Specialty chief editor guidelines

Welcome to Frontiers’ community of editors

These guidelines provide practical information about your role as a specialty chief editor and the Frontiers tools available to support you. They are designed to help you lead your section’s editorial direction, support your associate editors and reviewer community, and uphold quality and integrity across peer review and section activity.

If you have any questions, please contact your Field Editorial Office:
field.editorial.office@frontiersin.org
Example: environmentalscience.editorial.office@frontiersin.org

As a specialty chief editor, you define and maintain the scope of your specialty section, build and support the editorial board, and oversee editorial activity within the section. You provide guidance and escalation support during peer review and help ensure that decisions align with section standards, journal policies, and research integrity expectations.

A key part of the role is planning section content alongside the journal team. This often includes contributing to Annual Content Plans and supporting Research Topics that reflect important developments in the field and emerging themes.

You also strengthen section capacity by inviting qualified colleagues to serve as associate editors and by expanding the reviewer pool. Building a diverse, well-matched community supports timely peer review and balanced coverage across the section’s scope.

Frontiers tools are designed to support efficient editorial work, including section dashboards, invitation workflows, and Research Topic oversight. Your feedback helps guide ongoing improvements.

For complete role requirements, refer to the Terms and Conditions.

The scope of your section

A clear scope helps authors, reviewers, and editors understand what belongs in your section. If your section is new, you will help draft the scope description. If you are joining an existing section, this is an opportunity to review and refresh it.

A strong scope statement should:

• describe the section’s purpose and priorities

• define the core themes and boundaries clearly

• indicate any methodological or disciplinary focus (where relevant)

• give practical guidance on what is in scope and out of scope

Good scope definitions help authors self-select appropriately, reduce mismatches, and streamline editorial assessment.

A strong associate editor board supports consistent standards, fair decision-making, and timely peer review. You will typically be asked to invite an associate editor within the first month of your appointment.

When identifying candidates, aim for expertise that reflects the full section scope. Associate editors are usually established experts (often associate professor level or equivalent, depending on field norms) with a strong publication record and relevant experience.

When inviting associate editors, aim for balanced representation across:

• geography and institution types

• sub-specialties and research approaches within scope

• gender and career stage, where appropriate

Frontiers tools and journal team support are available to help identify and invite suitable candidates.

Submitting your own work to the journal is welcomed. Your manuscripts will be assessed according to the same criteria and standards applied to all submissions.

If you have questions about your own submissions, contact your journal team.

Research Topics are curated collections of peer-reviewed articles centered on a focused theme or emerging area. Within your section, Research Topics can help:

• convene researchers working on related questions

• encourage strong submissions within a clear scope

• highlight developing methods and important new directions

As a specialty chief editor, you may contribute by approving, nominating, or editing Research Topics. You also help ensure that Topics align with the section's scope and meet expected quality standards.

What makes Research Topics distinct

Research Topics are designed to support:

• community-led focus on timely themes

• collaboration between Topic Editors, authors, and reviewers

• editorial leadership opportunities for researchers

• structured support through a Topic management platform

Each Research Topic has a dedicated homepage where accepted articles are freely available. Where eligibility criteria are met, the collection may also be available as a free downloadable ebook.

Editing Research Topic submissions

Submissions to a Research Topic follow the standard Frontiers peer review process. Authors indicate which Topic Editor they consider best placed to handle their manuscript. The selected Topic Editor is typically assigned and is responsible for managing peer review. Topic Editors may redistribute assignments within the Topic Editor group where appropriate and without conflicts of interest.

If a conflict of interest exists between authors and Topic Editors, or if a Topic Editor is an author on the manuscript, the submission should be handled by an associate editor from the section editorial board. In these cases, invitations may be sent to the board to identify an appropriate handling editor.

As specialty chief editor, you can intervene when needed. You provide escalation support on scope, standards, and process questions, and you help ensure that manuscripts associated with Research Topics still meet the section’s scope and quality requirements.

Annual Content Plans provide a structured approach to planning section activity across the year. Developed in collaboration with you and the journal team, they typically:

• identify priority themes and emerging areas

• map a cadence of Research Topics aligned to board expertise

• support consistent standards across Topics within the section

The specialty chief editor helps set expectations for Research Topic quality and fit within the section. The journal team supports by managing administrative tasks and coordinating the platform so editors can focus on scientific direction and editorial oversight.

Frontiers provides connected tools to support editorial oversight, coordination, and planning across the journal. These tools help with manuscript tracking, board management, reviewer discovery, Research Topic oversight, communication, and performance monitoring.

Loop

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

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)

• Create or update your profile

• Add a profile photo and affiliation

• Link your ORCID for easier discovery

My Frontiers

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.

Review Forum

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.

The Digital Editorial Office

The Digital Editorial Office is a dashboard available to chief editors to support section oversight. It is accessed through My Frontiers using the relevant Manage option for your section role.

It is designed to help you monitor:

• section development and activity

• submissions and peer review status (including items requiring your action)

• editorial board coverage and distribution

• board and reviewer invitation activity

• Research Topic proposals, approvals, and progress

• section-level trends that can support planning decisions

Key areas you may use include:

Advanced tab
Compare sections within the journal, including submission and Research Topic activity.

Your tasks
View items requiring your action, such as editorial decisions, escalations, or proposal evaluations.

Manuscripts
Search and filter manuscripts submitted to your section, including those awaiting final action where applicable.

Editorial board
View geographic distribution of associate editors and Community Reviewers to identify coverage gaps.

Editor list
View participation and activity information for section community members, including editing and reviewing history.

Invite editors
Review and respond to associate editor suggestions shared by the journal team.

Board invitations
Track invitations sent to join the section community, including who invited them and the invitation status.

Research Topics
Review Topic Suggestions, monitor the Annual Content Plan schedule, and assess Research Topic proposals and launched Topics.

Specialty chief editor digest

You will receive a specialty chief editor digest three times per week. It provides a snapshot of your section’s activity and highlights items requiring action.

It typically includes:

• your assignments and submissions

• action-required items (such as assignment approvals, rejection recommendations, or Research Topic evaluations)

• section submission and review status (including flagged or delayed manuscripts)

• new submissions entering peer review

• manuscripts in Review Finalized status awaiting next steps

You may also see a link to a short feedback survey. Your feedback helps improve tools and workflows.

To access previous digests, log in to My Frontiers, open Inbox, and look for messages labeled Specialty Update.

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