Editorial Workflow

Editorial Management of the Journal

The Scientific Management of UTC Prospectivas is structured into the following consecutive stages:

Manuscript Submission: Authors submit their proposals by uploading the manuscript file and supplementary documentation through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.
Manuscript Receipt (7 days): An acknowledgment of receipt is issued, and processing begins. The Editor-in-Chief prepares the documentation for the Editorial Board and requests a signed Ethical Commitment Letter, for which the corresponding author has 7 days to submit.
Preliminary Evaluation (7 days): The Editor-in-Chief verifies compliance with editorial policies, journal scope, originality check (Turnitin), declaration of generative AI usage (if applicable), theoretical contribution, scientific value, as well as relevance, suitability, length, and general formatting (tables, figures, and references).

Ad Portas Decision: In the event of substantial non-compliance with these aspects, the manuscript will be rejected. If minor observations are identified that do not critically violate the Author Guidelines, an adjustment request will be sent, allowing a period of 7 days to submit corrections alongside the change tracking log form.

First Review Verification (7 days): Upon receiving the authors' revisions, the Editorial Team verifies whether all requirements were met or properly justified. If pending issues persist, the manuscript is returned to the authors with a 7-day deadline to address remaining observations. This process is managed iteratively until full satisfaction of the Editorial Team is reached, at which point the manuscript moves to the next stage.
Peer Assignment by the Journal (7 days): The Editorial Team selects at least two expert reviewers in the manuscript's field from the reviewer registry and Scientific Committee. The process ensures anonymity through double-blind peer review. A formal invitation is sent along with the review evaluation form and the anonymized version of the manuscript.
External Peer Review (30 days total, counted from assignment): Reviewers have an initial 15 days to submit their decision. If no response is received within this period, a reminder is sent to complete the overall 30-day evaluation cycle. Once the review reports are received, one of the following decisions is made:

Acceptable without modifications: Following the copyediting review of the manuscript, if there are no additional observations, the acceptance letter is issued within 7 days.
Acceptable with modifications (or strong candidate for publication): Consolidated reviewer comments are sent to the author. Authors have 7 days to address substantive and formatting corrections requested by reviewers and submit the necessary adjustments.
Rejection: Authors are formally notified of the negative decision from reviewers, concluding the Scientific Management process.

Second Version Review (7 days): The Editorial Team evaluates the revised manuscript. Additional content and formatting comments may arise during this stage. This process is managed iteratively, returning the manuscript to the corresponding author as many times as necessary until structural and formatting changes are completed to the full satisfaction of the Editorial Team, at which point the official letter of acceptance for publication will be issued.