Navigation: Resources > For Editors > Special Issues and Guest Editors

Special issues can help journals develop focused scholarly conversations, support emerging fields, and bring together work on timely topics. They also require careful governance so that quality, peer review integrity, editorial independence, and transparency are protected.

This page provides publisher-level guidance for editors, guest editors, societies, and proposing teams. A special issue should follow the same ethical, editorial, peer review, authorship, competing interest, licensing, and correction standards as regular journal content.

· Before a Special Issue Is Approved

A special issue should have a clear scholarly rationale, defined scope, target community, article types, proposed timeline, qualified guest editor team, peer review plan, conflict management plan, and communication route.

Approval should be based on academic value, journal fit, editorial capacity, reviewer availability, ethical risk, operational feasibility, and consistency with CorayNova publisher-level standards. A special issue proposal should not be approved solely for promotional or revenue reasons.

A special issue must be formally approved before a public call for papers is issued. At CorayNova, special issue approval requires the Editor-in-Chief and the CorayNova Editorial Office. Approval should be documented before public promotion, platform setup, guest editor activity, or manuscript solicitation begins.

· Special Issue Governance Table

Stage	Good Practice	Editorial Safeguard
Proposal	Assess title, scope, rationale, guest editor qualifications, article types, timeline, and fit with the journal.	Reject or revise proposals that are too broad, too promotional, outside scope, or unsupported by qualified editors.
Approval	Confirm editorial oversight, peer review standards, conflict management, communication route, and platform setup.	Record who approved the special issue and what conditions apply.
Call for papers	Describe the topic, journal, article types, submission route, review process, APC/license information where relevant, and important dates.	Avoid implying guaranteed acceptance, guaranteed publication, indexing, impact factor, or endorsement.
Submission handling	Apply normal technical checks, scope screening, ethics checks, peer review, revision, decision, and production standards.	Do not allow guest editors to handle manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest.
Peer review	Use qualified and independent reviewers according to the journal's peer review model.	Special issue papers should not receive weaker review than regular submissions.
Guest editor submissions	If a guest editor submits to the special issue, the manuscript should be handled by an independent editor under journal oversight.	Guest editors should not select reviewers or influence decisions for their own work.
Closure and publication	Ensure accepted articles meet journal standards and that any introduction or editorial is transparent about the special issue context.	Do not publish incomplete, rushed, or policy-noncompliant content to meet a promotional deadline.

 

· Guest Editor Responsibilities

Guest Editors must not handle, select reviewers for, influence, or make recommendations on their own submissions or submissions where they have a conflict of interest. Such manuscripts must be handled by an independent, non-conflicted editor under journal oversight.

· Work within the approved special issue scope and journal workflow.

· Disclose financial, institutional, personal, academic, or other competing interests.

· Protect manuscript confidentiality and reviewer confidentiality according to the journal model.

· Recommend reviewers or provide editorial assessment only where authorized by the journal.

· Treat authors and reviewers fairly, respectfully, and without discrimination.

· Escalate suspected misconduct, reviewer manipulation, authorship problems, data concerns, image concerns, or conflicts of interest.

· Avoid using the special issue to promote a private network, institution, commercial interest, or citation agenda.

· Publisher and Journal Oversight

The journal's Editor-in-Chief or designated senior editor should retain oversight of the special issue. CorayNova publisher-level oversight may apply where questions involve policy compliance, platform integrity, publication ethics, complaints, appeals, corrections, retractions, or public transparency.

If a special issue raises serious concerns about peer review integrity, conflicts of interest, irregular submissions, guest editor conduct, or quality control, the journal should pause, review, correct, or close the special issue route as appropriate.

CorayNova may pause, revise, close, or decline to proceed with a special issue if quality concerns, ethical concerns, reviewer irregularities, conflicts of interest, guest editor conduct, operational risk, or policy non-compliance indicate that the special issue cannot proceed responsibly.