How Working Papers are assessed and prepared for publication
MakingPharmaIndustry Working Papers adopts an editorial assessment model designed to ensure relevance, clarity, documentation, originality and consistency with the scope of the series.
The process is coordinated by the MakingPharmaIndustry editorial office and may involve external subject-matter experts when appropriate, depending on the topic, technical complexity and intended readership of the contribution.
Initial assessment
Each submitted paper is first assessed by the editorial office to verify its coherence with the scope of the series.
This initial assessment considers:
- relevance to the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors;
- originality of the contribution;
- clarity of the proposed argument;
- quality and transparency of sources;
- consistency with the editorial scope of MakingPharmaIndustry Working Papers;
- potential conflicts of interest;
- compliance with publication ethics.
Submissions that do not meet the basic editorial requirements may be declined at this stage.
Editorial review
Papers considered suitable for the series undergo an editorial review focused on structure, clarity, documentation and consistency.
The editorial review may address:
- organization of the text;
- accuracy and precision of terminology;
- clarity of data, arguments and conclusions;
- adequacy of references;
- consistency between title, abstract, keywords and full text;
- readability for the intended professional audience.
Authors may be asked to revise the manuscript before publication.
External expert assessment
When appropriate, the editorial office may seek the opinion of external subject-matter experts with relevant expertise in the topic addressed by the paper.
External assessment may be used for contributions involving technical, regulatory, scientific, methodological or highly specialized issues.
The involvement of external experts is decided on a case-by-case basis.
Peer review statement
MakingPharmaIndustry Working Papers does not claim to operate as a formal academic peer-reviewed journal unless explicitly stated for a specific paper.
The standard process is an editorial assessment model. When a paper has undergone external expert review or another specific form of review, this may be indicated on the article page.
Revision and acceptance
Following assessment, the editorial office may:
- accept the paper for publication;
- request minor revisions;
- request substantial revisions;
- decline the submission.
Acceptance is based on editorial relevance, quality of documentation, clarity of argumentation, compliance with publication ethics and consistency with the scope of the series.
Publication
Accepted papers are published in open access on MakingPharmaIndustry.
Each paper may include:
- a dedicated HTML page;
- a downloadable full-text PDF;
- abstract and keywords;
- author information and affiliation;
- bibliographic references;
- recommended citation;
- DOI assigned through Zenodo, when available.
Updates and corrections
After publication, factual corrections or editorial updates may be made when necessary.
Substantial changes, corrections or retractions are handled according to the principles described in the Publication Ethics page.
