All submitted manuscripts will undergo a three-step review process: preliminary check, plagiarism check and single-blind expert peer review. 

Preliminary check: All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial office for compliance with guidelines for preparation of articles as described under Submission Section. Articles that do not comply with the guidelines will be sent back to the authors. 

Plagiarism check:  Articles that are in compliance with the guidelines will be subjected to plagiarism check. We work with CrossRef to use iThenticate to detect plagiarism. iThenticate gives a 'similarity index', which is the word-by-word copying of materials from previously published literature. We use similarity index to make a decision. Even if the original source was cited, articles with more than 10% similarity index will be returned to the authors without peer review for corrective action. For articles with similarity index between 1-10%, we follow the guidelines of COPE on text recycling to make a decision. Articles that pass the plagiarism check will be reviewed by experts in the field. 

Selection of reviewers: Appropriate experts to review the manuscripts will be identified via PubMed search, or from the list of editorial team. Authors are required to suggest three potential reviewers; however, there is no guarantee that these reviewers will be invited to review. Potential reviewers will be personally contacted by the editorial staff to seek expression of interest to review the paper. The email will contain the details of the authors and the abstract. Also, the reviewers will be asked to disclose conflict of interest. If the reviewers agree to review, and if there is no potential conflict of interest, they will receive the official invitation from the journal containing the link to access the manuscript.  

Peer review and reviewer responsibilities: The reviewers will remain anonymous. Reviewers are expected to keep the manuscript confidential, provide an unbiased scientific opinion of the manuscript and declare any conflict of interest. Also, reviewers are expected to submit their comments within the indicated time frame. 

Criteria for assessing original articles: 

  • Does the manuscript require language editing?
  • Is the abstract written in such a way that it conveys the major theme of the paper?
  • Does the introduction describe the rationale for the study in the context of the available literature?
  • Where relevant, have appropriate ethics approval and informed consent been obtained?
  • Are the methods adequately described?
  • Is the number of samples, number of repeats, equipment and chemicals used clearly mentioned?
  • Is the catalogue number of antibodies mentioned?
  • Are statistical methods clearly stated?
  • Are the results clearly described?
  • Is there any indication of scientific misconduct, for example data fabrication and figure manipulation?
  • Is the discussion well-balanced in light of the available literature and the research findings?
  • Is conflict of interest stated?

Criteria for assessing review articles: 

  • Does the manuscript require language editing?
  • Is the abstract written in such a way that it conveys the major theme of the article?
  • Does the article comprehensively and critically evaluate an existing problem in the context of the available literature?
  • If relevant, does the article suggest a possible solution to the problem?
  • Is conflict of interest stated? 

Criteria for assessing case reports: 

  • Does the article require language editing?
  • Is the abstract written in such a way that it conveys the major theme of the article?
  • If relevant, have appropriate ethics approval and informed consent been obtained?
  • Does the introduction clearly describe the rationale for the case in light of the available literature?
  • Are the methods clearly described?
  • Is the case adequately described?
  • Is there any indication of scientific misconduct, for example data fabrication and figure manipulation?
  • Is the intended message for fellow practitioners obvious? 
  • Is conflict of interest stated?

Negative, neutral and contradictory findings: Journal of Kidney Cancer and VHL (JKCVHL) strongly encourages scientifically plausible negative, neutral and contradictory findings. Reviewers should be open to these findings. 

Editorial decision: Based on the comments of the reviewers, a decision will be made by the editor-in-chief either to accept the manuscript without any changes, give authors an opportunity to revise and resubmit, or reject. The corresponding author will be notified of the decision via the journal's automated notification system.

If the authors choose to revise and resubmit, the manuscript will be evaluated by the original reviewers or the editor-in-chief to verify if the original comments of the reviewers have been adequately addressed. Based on the recommendation, the manuscript will be either accepted or returned to the authors for further clarification. If the paper is accepted, it will be published online as html and pdf. If rejected, it is final. However, if the author for correspondence believes that his or her article did not receive a fair review, and rejected unjustly, the author can make an official complaint via [email protected]. The appeal will be handled by the scientific advisory board as described.

Each published article will be assigned a doi, deposited with CrossRef, and indexed in PMC and PubMed.