Review for us

For a young journal, peer review is not a formality. It is the main thing that makes the record trustworthy.

Every research article we publish is read, questioned and improved by independent experts before an editor decides on it; we normally seek at least two reports. Reviewing for GSMS Publications means:

• Shaping a growing field Sustainable materials, environmental technology and membranes are moving fast. Reviewers set the bar for what gets published in them.
• Early sight of new work You read results months before they appear, in exactly the topics you have told us you care about.
• A verifiable certificate Each completed review earns a certificate with a public verification page, ready for your CV, promotion file or funder report.
• A seat at the table Editors get to know reviewers through their reports. Reliable, constructive reviewers are the first people asked when editorial boards grow.

There is no separate reviewer application. Editors invite reviewers manuscript by manuscript, drawing on the profiles in our submission portal and on their own networks. Four steps put you on their radar:

1. 1

   Create an account on the submission portal

   Register at submit.revise.id with your institutional email. The same account is used by authors and reviewers, so if you have already submitted to one of our journals you are ready to go.

   Register
2. 2

   Complete your profile

   Add your ORCID iD, institution and a set of expertise keywords. Editors search this profile when they match manuscripts to reviewers, so the more specific your keywords, the better the fit of the invitations you receive.

3. 3

   Tell an editorial office you are willing to review

   Reviewers are invited by the handling editor of each journal. A short note to the editorial office of the journal closest to your field, mentioning your main topics, is the fastest way to be added to their pool.

   Editorial offices
4. 4

   Respond to invitations by email

   Invitations arrive with the title and abstract and a secure accept or decline link, so you can respond without logging in. Once you accept, the full manuscript and the review form open in your reviewer dashboard.

• The invitation gives you the title, abstract and the two deadlines. Please check for conflicts of interest before accepting: shared institution, recent co-authorship, or a competing project are all reasons to decline.
• The manuscript is released only after you accept. You read it in the browser or download the PDF; supplementary files and the cover letter to the editor are available where the authors supplied them.
• Reminders are sent shortly before and after each deadline. They are automated and courteous; replying to any of them reaches the handling editor directly.
• Revisions. If the authors are asked to revise, the editor may invite you to check the revised version. You decide whether you are willing when you submit your first report.
• Decisions rest with the editor holding decision authority, who weighs all the reports. Reviewers are told the outcome once a decision is made.

The review form in the portal walks you through four short steps. You can save and return at any time before submitting.

1. Step 1

   Guidance and declarations

   Confirm that you have read the reviewer guidance, that you have no undeclared conflict of interest, and that you will keep the manuscript confidential.

2. Step 2

   Feedback for the authors

   Your main report. Rate originality, methodology, clarity and significance, then write specific, numbered comments the authors can act on. This section is passed to the authors verbatim.

3. Step 3

   Confidential notes for the editor

   Your recommendation (Accept · Minor revision · Major revision · Reject), your confidence in the assessment, whether you are willing to review a revision, and anything you would rather the authors did not see. Suspected ethical problems are raised here with the ethics flag.

4. Step 4

   Review and submit

   Check the full report, then submit. Submission is final: the editor is notified immediately and your certificate becomes available in your dashboard.

What makes a report useful

• Start with the substance. Summarise in two or three sentences what the manuscript claims and whether the evidence supports it. This tells the editor and the authors that you have understood the work.
• Separate major from minor. Major points affect the validity or interpretation of the results; minor points are presentation. Number them so the authors can respond point by point.
• Be specific. Cite page, section, figure or equation. “The kinetics analysis is weak” helps no one; “Fig. 3b fits a pseudo-second-order model to only four points, and the linearised plot hides the scatter” does.
• Check what can be checked. Units, mass balances, statistics, the match between methods and results, and whether the conclusions go beyond the data.
• Keep your recommendation for the editor. Comments to the authors should not say “accept” or “reject”: the decision is the editor's, and it is awkward for everyone when the reports and the letter disagree.
• Be courteous. Write as you would wish to be written to. Criticism of the work, never of the people.

We follow the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. In practice this means:

• The manuscript is confidential. Do not share it, discuss it with colleagues, cite it, or upload any part of it to an AI or translation service. If you want to involve a student or colleague, ask the editor first; they will be credited as a co-reviewer.
• Declare conflicts of interest before accepting, and again on the form. When in doubt, tell the editor and let them decide.
• Do not use what you learn from an unpublished manuscript in your own work, and do not contact the authors directly about it.
• Raise suspicions with the editor, not the authors. Possible plagiarism, image manipulation, duplicate submission or authorship problems go in the ethics flag of the review form, with the evidence you have. The editor investigates under our publication ethics policy.
• Review the work in front of you. Asking authors to cite your own papers is appropriate only when the citation is clearly needed for the argument.

Reviewer identities and reports are held in confidence by the editorial office. Anonymised, aggregated information about review activity may appear in journal statistics. What we store about reviewers, and for how long, is set out in our privacy notice.

We do not yet post reviewer activity to ORCID or an external recognition service, and we do not claim to. If your institution needs confirmation in another form, the editorial office will write it for you.

Something not covered here? The editorial offices are listed on the contact page.