is still published with the article, but under their reviewer label (for example, "Reviewer 4") rather than their name and profile.

Reviewers may withdraw from a review at any time by telling the Editorial Team; what they have already written is then treated in the same way. The Editorial Team may remove a reviewer who has an undisclosed conflict of interest, breaches confidentiality, requests inappropriate citations, or repeatedly misses deadlines, and may invite a replacement.

Criteria for Publication

Because acceptance follows the reviewers' votes (see Final Decision), we ask every reviewer to judge a manuscript against the same criteria:

1. The research is original and has not been published elsewhere.

2. The methods and analysis meet a high technical standard and are described in enough detail for others to reproduce them.

3. The conclusions follow from the data, and speculation is presented as such.

4. The research meets our Research Ethics requirements and follows the relevant reporting guidelines.

5. The data, code and materials are available as our Data Sharing policy requires.

6. The manuscript is written clearly enough in English to be understood and assessed.

In keeping with our Aims & Scope, we ask reviewers not to judge the novelty, perceived importance or likely impact of the findings, and a negative or null result is not in itself a reason to reject. Each reviewer's vote is their own judgment, and it counts as cast.

Reviewer Consent to Publication

Stacks Journal operates transparent peer review. Reviewers are informed at the time of invitation that, if the manuscript is accepted for publication, their name and their full review — including their Final Thoughts Form, their comments and replies in the collaborative document, their line-by-line suggestions, and their recommended outcome — will be published alongside the article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), and their institution and research profile links (for example their ORCID iD, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, OpenAlex, or personal site) may be published with it.

Accepting an invitation to review a manuscript for Stacks Journal constitutes consent to this publication. Reviewers who do not wish their identity or reports to be published should decline the invitation. Consent cannot be withdrawn after the review has been submitted. A reviewer's published name records that they reviewed the article, with their own recommendation shown beside it; it is not an endorsement of the article. A reviewer who does not complete every round is published under their reviewer label instead of their name, as described under Peer Review.

Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors or to other reviewers at any point during peer review, and are released only upon publication of the accepted article. Reviews of manuscripts that are rejected or withdrawn are not published, and the identities of reviewers of unpublished manuscripts remain confidential.

Recognition as a "Collaborator" is separate from this consent and is opt-in, as described under Publication.

Author Responses & Revisions

During the revision process, authors respond to reviewer comments in the collaborative document and address their feedback to improve the manuscript.

After the authors notify the Editorial Team that they have completed their revisions, Stacks Journal will send the revised article and responses to reviewers back out to the original group of reviewers to perform a new evaluation using the same peer review process outlined above. If the total number of reviewers who participate in the review of the revised article is fewer than two, Stacks Journal will invite a new group of reviewers to participate in the peer review.

If authors have not resubmitted an article or been granted an extension within 30 days after its resubmission deadline, Stacks Journal reserves the right to reject the article and remove it from consideration. Authors can request a time extension to resubmit an article by contacting Stacks Journal at contact@stacksjournal.org. We consider all requests on a case-by-case basis.

Withdrawing a Manuscript

Authors may withdraw a manuscript at any point before it is published. To withdraw, the corresponding author should email contact@stacksjournal.org from the address on the submission, giving the manuscript title and the reason for withdrawal. We will confirm the withdrawal in writing.

Withdrawal ends the review in progress. Any reviewers assigned to the manuscript are told that it has been withdrawn and that their review has ended. Reviews of a withdrawn manuscript are not published and the identities of its reviewers remain confidential, as described under Reviewer Consent to Publication.

Submission fees and memberships are not refunded when a manuscript is withdrawn (see Submission Fees, Memberships, & Special Issues). A withdrawn manuscript and the review record attached to it are kept in our editorial archive rather than deleted, as part of the record of what the journal reviewed.

A manuscript cannot be withdrawn once it has been published. After publication the routes available are a Correction, an Expression of Concern, or a Retraction, described under Post-Publication Policies.

Final Decision

Articles in Stacks Journal are accepted based on the proportion of completed peer reviews recommending acceptance. The required thresholds are detailed in the table below.

A vote for either "Accept" option counts as a recommendation to accept. Reaching the threshold is necessary for acceptance but not sufficient: the Editor-in-Chief, who holds final authority over editorial decisions, may pause or decline a manuscript that meets it where a concern about research integrity, ethics or compliance with these policies has been raised (see Handling Allegations of Misconduct), and records the reason. The Editor-in-Chief cannot accept a manuscript that falls below the threshold.

Following acceptance, authors receive final reviewer feedback to address any minor revisions prior to publication.

If 50% or more of reviewers vote the article should be rejected, then the article is rejected from Stacks Journal and the comments from reviewers are sent to the authors. Rejected articles are not eligible for resubmission to Stacks Journal.

In all other cases, Stacks Journal returns the manuscript to the authors and they have 42 days to complete any revisions suggested by the reviewers and resubmit their manuscript to Stacks Journal.

Submissions may undergo up to three rounds of peer review, after which Stacks Journal rejects any submissions that don’t meet the threshold for acceptance.

Publication

Once articles are accepted for publication, they are sent to the Editorial Team for copyediting and formatting. Stacks Journal will also send the formatted article to the authors to perform their final proofreading.

Once approval of the article has been returned by the authors, articles are published as both an HTML and PDF and assigned a DOI.

Stacks Journal uses transparent peer review. The comments, suggestions, and votes on every published article are made public and attached to it on publication: the reviewers' names, their reviews, and the number of reviewers who voted to approve the article, as set out under Reviewer Consent to Publication. Reviews of rejected or withdrawn manuscripts are not published.

Reviewers are listed on published papers in the transparent peer review and can opt-in to be recognized as a “Collaborator” on their Final Thoughts Form for their contributions. All “Collaborators” are listed on a line underneath the authors on the final publication. Only reviewers who completed every round of review and recommended acceptance — with or without minor revisions — may be recognized as Collaborators. Recognition as a Collaborator is not authorship: Collaborators do not appear among the authors in the article's citation or in its Crossref record.

Stacks Journal retains the right to calculate metrics derived from the peer review process that can be displayed on any published articles or in user profiles.

Expected Manuscript Turnaround Times

Stacks Journal makes every effort to render the results of a Desk Check within ten days from submission, and a first decision following peer review 45 days after being sent out for peer review. The scheduled process accounts for 35 of those days: a 14-day period where reviewers are able to look at the article independently, a 14-day period of collaborative peer review and voting, and one week for Stacks Journal to collate the feedback. Finding reviewers happens before that, and takes a further 20 days at our current medians. Stacks retains the right to alter, modify, change, or adapt this timeline if needed to provide rigorous peer review for any submission. If a manuscript is delayed beyond these targets, the Editorial Team will tell the authors why, and the authors may withdraw it (see Withdrawing a Manuscript).

* Medians. First decision measured from when a manuscript is sent for peer review. Final decision measured from the start of reviewer outreach to acceptance or rejection, including author-controlled revision delays. Timelines updated 7 October 2026.

Confidentiality of Manuscripts Under Review

Manuscripts submitted to Stacks Journal and the associated peer review materials are confidential documents. Editors and reviewers must not share, distribute, or use unpublished information from a manuscript for personal or professional advantage. Manuscripts and review materials may only be used for the purpose of evaluating the submission.

Reviewers should not disclose the existence or content of a manuscript under review to others without permission from Stacks Journal. If a reviewer wishes to consult a colleague for expertise, this must be disclosed to and approved by Stacks Journal.

Editors and reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of reviewer identities where applicable and must not publicly discuss manuscripts under review. A manuscript under review is seen by the Editorial Team, the reviewers assigned to it, and — where their subject expertise is needed for an ethics evaluation, a conflicting set of reviews, or an appeal — a Section Editor or Editorial Board member. Everyone who sees it is bound by the same duty of confidentiality. A reviewer's access to a manuscript ends when its review is complete: when it is accepted, rejected or withdrawn.

Special Issues

Stacks Journal publishes Special Issues on focused topics within the journal's scope. Special Issues are subject to the same editorial policies, peer review process, and publication standards as all other content. Special Issues in Stacks Journal are edited by the EiC. Stacks Journal does not appoint external Guest Editors.

Special Issue Proposals

Special Issue proposals may be submitted to contact@stacksjournal.org and are evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief on scholarly merit and fit with the journal's scope. Fees for Special Issues are listed under Business & Transparency. Payment of a Special Issue fee has no bearing on the peer review or acceptance of any individual article.

