Peer Review
Women, Gender & Research’s independent, anonymous and systematic double-blind peer-review process.
The Danish journal Kvinder, Køn & Forskning (Women, Gender & Research) is a peer-reviewed academic journal. As such, all articles in the journal undergo an independent, anonymous, and systematic peer-review process, which guarantees the quality of the published research and of the journal overall. Essays that are submitted to the journal undergo a thorough editorial process, in which the editorial board will decide if the essay is to be rejected, accepted with editorial comments, or accepted as is. In case that there is no clear editorial decision, the essay will undergo a double-blind peer-review process.
The editorial board of Women, Gender and Research appoints a smaller, selected editorial board for each issue. These issue-editors consist of a minimum of one member of the permanent editorial board, and one or more invited guest editors. Periodically we publish an open issue, without a theme, in which case a minimum of two members of the editorial board manage the editorial process.
The issue-editors circulate a call for papers, in which they invite submissions within a given topic or theme. Those who wish to contribute to the issue then submit an abstract to the issue-editors, who select articles based on a scientific evaluation and a consideration for the editorial cohesiveness of the issue. Those selected are asked to submit an article for the issue.
All articles published in Women, Gender & Research undergo anonymous double-blind peer-review. Essays might undergo anonymous double-blind peer-review. In practice, this means that the issue-editors (under supervision of the editorial board) submit anonymized versions of all articles/essays to a minimum of two different peer-reviewers, who are to review the article/essay. The peer-reviewers are selected based on (at minimum) these three requirements: 1) Knowledge. The peer-reviewers must have in-depth scientific expertise and experience within the area of research, or closely related areas of research, 2) Impartiality. Peer-reviewers may not be employed at the same university as, or collaborate with, the author. 3) Pluralism. The peer-reviewers must represent varied scientific perspectives, areas or positions.
Independently of one another, the two peer-reviewers evaluate whether the article lives up to the methodological, analytical and reflexive requirements of the field, and whether the research-questions, methodology and analysis are cohesive and transparent. They also evaluate whether the article takes national and international research in the field into account, and whether it is ethically sound and meticulous. For essays, the peer-reviewers will evaluate if the essay’s quality lives up to academic standards of the field, and whether the essay is overall cohesive, transparent, and ethically sound and meticulous. Based on these considerations, the peer-reviewers each write a document of evaluation, in which they decide whether the article/essay A) is to be rejected, B) is to be revised with major changes, C) is to be revised with minor changes or D) can be accepted as is. If the article/essay is to be revised with major changes, it will undergo a second peer-review-process once resubmitted. The peer-reviewers stay anonymous throughout this whole process.
In cases where a member of the permanent editorial board wishes to submit an article or essay for an issue the person loses their impartiality, and is excluded from the peer-review-process of this article/essay, by literally being sent out the door during the editorial board and issue-editors evaluation of their article/essay based on the peer-review evaluations.The journal has a roster of peer-reviewers consisting of hundreds of Danish and international researchers across an array of research-disciplines. There are both practitioners and researchers among them, but all have foundational scientific merit and experience.
