For Reviewers

Why review for PBS?

Reviewing is how the journal tests a manuscript before it becomes part of the record. JPBS publishes across the pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences; reports from people who actually work in those methods are what make that possible.

The work is unpaid scholarly service. It is not a ranking exercise and it is not a claim about the journal’s Impact Factor — JPBS has not published one.

Reviewer responsibilities

Read the anonymised manuscript. Say whether the methods support the claims. Mark what must change before the paper is sound, and what would merely make it nicer.

• Respond to the invitation promptly — accept, decline, or say you need a short extension.
• Keep the manuscript, the figures and any data you were sent confidential.
• Declare competing interests before you write the report, or as soon as you notice them.
• Do not use the unpublished work in your own research or teaching.
• Do not invite a colleague into the review unless the editor has agreed.

How peer review works

JPBS uses double-anonymised review. Authors anonymise the manuscript file. Reviewers do not see author names; authors do not see reviewer names. Editors see identities so they can manage competing interests and choose reviewers.

Editorial assessment happens first. Only manuscripts that can be reviewed as submitted are sent out. The editor, not the reviewers, makes the decision.

1. Invitation

   An editor invites you when the subject matches your stated expertise. The invitation carries an anonymised title, the article type and a deadline — not author names.

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2. Accept / Decline

   Accept only if you can be timely, unbiased and competent on the methods. Decline promptly if you cannot, and say so. Suggesting another reviewer is optional.

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3. Access manuscript

   The workspace shows the abstract, the anonymised file, figures and any supplementary material the authors deposited. Author identity is not in that view.

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4. Review manuscript

   Read for the question, the method and the honesty of the limitation. Separate essential faults from optional improvements.

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5. Submit comments

   Comments to authors should be usable by the authors. Confidential comments to the editor are for process, competing interests or concerns you would not put on the author letter.

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6. Submit recommendation

   Recommend accept, minor revision, major revision or reject. That recommendation is advice. It is not the decision.

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7. Editor decision

   The handling editor reads the reports and decides. You do not see the other reviewers, their comments, or the editor’s notes.

Confidentiality

An unpublished manuscript is privileged. Do not share it, quote it in a talk, or deposit it. Do not discuss it with the authors. If you need a colleague’s help on a method, ask the editor first; the colleague then becomes bound by the same confidence.

The reviewer workspace is built so that author identity, other reviewers, other reports and editor-only notes are not in the payload you receive. That is an access rule, not a hidden button.

Conflict of interest

A competing interest is any relationship that a reasonable reader would want disclosed: recent collaboration, the same institution, a financial interest in a product the paper evaluates, a personal relationship, or a paper of your own that the manuscript attacks or depends on.

If you are unsure, tell the editor and wait. Reviewing a paper so you can delay a competitor is misconduct. Reviewing a paper by a close collaborator as if you were independent is also misconduct.

AI and reviewer confidentiality

Do not paste a manuscript, figure, or identifiable excerpt into a generative-AI tool. Those tools are not the journal’s confidential processor. Using them on unpublished text is a breach of confidence, whether or not the vendor says the prompt is retained.

If you used a tool only to check the grammar of your own report, say so in the confidential comments to the editor. The scientific judgement must be yours. A tool is not a co-reviewer.

How to write a useful review

Open with what the paper is trying to do, in a sentence. Then the faults that would change the conclusion, with pointers to where they sit. Optional suggestions come last, labelled as optional. Hostile tone does not make a report more rigorous.

Do not demand a different study. If the work cannot support the claim, say so and recommend rejection or a narrowing of the claim. If a method is missing, say which result depends on it.

Reviewer recognition

The journal can, when the functions are switched on, record a completed-review count on the reviewer’s profile, issue a badge or certificate, and credit an ORCID iD with the reviewer’s consent.

None of those records include the manuscript title under review, the authors, or the text of the report. Recognition that exposed confidential review content would not be recognition — it would be a leak. ORCID reviewer credit and certificates are not connected yet; the profile shows them as not issued.

Reviewer profile

Name, affiliation and expertise the reviewer chooses to show. Not the titles of manuscripts under review.

Reviews completed

A count of completed reports for that reviewer. Not the text of those reports.

Recognition badge

An editor-issued badge, when the journal chooses to issue one. None is issued yet.

Certificate

A downloadable certificate of completed review, when that function is on. No file is deposited yet.

ORCID recognition

Credit to an ORCID iD with the reviewer’s consent, when that connection exists. Review content is not sent. The connection is off.

Become a reviewer

The reviewer pool is people with demonstrated expertise in a method or a literature the journal actually receives. Join from Become a reviewer. Applications are not stored until that pool is connected to an editorial system.