Publishing Ethics & Research Integrity

Stacks Journal is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record and takes any potential misconduct seriously. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to adhere to high standards of research, transparency and publication ethics.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Stacks Journal follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Our commitments on publication ethics are set out in these policies:

• Allegations of misconduct: Handling Allegations of Misconduct

• Authorship and contributorship: Authorship & Contributorship

• Complaints and appeals: Appeals & Complaints

• Conflicts of interest: Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosures

• Data and reproducibility: Data, Materials, Protocol Accessibility, & Code

• Ethical oversight: Research Ethics

• Intellectual property: Intellectual Property & Third-Party Rights

• Journal management: Editorial Governance

• Peer review: Peer Review & Editorial Processes

• Post-publication discussion and corrections: Post-Publication Policies

Scope of this Section

Authorship and contributorship requirements are detailed under Authorship & Contributorship. Data, materials, and code requirements are detailed under Data, Materials, Protocol Accessibility, & Code. Post-publication remedies are detailed under Post-Publication Policies.

Handling Allegations of Misconduct

Stacks Journal takes research integrity seriously. The Editorial Team investigates allegations of plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate submission, image manipulation, excessive self-citation, malpractice, authorship misconduct, or ethical violations in line with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Any confirmed misconduct — found either during peer review or after publication — may result in rejection, correction, and/or retraction.

Concerns about potential misconduct may be raised by editors, reviewers, readers, or other parties. Stacks Journal’s Editorial Team will evaluate such concerns in a fair and confidential manner and may seek additional information from authors, reviewers, institutions, or other relevant parties as appropriate.

If potential misconduct is identified during peer review or editorial assessment, the editorial process may be suspended while the issue is evaluated. Authors may be asked to provide clarifications, supporting documentation, or original data. If misconduct is confirmed or concerns cannot be satisfactorily resolved, the manuscript may be rejected. If concerns arise after publication, the journal may issue corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions in order to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

Where concerns arise, Stacks Journal may contact the authors' institutions, funders, or relevant oversight bodies as part of the investigation process following guidelines provided by COPE.

If you suspect that publication ethics have been compromised for any article, please contact Stacks Journal at contact@stacksjournal.org immediately. The Editorial Team will initiate an investigation with the corresponding authors. Authors have the opportunity to respond to any allegations of misconduct prior to any actions taken by Stacks Journal. If Stacks Journal does not receive any response from the corresponding authors within 30 days, Stacks may proceed with a rejection or retraction. Stacks Journal handles each allegation independently and the outcomes are determined by Stacks Journal. All allegations are kept confidential until the final outcome is determined.

Plagiarism and Text Recycling

Submissions must contain original text and ideas. Plagiarism, including the unattributed use of text, data, images, or ideas from other works, is not permitted. Significant text recycling from an author's previously published work without appropriate disclosure may also be considered unacceptable. Manuscripts being considered for peer review are screened with plagiarism-detection software (iThenticate) during Desk Check.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosures

Stacks Journal is committed to ensuring the integrity and impartiality of published research. We require full and transparent disclosure of all relationships or circumstances that could potentially influence a manuscript’s objectivity, presentation, or the peer review process. If Conflicts of Interest are revealed post-publication, Stacks Journal reserves the right to issue a Correction or, when necessary, a Retraction.

Author Requirements and Responsibilities

All authors must declare any financial or non-financial interests that could be perceived as influencing the research outcomes or interpretation. Financial interests may include employment, stock ownership, royalties, patent applications, consulting fees, or honoraria, etc. Non-financial interests include personal relationships, professional competitions, or strong personal beliefs relevant to the research.

Authors must include clear statements of Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosures in the manuscript text at the time of submission (e.g., “Author A is a consultant for Company X, Author B received stock ownership in Company X, or This research was funded by Organization Z”). If no Conflicts of Interest exist, then the authors must state: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest.” Conflicts of Interests and Funding Disclosures appear in all published articles and in transparent peer reviews.

Authors must also explicitly identify all sources of financial support for the research, including grant numbers where applicable in the manuscript’s dedicated Funding Sources, and state the role, if any, that each funder played in the study design, data collection and analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript. If the research received no specific funding, authors must state: “This research received no external funding.”

The Corresponding Author is responsible for ensuring all co-authors have accurately reported their interests and funding sources.

Reviewer Requirements & Responsibilities

Reviewers must disclose any potential Conflicts of Interest as part of their peer review. The Editorial Team reserves the right to ask reviewers to recuse themselves from handling any manuscript where a financial, competitive, or personal conflict of interest exists with the authors or the subject matter. Failure to disclose Conflicts of Interest may result in removal from the reviewer pool.

Editors, including the Editor-in-Chief, members of the Editorial Board, and Section Editors must recuse themselves from interacting with any manuscript in which they have a conflict of interest. Conflicts may include, but are not limited to, recent or current collaboration with the authors, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, financial interests, or any circumstance that could reasonably be perceived to influence editorial judgment. Editors who are authors on a submission will have no involvement in the editorial assessment or decision-making process for that manuscript.

Use of Generative AI & AI-Assisted Tools

Authors’ use of AI

Stacks Journal recognizes that generative AI and AI-assisted tools (e.g., LLMs, chatbots, henceforth “AI”) can support authors by helping synthesize information, assist with organization and readability of manuscripts, and aid statistical analyses and presentation. These tools may be used during manuscript preparation, but they must never replace an author’s own critical thinking, expertise, or judgment. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all content submitted.

When using AI, authors must carefully review tool terms and conditions to ensure they protect the privacy and confidentiality of any materials uploaded, including unpublished manuscripts or identifiable information. Authors must also verify the accuracy and impartiality of all AI-generated outputs and ensure that no copyrighted, proprietary, or otherwise restricted material is provided to an AI system or added to their manuscript. Any use of AI must be thoroughly reviewed, validated, edited, interpreted, and integrated by the authors, reflecting their own intellectual contribution. Generative AI must not be used to create or alter images that report research results, such as micrographs, gels, blots or photographs, and any AI assistance with other figures, such as schematic diagrams, must be disclosed in the figure legend. Authors must validate AI-generated text, figures, or code, and authors bear full responsibility for any errors, fabricated content, copyrighted or protected material, or biases introduced by AI tools.

To maintain transparency, authors are required to disclose the use of AI in a dedicated AI Declaration Statement in their manuscript at submission, identifying the tool(s) used and the extent of their purpose. Undisclosed AI-generated content may result in rejection or post-publication correction. If no AI tools were used in the preparation of the manuscript, the authors should indicate “No AI was used in the preparation of this manuscript.” Automated tools cannot be credited as authors and generative AI cannot be cited as a source.

Reviewers’ use of AI

Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, reviewer materials, or any associated confidential information to generative AI tools, large language models (LLMs), or AI-assisted writing platforms, as this constitutes a breach of manuscript confidentiality. Reviewers must not use generative AI to write or generate their assessment of a manuscript: a review must be the reviewer's own work and judgment.

Stacks Journal’s use of AI

The Editorial Team will not upload manuscripts, review materials, or any associated confidential information to generative AI tools, as this constitutes a breach of manuscript confidentiality. Editors may use AI-assisted tools for language editing or formatting of correspondence they have already drafted, provided no confidential manuscript content is submitted to the tool. Editors do not use generative AI to make or write their assessment of a manuscript. This restriction concerns the use of external, general-purpose AI services by members of the Editorial Team. It is separate from the platform’s own integrated processing, described below. That processing uses a contracted AI provider under commercial terms that do not permit customer content to be used to train the provider’s models.

Stacks Journal may use anti-plagiarism, text similarity, and AI checking software (e.g., iThenticate) to screen submissions during Desk Check, and may use automated tools to match submitted manuscripts with reviewers based on subject expertise, availability, and review history. Stacks Journal may also use AI-assisted tools to structure manuscripts for typesetting and to derive the subject classifications used for reviewer matching. Where these tools require manuscript content, that content is processed by a contracted AI provider under terms prohibiting its use for model training, and is never submitted to public or consumer AI services. Stacks Journal may also use AI-assisted tools to summarise a reviewer’s publicly available publication record, in order to match reviewers to manuscripts and to support verification of their identity and expertise.

The output of any automated screening or matching tool is reviewed by a member of the Editorial Team before any editorial action is taken; no submission is rejected, flagged, or assigned on the basis of an automated result alone, and no automated tool makes or influences the acceptance or rejection decision itself. Subject classifications are generated automatically and are used only to order the reviewer suggestions presented to the Editorial Team; no reviewer is invited, and no manuscript progresses, without a member of the Editorial Team acting on it.

Stacks Journal may use structured data generated through the editorial process, including subject classifications, reviewer specializations, review outcomes, and processing times, to improve the operation of the platform, including reviewer-matching and editorial workflow tools. This use does not include the text of manuscripts, reviewer comments, or any other unpublished content.

Stacks Journal may use the text of published articles and their associated transparent peer review reports, including all rounds of reviewer votes, comments, and line-by-line feedback, which are published in full, content already made publicly available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), to develop or improve AI tools intended to support the editorial and peer review process.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Authors must ensure that data presented in their manuscripts accurately reflect the results of the research conducted. Fabrication (i.e., making up data or results) and falsification (i.e., manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or data in a way that misrepresents the research record) constitute serious misconduct and will result in editorial action. Authors should retain original data and materials for 6 years after publication and be able to provide them upon request.

Image Integrity

Images must accurately represent the original data. Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color are permitted only if applied uniformly to the entire image and if they do not obscure or misrepresent any information. Selective enhancement, removal, repositioning, or duplication of image elements is not permitted. Any nonlinear adjustments must be disclosed in the legend.

If images must be spliced, the borders must be marked and noted in the legend. If applicable, scale bars must be included. Please include the camera or microscope make and model used to create the image as well as the acquisition software. For microscopy, please include the objective magnification, type and numerical aperture. Magnification must be mentioned in the figure legend.

Images must not be pixelated when reasonably magnified and must be at 300 dpi. TIFF images are encouraged and avoid jpegs or using PowerPoint, as this will compress your images. Authors may be asked to provide original, unprocessed image data during editorial assessment or after publication if concerns arise.

Western Blots

The brightness and contrast of Western blots may be adjusted only uniformly across the whole image, as above, and the background must not be altered. When cropping gels, include at least two molecular weight markers, one above and one below your band of interest. Splicing across different blots is not allowed. If possible, normalize protein levels against total protein, not house-keeping proteins. Post-translationally modified proteins (PTMs) must use total protein for normalization. A molecular ladder and a loading control must be run on each gel and not used across gels. Please make sure raw blots are available as they may be requested.

Charts and Graphs

Data must be presented clearly and in its entirety for transparency. Ensure data points are not obscured and that the axes are labeled clearly.

Citation Practices and Citation Manipulation

References should be included solely on the basis of scholarly relevance. Authors should avoid excessive self-citation or inappropriate citation of specific journals or articles intended to artificially inflate citation metrics. Practices such as coordinated citation rings or coercive citation are considered unethical and may lead to editorial action.

Reviewers and editors should not request the addition of citations that are not directly relevant to the manuscript. Requests to add citations primarily to increase the citation counts are considered inappropriate. Authors who believe such requests have been made may raise the issue confidentially with the editorial office.

The journal may monitor citation patterns and investigate unusual or coordinated citation behavior that may indicate attempts to manipulate citation metrics.

Paper Mills and Systematic Manipulation

Stacks Journal does not accept manuscripts produced or submitted through paper mills or other organized efforts to manipulate the scholarly publication process. Indicators of such manipulation may include fabricated authorship, falsified data, manipulated peer review, or coordinated submissions designed to circumvent editorial oversight. Submissions suspected to be associated with such practices will be investigated and may be rejected or withdrawn. Manipulating peer review (e.g., suggesting fictitious reviewers, or reviewers with an undisclosed relationship to the authors) is misconduct, and can lead to rejection even after acceptance, or to retraction. If a third party submission service is used, please disclose this during the submission process.

Open Access, Copyright, Licensing & Preservation

Open Access & Copyright

All Stacks Journal articles are freely available online without embargoes, subscriptions, or paywalls, ensuring equitable access to knowledge worldwide. Unless otherwise noted, or unless the authors ask for another Creative Commons license or CC0 and we agree to it in writing before publication, we license all articles, peer reviews, datasets, supplementary information, and other content published in Stacks Journal under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this license, anyone can freely read, download, reference, share, or adapt the articles published in Stacks Journal for any lawful purpose, so long as attribution is given to the original authors and the original article is cited. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant Stacks Journal the right to use it in accordance with Stacks Journal’s Terms of Service. In cases where the work was prepared by a U.S. government employee as part of their official duties, the work is not subject to copyright and resides in the public domain. These authors are not required to grant a license to Stacks Journal.

