Editorial Structure and Governance Model
INDUSTRICS
Editorial Structure and Governance Model
This page states who holds editorial authority at INDUSTRICS, how those people are appointed and replaced, and how the journal is held accountable. The governing principle is separation of powers: scholarly decisions belong to editors, operations belong to the editorial office, and business belongs to the publisher — and none of the three may direct the others' domain.
Roles and responsibilities
| Role | Appointment and term | Responsibilities |
|---|---|---|
| Editor-in-Chief | Appointed by Scientara on the recommendation of an independent search committee; five-year term, renewable once | Final authority over scholarly content and standards; appoints editors and board members; represents the journal publicly |
| Associate Editors | Appointed by the Editor-in-Chief; three-year renewable terms | Handle manuscripts end to end within their expertise: desk assessment, reviewer selection, decisions, revisions and appeals at first instance |
| Editorial Board | Appointed by the Editor-in-Chief following open calls and nominations; three-year terms with staggered rotation | Review manuscripts, advise on scope and policy, propose special issues, and connect the journal to the sectors it serves. Board membership confers no publication privilege of any kind |
| Editorial Office | Professional staff of Scientara | Screening, timelines, records, correspondence and production. The office has no authority to accept or reject a manuscript |
Industry members of the editorial board
An applied engineering journal whose board contains no practising engineers is worse than one that admits industry and manages the consequences. INDUSTRICS deliberately appoints board members employed by manufacturers, operators, integrators and consultancies, and states the terms on which they serve:
- A board member serves as an individual, on their expertise, not as a representative of their employer. No organisation holds a seat, and no seat is available for purchase, sponsorship or partnership of any kind.
- Every board member's employer is published alongside their name, and changes of employer are recorded as they happen.
- A board member never handles a manuscript that evaluates, competes with, or would materially affect a product, process or service of their employer. This is applied to the appearance as well as the substance: where a reasonable reader would see an interest, the member stands aside.
- No single organisation supplies so large a share of the board that it could shape the journal's direction. Board composition is reviewed at every appointment round with that specifically in mind.
Editorial independence
Decisions on individual manuscripts are made solely by editors, solely on scholarly grounds. Scientara sets the journal's business model, budget and staffing, but may not direct the acceptance or rejection of any submission, may not access peer review content for commercial purposes, and derives no editorial influence from revenue of any kind. An Editor-in-Chief may be removed before the end of term only for documented cause and through a fair, recorded procedure — never for editorial decisions taken in good faith.
Two commitments follow specifically from the field this journal works in:
- The journal does not endorse products. Publishing an evaluation of a technology is a statement that the evidence was assessed and found sufficient to report, and nothing more. Neither the journal, the publisher nor the editorial board may be cited as endorsing, recommending, certifying or approving any product, supplier or process, and the journal will ask for the correction of marketing material that suggests otherwise.
- Nothing that affects editorial treatment is for sale. The journal carries no advertising, sells no reprints, and offers no sponsored articles, supplements, priority review or any other paid route to publication. Should any revenue source beyond the article processing charge ever be introduced, it will be disclosed before it takes effect, together with the rules separating it from editorial decisions.
Submissions by editors and board members
- Editors and board members may submit to the journal, and must declare their role at submission.
- Such manuscripts are handled entirely by an editor with no conflict of interest; the submitting editor is excluded from the manuscript's records and from editorial system visibility throughout.
- Submissions by the Editor-in-Chief are handled by a designated senior editor with full and final authority for that manuscript.
- The same treatment applies where an editor is not an author but their employer's product or process is the subject of the work.
- Every published article by an editor or board member carries a statement naming the independent handling arrangement.
Appointments, renewal and removal
- Editorial and board positions are filled through open calls and reasoned nomination, assessed on demonstrated expertise and standing in the field, whether that standing was earned in a laboratory or on a plant floor.
- Composition is deliberately balanced across sectors, organisations, regions, genders and career stages, and reviewed at every appointment round.
- Renewal is not automatic: it follows an activity review covering handling volume, timeliness and report quality.
- Members may be removed for sustained inactivity, breach of confidentiality, undeclared conflicts of interest, or research misconduct, after the member has been heard and the decision recorded. Where a member's employment changes such that their position on the board can no longer be held free of conflict, the position ends.
Accountability and policy change
INDUSTRICS follows COPE guidance in all editorial matters and applies it to its own editors no less than to authors and reviewers. Each year the journal publishes a short public report covering submission volumes, decision times, acceptance rate and the composition of its editorial bodies, including the distribution of board members between industry and research institutions. Changes to editorial policy are published with a version date, and the policy in force at submission is the policy that applies to a manuscript.