Community reviewer guidelines

Welcome to Frontiers’ reviewer network

These guidelines provide practical information about your role as a Community Reviewer and how to complete reviews using Frontiers tools. They are designed to help you deliver clear, constructive feedback, follow ethical best practice, and manage reviews efficiently.

If you have questions about a review invitation, deadlines, conflicts of interest, or using the platform, contact your journal team.

About your role

Community Reviewers play an important role in peer review by helping assess the rigor, clarity, and reliability of submitted manuscripts. Alongside Associate Editors, reviewers help safeguard research quality and support authors in improving how they communicate their work.

As a reviewer, you are asked to provide an independent, evidence-based assessment of the manuscript and offer constructive feedback that helps authors strengthen their study and presentation.

Reviewers evaluate manuscripts to help ensure that:

• The study design, methods, and analyses are appropriate and correctly applied

• Ethical standards have been observed and clearly documented where required

• The conclusions are supported by a valid interpretation of the results

• The manuscript communicates the research clearly and transparently

Reviewers must:

Maintain confidentiality

• Treat all manuscript files, data, and review reports as confidential.

• Only share content within the Review Forum with the authors and handling editor.

• Do not post review reports publicly or share manuscript content outside the review process.

Preserve anonymity

• Do not disclose your identity to authors or other reviewers until the review process is complete.

• Do not use the Review Forum to reveal identifying details about yourself.

Uphold professional conduct

• Use respectful, constructive language.

• Focus feedback on the work, not the authors.

• Inappropriate language or unconstructive behavior may result in removal from an assignment and, in serious cases, removal from the reviewer network.

Ensure timeliness

• Complete your review as promptly as possible.

• If you expect delays, notify the handling editor and the peer review team as soon as you can so they can support next steps.

For additional ethical guidance on peer review, refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) reviewer guidelines.

Loop is a free academic network that helps researchers present their profile, connect with colleagues, and track publications.

As a Topic Editor, Loop can help you:

• Improve discoverability of your work and editorial contributions

• Connect with researchers in and beyond your field

• Keep your publications linked to your profile

Getting started (overview)

1. Create or update your profile

2. Add a profile photo and affiliation

3. Link your ORCID for easier discovery

My Frontiers is your central workspace for Frontiers activity, including Research Topics and editorial assignments.

In My Frontiers, you can:

• View active and past assignments

• Track tasks and deadlines

• Access your Research Topic workspace

• Send and receive platform messages (including from the Review Forum)

Key areas you may use:

• Dashboard: overview of tasks and activity

• My projects: access your Research Topic and editorial assignments

• Resources: up-to-date guidance for your roles

• Inbox: message history across Frontiers tools

• Certificates: editor certificates (where applicable)

Learn how to get started with My Frontiers.

The Review Forum is where peer review takes place. It enables direct, constructive dialogue between authors, reviewers, and the handling editor to clarify points and improve the manuscript.

Detailed, role-specific instructions for handling manuscripts in the Review Forum are provided separately in the peer review guidelines for Topic Editors.

Should you have questions regarding any of the following please see the contact guide below to direct your query to the appropriate party: