What happens after you've reviewed an article?

Your report, along with those of any other reviewers, will be read by the journal editors who will make a decision on how to proceed. If the reviewer reports agree, the decision will be made to either:

• Accept the manuscript without any further changes
• Reject the paper
• Ask the authors to revise the paper further.

If the reviewer reports do not agree, the journal may consult an adjudicator. An adjudicator is a senior reviewer or Editorial Board member. They are asked to provide an opinion on both the article and reviewer reports. If an Editorial Board member is used, they may be told the names of the reviewers securely and in-line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to help them make their decisions. However, the authors will still only see anonymous reports. The adjudicator may agree or disagree with your assessment of the article.

All reviewers of a paper are informed when the editor makes their decision, and you will also be able to see the anonymous reports of any other reviewers at this stage. If the author is asked to make further revisions, you may be asked to review the revisions when they come in (see ‘Reviewing a revised article’).

For information on the benefits of reviewing for IOP Publishing journals, including our 10% reviewer APC discount programme, click here.