Editorial Policies

Peer review

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.

Decisions

Based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Ethics guidance

COPE guidance and ICMJE recommendations.

Similarity screening

Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate.

Access and license

Open access under CC BY 4.0. Authors retain copyright.

Preservation

JDRR articles are deposited in Portico.

Article processing charge

By article type, payable only after acceptance; withdrawal after submission is subject to the journal's withdrawal policy.

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

In single-blind review, reviewers know the authors' identities and authors are not told the reviewers' identities. Authors who request double-blind review prepare an anonymized manuscript as described in the Instructions for Authors; when double-blind review is requested, editors ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. The handling editor makes the decision, informed by the reviewers' reports, under the oversight of the Editor-in-Chief. Decisions are to accept, to request minor or major revision, or to reject. Reviewers' comments are shared with the authors, and reviewers' identities remain confidential. Guidance for reviewers and editors is given in the Reviewer Guidelines and Editors Guidelines.

Editorial decisions rest with the journal's editors and are independent of the article processing charge, of any fee-relief inquiry and of commercial considerations. Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, members of the editorial board or their close collaborators are handled by an editor without a conflict of interest, and the submitting editor takes no part in their review or decision.

JDRR follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Concerns about plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, duplicate or redundant publication, citation manipulation and undisclosed conflicts of interest are investigated following COPE guidance, and may lead to rejection, correction or retraction.

Research involving human participants, identifiable human data or human biological material requires approval from an appropriate research ethics committee or institutional review board, where applicable. The manuscript names the committee, gives the approval reference number, and states that informed consent was obtained, or a waiver documented by the ethics committee, where applicable. Research is conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, where applicable.

Genetic and genomic studies of people report how consent covers genetic analysis and data sharing, and take care that individuals and families cannot be identified from published sequence or variant data unless they have consented. Case Reports require informed consent for publication from the patient or a legal guardian, or a waiver documented by the ethics committee, where applicable.

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

Studies involving animals require prior approval from the relevant institutional animal care and use committee or animal ethics committee, stated in the manuscript with the approval reference number. The work complies with applicable animal-welfare regulations, applies the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) and is reported in line with the ARRIVE guidelines.

Research with recombinant DNA, gene drives, genome editing of embryos or germ cells, or hazardous biological agents reports compliance with applicable national regulations and institutional biosafety review, where applicable.

Authorship follows the ICMJE criteria: each author has made a substantial contribution to the work, has approved the submitted version and accepts accountability for it. Contributions are described using the CRediT taxonomy. Changes to the author list after submission are requested in writing by the corresponding author with the agreement of all authors, and are approved by the editorial office.

Authors, reviewers and editors declare financial and non-financial interests that could be perceived to influence the work. Authors state all sources of funding and the role of the funder, if any. Declared interests are published with the article.

Submitted manuscripts are screened for overlap with published work using Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate. A similarity report is assessed by an editor in context and is not an automatic accept or reject threshold. Images, including gels, blots and micrographs, are checked for appropriate processing; editors may request original uncropped images.

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. Sequence data, expression data and structures are deposited in an appropriate public repository where applicable, and accession numbers are reported in the manuscript. Reporting follows the relevant guidelines listed in the Instructions for Authors. See also Data Archiving and Permissions.

Authors disclose any use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in preparing the manuscript, including the tool and its purpose, in the Methods or Acknowledgments. AI tools do not qualify as authors, and authors remain responsible for the content.

Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured. Editors follow the same rule for handling manuscripts.

Errors that affect the interpretation of a published article are corrected by a published notice linked to the article. Articles are retracted where findings are unreliable because of misconduct or honest error, following COPE guidance. Notices remain publicly available.

Authors who disagree with a decision may appeal in writing to the editorial office, setting out the reasons and any new evidence. Appeals are considered by an editor who was not involved in the original decision. Complaints about the conduct of the journal are sent to the editorial office at info@openaccesspub.org.

All articles are published open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright. See Copyright and License.

The article processing charge depends on the article type and is payable only after acceptance; withdrawal after submission is subject to the journal's withdrawal policy. The complete withdrawal terms are on the Article Processing Charges page. Fee-relief inquiries are considered case by case; contact the editorial office before or at submission.

This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish.

Indexing and archiving sets out the journal's records and preservation.