Highlights of Sustainability is a scholarly open access, peer-reviewed journal aimed at promoting scientific communication. We work closely with external editors and provide as much support as we can to ensure editorial efficiency as well as high-quality publishing.

All the manuscripts (except for non peer-reviewed types) submitted to Highlights of Sustainability undergo a rigorous single-blind peer-review process by at least two independent reviewers in the relevant field, followed by a final acceptance/rejection decision by an academic editor (the Editor-in-Chief, members of the editorial board or invited guest editors).

The online editorial management system of Highlights of Science, which is designed to ensure the publishing process is more rapid, efficient, and convenient, integrates easy-to-use tools for manuscript submission, peer-reviewing, and editorial decision-making.

The authors will be guided on how to prepare and submit their manuscripts by the Instructions for Authors.

Once a new submission is received, the in-house editorial staff (professionally trained managing editors) will conduct an initial check and then coordinate the whole editorial process. An editorial assistant will be assigned as a main point of contact for the manuscript and to organise the peer review.

Reviewers must hold a PhD degree and/or be a recognised expert in the field, not have co-authored publications with the authors in the last five years, and have recent publications in the field of the submitted manuscript.

After peer-review and author revision, the academic editors (the Editor-in-Chief, members of the editorial board or invited guest editors) will make a final acceptance decision based on Reviewers' comments and their own evaluation. Apart from exceptional circumstances, a maximum of one round of major revision is allowed per manuscript.

When making an editorial decision, the academic editors should consider the suitability of the selected reviewers, the appropriateness of the reviewers' comments, the authors' responses, as well as the overall scientific quality of the paper.

The academic editors are free to disagree with the reviewers' recommendations. If they do so, they should include an explanation of why for the benefit of the authors and reviewers.

Sometimes an editorial decision to accept a manuscript is supported by an academic editor despite a reviewer's reject recommendation. Before communicating a final decision to the authors, the in-house editorial staff will request a second, independent opinion from an editorial board member or the Editor-in-Chief.

One of the following decisions may be made:

After acceptance of an article for publication, the in-house editorial staff will organise the production of the paper for publication on the journal's website.

All academic editors are closely assisted by the editorial staff at Highlights of Sustainability. Academic editors do not need to do editorial administration work, but supervise the editorial process, ensure the scientific quality of the published contents, and represent the journal in academic communities. The editorial office will support the journal management and take care of the editorial process, including correspondence with authors and reviewers, preparing accepted manuscripts for publication.

The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the journal and is mainly responsible for the scientific quality in order to ensure the success of the journal. With the assistance from the editorial office in the management of the journal, the Editor-in-Chief is responsible for:

The Editorial Board is constituted of a group of experts in the field who support the Editor-in-Chief in the running and development of the journal. Editorial Board members are responsible for:

Guest Editors are leading scholars in the field of a topic issue. Special issues are edited by Guest Editors, which provide a platform to gather the latest research from distinguished scientists as well as active young scholars.

Special Issues are not independent issues of a journal. All submissions to the Special Issues follow the same peer review process as regular papers and are published in the regular issues of a journal when they are accepted. The Special Issue articles will also be additionally labelled as part of a Special Issue, and are put together on a dedicated webpage as a collection.

Guest Editors serve the same function as academic editors for submissions in their Special Issue. When editing special issues, Guest Editors are responsible for: