All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: Rejecting an article after making the authors incorporate really "major revisions" because they did not get unpaid reviewers and wasting nine months of time should be made punishable, particularly when the article is in a rapidly evolving domain. Ethics should apply to journals first - not just authors!

Motivation: I submitted my manuscript to this journal, and the status remained "Awaiting Reviewer Selection" for more than 90 days. That means the review process had not even begun after three months. What made it worse is that during that period I sent several emails inquiring about the status, and I never received a single response from the editors. I eventually withdrew the manuscript.

I have published a number of papers, and this was the worst editorial experiences I have had. I do not understand why the Editors-in-Chief accepted the role if they were not going to carry out its basic duties. I have submitted to more prestigious journals that handle far higher submission volumes, and at least there I received a reply.

Motivation: Rejection letter was boilerplate and made no reference to the study. But the response came fast in absolute terms, even though they apologized for it being slower than their usual turnaround. I consider speed to be the most important procedural factor for desk rejections, so I appreciated this and would consider submitting to this journal again in the future.

Motivation: Review/decision process was prompt and it was possible to track status. Review quality was exceptional—extremely thoughtful expert feedback that led to a much stronger paper after revisions. I'd consider my experience an exemplar of the peer review process and good science. Moreover, I appreciated that the publisher sought structured feedback following the final decision, indicating commitment to a good process.

Motivation: We got extensive reviews, but not entirely sure they were the best placed to judge the manuscript. Fair decision overall, given the reviews. Getting increasingly difficult to publish in JEMS, which is probably a good sign.

Motivation: The first round was a bit slow, but the editor communicated well which reviews they considered the most important ones.

Motivation: Swift desk reject with three sentences explaining why, very much appreciated!

Motivation: The initial feedback took a really long time time to recieve (6 months). Apart from this the review process was decent.

Motivation: Despite multiple follow-ups on my part, the manuscript sat on the administrator's desk for over four months. I understand that peer review and editorial evaluation can take time, but for it to simply sit there for months just to have an editor assigned is unacceptable.

Motivation: I am a researcher who has successfully published papers in this journal. This journal is clearly failing. The high open access publication fees amount to practically buying papers with money. A bigger problem is the caliber of the hired editors. With the recent hiring of fresh PhD or postdoc-level editors, quality control is completely nonexistent. They have not proven the career experience to distinguish between original and academically profound papers. They lack the discernment to identify academic source material amidst the massive volume of submissions. They are simply deceived by the reputation of their institutions and authors, as well as the fancy illustrations and applications encroached upon by AI. In conclusion, the quality of papers published in this journal these days is inconsistent and fails to provide any valuable lessons to fellow researchers. I believe the future of the commercial journals known as Nature portfoli, including this one, is bleak.

Motivation: The initial review was reasonably paced, with a major-revision decision about six weeks after submission. However, this first decision was issued on the basis of a single reviewer report, which we later learned did not meet the journal's own stated requirement of at least two reviewers.
We resubmitted our revised manuscript two days after the decision. What followed was a prolonged and unresolved delay. Over the next six months, the editorial office was unable to secure the required reviewers: more than ten reviewer invitations were sent, and none were accepted. During this period, the status updates we received were at times contradictory — one message indicated the manuscript was out for review with only a final report outstanding, while a later message stated that reviewers were still being sought.
To their credit, once the matter was escalated, the Lead Editor responded personally, acknowledged the irregularities, and was transparent about the difficulties. This was appreciated. Nonetheless, after more than six months without any realistic prospect of a decision, we chose to withdraw the manuscript.
Our experience suggests that authors should be aware of the possibility of significant delays in reviewer recruitment for this journal, and of limited proactive communication during those delays.