Each published article displays its copyright holder and licensing terms in both the HTML and PDF versions. Authors are given immediate open access to the final version of record (VoR) upon publication without embargo.

Peer review reports are transparent and published with articles under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Intellectual Property & Third-Party Rights

Stacks Journal is committed to protecting authors' intellectual property rights and ensuring transparency around copyright, licensing, and reuse. Authors are responsible for securing all required permissions prior to submission; failure to do so may result in rejection, withdrawal, or retraction of a manuscript.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all materials used in their manuscripts (e.g., text, figures, datasets, tools, code) respect the rights of others. Proper citations and permissions are required for copyrighted or proprietary materials.

Because Stacks Journal publishes under CC BY 4.0, anything in a manuscript that the authors did not create — a figure, photograph, map or table — must be in the public domain, already licensed under CC BY or a compatible license, or included with the rights holder's written permission to publish it under CC BY 4.0. Ordinary permission to reprint is not enough. Material under a non-commercial, no-derivatives or share-alike license cannot be included, and that includes maps drawn on commercial basemaps such as Google Maps. Third-party material is credited in its caption.

Repository Policy

Authors may deposit a copy of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice as well as different versions of the paper at the following points throughout the peer-review process, without any embargo:

• Submitted version

• Accepted version (Author’s Accepted Manuscript)

• Published version (Version of Record Published on the Journal Website)

Indexing & Long-Term Digital Preservation

Stacks Journal is indexed in Google Scholar, Dimensions, OpenAIRE, Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex, and catalogued in WorldCat. Its articles can also be found through discovery tools such as Litmaps, and their metadata is registered with Crossref, the DOI registration agency. Stacks Journal is applying for inclusion in Web of Science, Scopus, and DOAJ.

All articles published in Stacks Journal are assigned DOIs and registered with Crossref. We intend to archive them in CLOCKSS when this service becomes available to Stacks Journal.

Post-Publication Policies

Stacks Journal is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record. As such, below are our policies and procedures for addressing errors in published articles, managing serious ethical concerns, and facilitating post-publication discourse.

Corrections

A published article may need a Correction Notice if meaningful errors are found. Stacks Journal may issue corrections for errors that could affect the understanding of the research (e.g., mistakes in data, methods, terminology, analyses), changes to the author list, adding or removing important text or references, and formatting issues that affect scientific clarity.

We publish a formal Correction Notice and link it to the original article. We also update the original article and mark it with the correction. A change to how an author’s or reviewer’s own name is written — for example after a change of name — is not a change to the author list, and is made without a public notice. Minor typographical errors that do not affect the clarity or interpretation of the research may remain uncorrected to preserve the version of record. Authors are encouraged to carefully proofread their manuscript prior to publication.

Expressions of Concern & Retractions

For serious issues that may affect the reliability of the research, Stacks Journal follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Stacks Journal retracts articles found to be fundamentally unreliable, including for major ethical violations, serious errors that invalidate the research, misconduct such as plagiarism, data fabrication, or falsification. Retracted articles are clearly labeled as Retracted and a separate Retraction Notice will be published and linked to the original article. A retracted article stays online, marked as retracted, together with its published peer review, and the Retraction Notice says who requested the retraction and whether the authors agree with it. Content is removed only where the law requires it or where it poses a serious risk to health or safety; the article's metadata and a notice explaining the removal then remain.

If serious concerns arise and an investigation into the article by the Editorial Team is ongoing, Stacks Journal may publish an Expression of Concern to alert readers that the validity of the article is under review. If you suspect that the integrity of any article is compromised, please contact Stacks Journal at contact@stacksjournal.org immediately.

Editorial Decision Process

The Editorial Team at Stacks Journal handles all requests for Corrections, Expressions of Concern, or Retractions. We may consult external experts or the authors’ institutions when needed.

Post-Publication Review & Discussion

Readers can send feedback to the authors through a link on the article webpage and authors may respond at their discretion. All feedback will be sent to authors via the corresponding author's email address. Readers are also encouraged to share comments and critiques on social media, scholarly platforms, research networks, and other public forums.

Article Versioning

The Version of Record (VoR) is the definitive published version of an article.

Substantive changes to a published article, including corrections to data, methods, results, interpretation, author lists, or references, are handled through the Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions procedures in our Post-Publication Policies, and are accompanied by a linked notice.

Non-substantive changes that do not affect the interpretation of the research, such as the correction of broken links, metadata errors, or display problems, may be made without a formal notice.

Appeals & Complaints

Stacks Journal is committed to maintaining the highest standards of fairness, transparency, and ethical conduct in peer review and scientific publishing. Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may submit an appeal to the editorial office. Appeals should include a clear explanation of the basis for the appeal and, where appropriate, a response to the reviewers’ comments. An appeal may be made once for each manuscript, within 30 days of the decision. Appeals are considered on the grounds that our process was not followed, a policy was misapplied, or a reviewer had an undisclosed conflict of interest or acted improperly; disagreement with the reviewers' scientific judgment is not, on its own, a ground for appeal. Each appeal is evaluated by someone who did not handle the manuscript — a member of the Editorial Team or of the Editorial Board — who may consult Section Editors or new reviewers, and a successful appeal may send the manuscript to a new panel of reviewers. We aim to decide an appeal within 30 days. Decisions reached after the appeal process are considered final.

If authors, reviewers, or readers would like to file a formal appeal or complaint, please contact Stacks Journal at contact@stacksjournal.org.

All complaints must be submitted in writing and should include specific details, supporting evidence, a clear description of the issue, and contact information of the complainant. We also consider concerns raised anonymously where they are supported by evidence. A complaint about the conduct of the Editor-in-Chief is referred to the Editorial Board, which considers it independently of the Editor-in-Chief. The Editorial Team handles all appeals or complaints and may result in re-review, rejection, correction, or retraction. The Editorial Team handles allegations of research, publication, or reviewer misconduct strictly in accordance with the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Business & Transparency

Submission Fees, Memberships, & Special Issues

Stacks Journal is dedicated to supporting equitable and affordable Open Access (OA) publishing through transparent financial practices. We list all fees in US Dollars ($USD) and they are due at the time of submission to cover the peer review and editorial operations of Stacks Journal. Authors publishing under a membership for unlimited publishing must have a valid membership at the time of submission. We require no additional fees to publish in Stacks Journal.

• Single article submission: $399

• Membership for a year of unlimited publishing for one first author: $499

• Membership for a year of unlimited publishing for up to ten different first authors: $1000

• Membership for a year of unlimited publishing for large groups or institutions with more than ten first authors: negotiated on a case by case basis. Contact us at contact@stacksjournal.org.

• Special Issue for up to ten articles: $1000; additional articles can be added for $100 each

Stacks Journal retains the right to offer periodic sales, discounts, or limited-time special offers that can reduce the costs outlined above. Stacks Journal’s pricing is subject to change. A change applies only to a charge made after it takes effect. Memberships and submission fees are non-refundable, including where an article is withdrawn or rejected. There are no additional withdrawal, page, or color charges. A fee reduction of any kind has no bearing on the peer review process or publication timeline. All submissions, regardless of fee status, are subject to the same rigorous peer review and production schedules.

Revenue Sources

Stacks Journal operates under a gold Open Access model, funded through Article Submission Fees, Memberships for Unlimited Publishing, Special Issues, and Institutional Memberships (see Submission Fees, Memberships, & Special Issues). All fees are publicly posted and cover the costs of editorial management, peer review administration, production, and permanent open-access hosting. To uphold absolute editorial independence, the decision to accept or reject a manuscript is made on the basis of its peer review and these Editorial Policies, and never on payment, membership or fee status. Institutional Memberships grant no influence whatsoever over publication decisions.

Advertising

Stacks Journal does not accept any third-party advertising in any form. No commercial advertisements, sponsored content, or promotional materials appear in the journal, its website, or its published articles. This policy ensures that scientific publishing can remain fully independent and free from commercial influence.

Direct Marketing

Stacks Journal may contact researchers directly to invite submissions, to invite participation as a reviewer or Editorial Board member, or to announce Special Issues. All such outreach is targeted to researchers with demonstrated expertise relevant to the journal's scope, and is truthful about the journal's identity, scope, peer review process, fees, and indexing status.

Stacks Journal does not make unsolicited bulk approaches to authors outside the journal's scope, does not guarantee or imply guaranteed acceptance in any communication, and does not represent the journal's indexing, metrics, or standing inaccurately. Recipients may opt out of all marketing communications at any time by contacting contact@stacksjournal.org.