Quality before Speed
The journal aims to provide timely and orderly responses; however, scientific accuracy, appropriate reviewer selection, and completion of necessary revisions take precedence over speed.
Civil & Project Journal (CPJ), owned and edited by Dr. Ali Ghorbani, founder of the Project Management Engineering discipline in Iran , has designed its manuscript assessment process around process management, scheduling, quality control, specialist peer review, and responsive communication with authors.
The journal follows a single-blind peer-review model: reviewers can see the identities of the authors, while reviewer identities remain confidential from the authors. The final decision to accept or reject a manuscript, after consideration of the reviewers' reports, rests with the Editor-in-Chief and the journal's authorized scientific bodies.
The journal's ISC scientific license reinforces its responsibility to preserve the independence of peer review, the quality of scientific assessment, documented editorial decisions, publication ethics, and publication regularity. Manuscript submission, preliminary assessment, and scientific peer review are free of charge, and no payment is required before final scientific acceptance.
View the Journal's ISC RecordThe journal aims to provide timely and orderly responses; however, scientific accuracy, appropriate reviewer selection, and completion of necessary revisions take precedence over speed.
Manuscript acceptance is based solely on originality, methodology, the quality of the findings, reviewer assessments, and the Editor-in-Chief's scientific decision.
All submissions, revisions, reports, and decisions are recorded through the journal system, and the corresponding author should use that system for formal follow-up.
Academic position, reputation, institution, nationality, or professional relationships must not replace scientific criteria.
After submission through the journal system, the manuscript is checked for completeness of files, compliance with the journal format, the presence of an English abstract, author information, the required declaration form, initial writing quality, and compliance with the Guide for Authors. An incomplete or incorrectly formatted manuscript will be returned to the author for correction.
The Editor-in-Chief, responsible editor, or editorial council assesses the manuscript's fit with the journal's scope, the significance of the research problem, apparent originality, methodological quality, research structure, and potential scholarly contribution. The manuscript may be rejected at this stage or returned for revision before external peer review.
Reviewers are selected on the basis of expertise, academic and professional experience, independence, absence of competing interests, and the quality of prior reviewing performance. Reviewer identities remain confidential, and all correspondence is conducted through the journal system.
Reviewers assess the manuscript with respect to originality, methodology, data, analysis, conclusions, references, and research ethics. Periodic reminders may be sent to reviewers, and where a delay becomes unreasonable, the manuscript may be assigned to a replacement reviewer.
The decision may be rejection, major revision, minor revision, conditional acceptance, or scientific acceptance. Where reports conflict or are insufficient, the Editor-in-Chief may refer the manuscript to a third reviewer.
The author must submit the revised manuscript together with a clear, documented, point-by-point response to all reviewer comments within the specified period. Comments that are not accepted must be addressed with a scientific explanation.
The revised manuscript is examined by the Editor-in-Chief, responsible editor, or one of the reviewers to determine whether the previous comments have been adequately addressed. If the revisions are insufficient, another revision round may be requested.
After completion of the assessment, the final decision is issued with the approval of the Editor-in-Chief and, where applicable, the journal's authorized scientific bodies. Acceptance certificates are issued electronically only.
Only after final scientific acceptance, official information concerning the article processing and publication charge is sent to the corresponding author by email. The charge relates exclusively to post-acceptance publication services, including final quality control, technical editing, layout, DOI assignment, and electronic publication. The article then proceeds to editing, layout, author proof review, DOI assignment, and electronic publication.
The manuscript is normally rejected unless the Editor-in-Chief has a documented reason for additional assessment.
The manuscript is generally rejected or, in specific cases, referred to a third reviewer.
The manuscript is returned to the author for revision and a point-by-point response.
The Editor-in-Chief may make an independent scientific assessment or seek the opinion of a third reviewer.
Required revisions must be completed and verified before a final decision is made.
Reviewer reports are advisory and highly important; the final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief and must be documented.
Submission, preliminary assessment, and scientific peer review at Civil & Project Journal are free of charge, and no payment is required before final scientific acceptance. The highest article processing and publication charge for each accepted article is IRR 28,000,000, equivalent to 2,800,000 tomans. For international payments, 50 TRX is accepted as an alternative payment option. The IRR amount and the 50 TRX option are alternative payment options for the same article and are not cumulative. The charge applies only to post-acceptance publication services, including final quality control, technical editing, layout, DOI assignment, and electronic publication. Payment has no effect on reviewer selection, the peer-review process or outcome, or the Editor-in-Chief's scientific decision.
Civil & Project Journal seeks to assess manuscripts with scientific care, reasonable timeliness, specialist peer review, and respect for authors' rights. Careful compliance with the Guide for Authors and timely, systematic responses to revision requests are the most important contributions authors can make to an efficient manuscript process.