The model, and why we chose it
IJRMSSS operates open peer review. Reviewer reports are published with the accepted article, signed by name unless the reviewer asks otherwise, and reviewers are paid for their work.
The dominant alternative — anonymous, unpaid, unpublished review — asks a specialist to do several hours of skilled analysis for free, hides the result from every reader, and gives the reader no way to tell a rigorous assessment from a rubber stamp. We think all three of those are mistakes, and the third is the worst: a reader who cannot see the review cannot calibrate their trust in the paper.
Publishing the reviews changes what a reader can know. You see not only the finding, but the objections raised against it, what the authors did in response, and who was willing to put their name to the judgement.
We are also honest about the costs of this choice, because they are real. Signed review makes it harder for a junior reviewer to criticise a senior author. Some qualified reviewers will decline rather than sign. Our mitigations are set out under anonymity on request below — they reduce the problem, they do not abolish it.
How a manuscript moves
Five stages. Each manuscript carries a public status, and no stage is skipped.
① Submission and acknowledgement
Receipt is confirmed within 2 working days and the manuscript is logged with a public status. Nothing is listed publicly before it exists.
② Editorial screen
Within 5 working days an editor checks scope, completeness, reporting-guideline compliance, ethics approvals and text similarity. Manuscripts outside the journal's scope are declined here, quickly and with a reason, rather than held for weeks.
③ Peer review
At least two independent reviewers, invited and compensated by the journal. Statistical or physics review is added where the design calls for it. Target for a first decision: 6 weeks from the end of the editorial screen.
④ Decision and revision
Authors receive the full reports and the editor's decision letter. Revisions are due within 30 days for minor and 60 days for major revision; re-review targets 3 weeks. The response to reviewers is published too.
⑤ Publication with the reviews
The accepted article, the reviewer reports, and the authors' responses are published together as one record.
About those timelines
They are targets, not guarantees, and we will say so on the record when we miss them. A journal that advertises a 6-week decision and delivers 6 months has not made a scheduling error; it has misled the author who turned down another venue on the strength of the number. Any manuscript that passes its target date gets a written explanation and a revised date without the author having to ask.
What each decision means
| Decision | What it means | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | The manuscript is publishable as it stands. This is rare on a first decision and we do not pretend otherwise. | Proceeds to copy-editing and proofs. |
| Minor revision | The findings stand. Specific, bounded changes are needed — clarifications, a missing analysis detail, figure quality. | Usually resolved by the handling editor without a further round of external review. |
| Major revision | The work is within scope and potentially publishable, but at least one substantive concern must be answered — an analysis redone, a claim narrowed, a limitation confronted. | Returns to the original reviewers where possible. |
| Reject, resubmission invited | The current manuscript cannot be repaired by revision, but the underlying work could support a publishable paper. | A fresh submission, reviewed as new, with the prior reports available to the editor. |
| Reject | The work is not publishable here, on scope, rigour, or both. | The reason is given in writing. Appeals are heard — see below. |
| Declined at editorial screen | Out of scope, incomplete, or missing a required ethics approval or registration. | Returned within 5 working days so the author loses no time. |
Anonymity on request
Reviews are signed by default. A reviewer may ask to have their report published unsigned, and we grant it without requiring a justification — a trainee reviewing a department chair's work should not have to choose between candour and their next fellowship.
What we do not offer is a review that is never published. The report becomes part of the public record either way; only the name is negotiable. An editor knows the identity of every reviewer in all cases.
Authors are not anonymous to reviewers. Concealing author identity in a specialty this small is largely theatre — a reviewer who knows the field can usually identify the group from the methods — and pretending otherwise would give a false assurance.
Who may not review a manuscript
A reviewer must decline, and an editor must not assign, where any of the following apply within the last three years:
- Employment at the same institution as any author, or a shared department.
- Co-authorship on any publication, grant, or submitted manuscript with any author.
- A supervisory, mentorship, or training relationship in either direction.
- A financial interest in the outcome — equity, consultancy, paid speaking, patents, or a competing commercial product.
- Any personal relationship, or any dispute, that a reasonable reader would think could affect the judgement.
- Any other circumstance the reviewer themselves considers compromising. The test is what a sceptical reader would say, not what the reviewer believes about their own objectivity.
The hardest problem: this is a house journal
IJRMSSS is published by the CureRays Innovation & Education Institute, and researchers affiliated with CureRays will submit to it. That is a structural conflict of interest, it is the single most reasonable objection to this journal, and burying it in a policy footnote would be exactly the wrong response.
So, plainly: an editor never handles a manuscript they authored, or one from their own institution. Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief, from CureRays staff, or from the Institute itself are assigned to an independent external editor with no CureRays affiliation, who selects the reviewers, sees the reports, and makes the decision. The internal editorial team has no visibility into that process until the decision is issued, and cannot overturn it.
Every published article carries a statement naming its handling editor and disclosing any institutional relationship between the authors and the publisher. Because the reviews are public, a reader who doubts our discipline here can check our work directly — which is a large part of why the reviews are public.
Appeals
Authors may appeal any decision once. Send a point-by-point response to office@curerays.com with IJRMSSS appeal in the subject line, within 60 days of the decision.
An appeal must identify a specific factual error, a misunderstanding of the method, or a procedural failure. Disagreement with the reviewers' judgement is heard, but on its own it rarely succeeds. Appeals are assessed by an editor who was not involved in the original decision, and, where the appeal alleges reviewer error, by a fresh reviewer. We aim to answer within 30 days. The appeal editor's decision is final.
Complaints about the conduct of the process, rather than its outcome, follow the route set out in Publication Ethics.
What is not peer reviewed
Editorials, invited commentary, correspondence, and collection scope statements are edited but not externally peer reviewed. Every such item is labelled as non-peer-reviewed at the top of the page. A reader should never have to work out which of the two they are holding.
Review for IJRMSSS
We are seating a compensated reviewer panel across radiation oncology, cardio-oncology, medical physics, and survivorship. The full reviewer guidelines and the review form are published openly.