STEMedicine adopts a 'blind' peer review process, where the reviewers’ identity remains confidential to the authors during the review. All manuscripts submitted must undergo this rigorous peer review process, in order to ensure that articles published in STEMedicine hold a high standard of scientific originality, ethics and quality. 

Manuscripts are electronically reviewed, and all correspondence between reviewers and editors are conducted via the journal system and/or e-mail. The reviewers are encouraged to meet the deadlines and send the report within a reasonable time period, in order to ensure timely review and publication.

Before agreeing to review the manuscript, we ask all reviewers to declare competing interests if:

• the reviewers could profit or be negatively impacted financially by the submitted research;
• the reviewers have a personal relationship with the authors;
• the reviewers and the authors are rivals or competitors;
• the reviewers have recently worked at the same institution or organization as the authors;
• the reviewers have or are currently collaborating with the authors.

Only after agreeing to review the manuscript will the reviewers be given access to the submitted manuscript.

When reviewing the manuscript, the most important factors that must be considered by a reviewer are:

• The article must match the area of expertise of the reviewer.
• It’s important to give a fair time to review an article so time is another constraint.
• The manuscripts must not be shared with anyone but your own.
• Different people have different perceptions. Read an article and make sure that your review is in accordance with the article as well as need of the journal.
• Comments must be reasonable with firm logic.

In addition to specific comments, at the end of the review form for each article, reviewers will have 6 options of decisions:

• Accept Submission (no need for any revision)
• Revisions Required (accepted if the author makes the requested revisions)
• Resubmit for Review (accepted or rejected after revisions have been made - paper will be sent out for another peer review round)
• Resubmit elsewhere (if the manuscript is better suited for another journal)
• Decline Submission (if the manuscript is substandard)
• See Comments (if the reviewer cannot choose from any of the above)

When asking for revisions, reviewers have two possible goals: to ask authors to tighten their arguments based on existing data or to identify areas where more data are needed. Even formal revision may be required if the language or style is sub-standard. To facilitate rapid publication, authors are given a maximum of two months for revision. After two months, revised manuscripts will be considered new submissions.