Policy on special issues

For the purposes of international indexing standards, including DOAJ criteria, the Scientific Committee of  Journal of Spinoza Studies functions as the journal’s Editorial Board. Its members support the Editors-in-Chief in maintaining the journal’s scholarly standards, editorial independence, and peer-review procedures.

Editorial responsibility
The Editors-in-Chief are responsible for the scholarly content of the entire journal, including all regular articles, reviews, special issues, and other curated sections. All material published in the Journal of Spinoza Studies must fall within the journal’s aims and scope.

Special issues
The Journal of Spinoza Studies may occasionally publish special issues or themed sections on topics relevant to Spinoza studies and related fields. Special issues are subject to the same standards of editorial oversight, peer review, and scholarly quality as regular submissions.

All special issue articles are clearly identified as belonging to a special issue or themed section. They undergo the journal’s standard editorial process, including external peer review. Guest editors may assist in shaping the intellectual focus of a special issue, identifying suitable contributors, and advising on the scholarly coherence of the issue, but they do not replace the journal’s ordinary editorial procedures.

Guest editors are appointed only after their scholarly credentials and suitability for the proposed topic have been checked and approved by the Editors-in-Chief. The work of guest editors is overseen by the Editors-in-Chief and/or by designated members of the Scientific Committee.

Articles submitted to a special issue by the guest editor or guest editors themselves are handled through an independent review process. In such cases, the guest editor concerned is excluded from all editorial decision-making concerning the submission. Articles authored or co-authored by guest editors may constitute no more than 25% of the total content of the special issue.

The journal does not use special issues as a substitute for its regular editorial activity and will not publish all content in a given year or volume exclusively as special issues.