After submitted my manuscript to HSSC I receiving no updates. I followed up with the journal after 62 days to inquire about the status. In their response, they explained that they were facing significant difficulties securing a handling editor and had not yet found the right person to take on the paper. They noted that their editorial board consists of a voluntary external panel, meaning members have the autonomy to decline manuscript assignments. This made the situation clear: the bottleneck was not a lack of peer reviewers, but a more fundamental issue at an earlier stage. The process was entirely stalled at the internal editor-assignment level before peer review could even begin. Because the submission was stuck at this preliminary phase with no resolution in sight, I withdrew my manuscript and have since submitted it to another journal.
