Review procedure

1. The Director of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, together with the Publishing Committee, holds two joint sessions every year in order to select texts to be published by IH PAN Press. The session is concerned with monographs, collective volumes, source editions, and, to a limited extent (only the review procedure), journals and continuing series publications.

2. Depending on the topic of the work, the Publishing Committee appoints a person from among its members to deal with the text submitted for publication. That person initially assesses the possibility of publishing the work with IH PAN Press, taking into account such criteria as: originality of research and contribution to the state of knowledge, lack of any premises indicating plagiarism or any other kind of inadvisable dependence of the text on other works (verifying especially whether the work is not excessively derivative or a mere compilation), preparation of the text and scientific apparatus in accordance with publication guidelines, accuracy of language and rhetorical features.

3. After the submitted text has received a positive assessment, the Committee – guided by the principle of merit (i.e. involving outstanding specialists in the respective field of study) and ethics (i.e. excluding all potential conflicts of interest and relying on reputation for impartiality) – selects two reviewers for each submission.

4. Should the indicated reviewers fail to confirm their consent to prepare their reviews within a week, the Committee shall immediately appoint a new reviewer.

5. The reviewer is obliged to provide a detailed and exhaustive review with a description indicating errors, shortcomings and all other failings of the text under consideration and to fill in the questionnaire within one month (or, in the case of multi-volume works and of extensive source editions with highly elaborate scholarly apparatus, within three months). Two negative reviews exclude the submitted text from further consideration. If the reviewers diverge in opinion with regard to the text under review, the Committee’s assessment is decisive.

6. The author of a work that has been positively assessed is obliged to respond in writing to the comments of the reviewers and submit the amended text within a month.

7. The Committee provides the Director of the Institute with a ranked list of the texts proposed for publication that have passed the review stage. Qualification results are announced by the Director of the Institute.