Journal of Tissue Repair and Regeneration · JTRR
For reviewers
What a JTRR review is for, and what makes one useful. A good report tells the editor whether the conclusions follow from the evidence, and tells the authors precisely what would make the work sound.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Before you accept
- Expertise
- Accept where you can judge the methods as well as the subject. Where you can assess part of a manuscript — the statistics, the materials characterization, the clinical reporting — say so when you accept, so the editor can pair your report with another.
- Availability
- Decline promptly if you cannot give the manuscript proper attention. A quick decline helps the authors more than a slow acceptance, and suggesting an alternative reviewer is welcome.
- Competing interests
- Decline, or disclose before accepting, where you have a financial interest, a recent collaboration or dispute with an author, a shared institution or any relationship that could reasonably be seen to affect your judgment.
- Confidentiality from the outset
- An invitation and its abstract are confidential too. Discuss a manuscript with a colleague only with the editor's agreement, and name anyone who helped with the review in your report.
What to assess
Relevance and quality are separate judgments. Say what you think about each, and keep them apart in the report.
- Relevance to the journal
- Does the work make a substantive contribution to understanding, assessing or advancing tissue repair or regeneration? Fundamental, methodological, observational, replication, synthesis, translational and clinical contributions all qualify, and no single kind is required. A manuscript is not out of scope for being basic, for being a negative result, or for lacking a clinical application. The aims and scope is the reference.
- Methods
- Are the design, the controls, the model and the sample adequate to the question? Are the statistics appropriate, with the test, the software and the handling of missing data reported? Could another group repeat the work from what is written?
- Evidence and interpretation
- Do the data support the conclusions as stated, and are the limits of what they can support acknowledged? Flag conclusions that reach beyond the evidence, and say how far you think they can properly go.
- Reporting
- Is the applicable guideline followed — ARRIVE, CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA or MIQE — and is the checklist supplied? Are figures legible, legends self-contained, and units and nomenclature consistent?
- Ethics, consent and registration
- Are ethics approval, informed consent, consent to publish identifiable material, and trial registration reported where the study design requires them?
- Data and image integrity
- Does the data-availability statement match what the manuscript describes? Do any images show signs of inappropriate adjustment, duplication or splicing? Raise a concern rather than adjudicating it.
Writing the report
Write for two readers at once: the editor, who needs to know how much weight to give your assessment, and the authors, who need to know what to do. Point to the page, figure or line you mean.
Separate what is essential from what you would prefer. An essential revision is one without which the conclusions are unsupported; a preference is a suggestion the authors may reasonably decline. Saying which is which is one of the most useful things a report can do.
Keep the report evidence-based and professional. Address the work rather than the authors, and give reasons a reader could check.
Recommend acceptance, revision or rejection, and put the confidential part of your view to the editor in the comments reserved for them. The decision itself is the editor's.
Citations, confidentiality and AI
- Citation requests
- Suggest a reference only where it is necessary to the argument, and say why. Asking authors to cite your own work, or this journal, in order to improve their prospects has no place in a report.
- Double-blind manuscripts
- For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors. If you recognize the work, tell the editor rather than acting on it.
- Files
- After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
- AI tools
- 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. This covers the manuscript, its figures and supplementary files, author identities where they are confidential, and your own draft report, and it applies to every externally hosted system the journal has not approved, whether or not it is publicly available.
- Suspected misconduct
- Raise a suspicion of plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication or image manipulation confidentially with the editor, with the evidence you have. Investigation is the journal's to conduct, and contacting the authors directly is not part of the reviewer's role.
Reviewing for this journal
JTRR welcomes reviewers across the range it publishes: repair and regeneration biology, immunology and vascular biology, biomaterials and tissue engineering, models and measurement, computational work, and clinical and translational practice. To offer to review, write to [email protected] with your area and a link to your publication record or ORCID profile.
Reviewing confers no advantage in the review of a reviewer's own submissions. The editorial policies set out confidentiality, competing interests and integrity procedures in full, and the instructions for authors show what the authors were asked to supply.