If the accepted papers are judged to be scientifically sound, then there is no issue. However, it will be good to look into the scientific value of the rejected papers as well in order to draw a meaningful conclusion. Permit me to slightly deviate with this example. I recently submitted a paper to NATURE COMMUNICATIONS. As remarked by @ Khalid M. Saqr the editorial decision was swift. The editor noted that the manuscript is okay and feel it will scale through if sent for review, but decline moving forward with the submission. This makes me feel there could be other reasons why papers are rejected even after being found to be worthwhile as a scientific material.

Here is my view of a Nature-type editor:

1. Must be an expert in suggesting ways to improve the science, grammar, persuasiveness and presentation. Research supervision and lecturing skills are a recommendation.

2. Must be interested in a wide field of Science.

3. Must be willing and able to quickly review a new specialist field to get enough background to make a judgement call.

4. Must be able to spot fraud, data fabrication, salami slicing, plagiarism and plain sloppy research.

5. Must be good with office work and follow-ups.

As you might expect, not many people will qualify. Readers of Science rather that writers of Science will apply for the job. Doers of Science want to continue doing.

Thanks Ian. My question is about the editors not the reviewers.

On what basis did you identify their published papers? ORCID and Research Gate are platforms that not all researchers frequently update. It will pay to conduct an extensive research to back your argument.

I used Scopus and Web of Knowledge

Alhassan Abdullah Thanks. I have adjusted my answer accordingly.

Khalid: "Many of them has no specialized scientific peer-reviewed publications of their own" - maybe they have scientifically important, valuable not censored (non "peer"-reviewed) publications?

Hi,

Nature today is an umbrella name for many journals in many science areas and sub fields. An journal editor must not be an exceptional scientist, but he has to know all the research aspects of his field, and be a good organizer. Actually, the high impact scientists do not have the time to be journals' editors, because they have to invest a lot in research.

Hi Avishag Gordon

Thanks for the reply. I'm concerned only about Nature (the main journal) not any other journal under the Springer-Nature group.

Any submitted manuscript to Nature receives a very fast editorial reply which defines the fate of the manuscript. If the editors do not have sufficient experience in their own research field, it could be very risky to trust this editorial decision.

Usually PhD students are required to publish some parts of their thesis before Viva Voce. Many of these editors do not have even a single paper from their PhD theses. I here wonder how someone who had not published a single peer-reviewed specialized article could " know all the research aspects of her/his field "!

As to the organization of the editorial process, from my experience, editorial assistants and publishing editors undertake this responsibility very well.

High-impact scientists are editors in many journals, if you just check the profile of editorial board members of any specialized journal (example Physical Review, Physics letters...) you can see that all members have very good research profiles.

In my estimation, there is no way to trust that the editorial decisions of Nature journal reflects the standard of research in respective field. Nature promotes itself as the leading publication in natural science, biology, physics and chemistry. Nevertheless, I think this reputation is not as accurate as it is thought to be.

Hi,

This state of affairs needs some research. The articles that are accepted to Nature should be evaluated, as well as papers that were rejected by the editors of this journal.Experts in various science disciplines could provide their opinion on the published material in this journal.

If the accepted papers are judged to be scientifically sound, then there is no issue. However, it will be good to look into the scientific value of the rejected papers as well in order to draw a meaningful conclusion. Permit me to slightly deviate with this example. I recently submitted a paper to NATURE COMMUNICATIONS. As remarked by @ Khalid M. Saqr the editorial decision was swift. The editor noted that the manuscript is okay and feel it will scale through if sent for review, but decline moving forward with the submission. This makes me feel there could be other reasons why papers are rejected even after being found to be worthwhile as a scientific material.

Hi,

Another possibility why a chief editor need not be himself a researcher is the fact that when he receives papers for publication , he sends them for primary review to one of the journal's editorial board experts who determines if the paper should be sent to reviewers. In this way, the paper is examined first by an expert in the field.

I want to believe it is because some of the journals under nature umbrella do not appoint editors on research-based evidence, which ensures at least the basic review requirements and experiences, but they are appointed based on the academic credentials.

Dear K. M. Saqr,

Thank you for this exposition. The general believe is that Nature represents the highest standard and therefore considered to be the best research publication. It is therefore the desire of many researchers to have at least a publication in nature one day. With your exposition on the research records of some of the Editorial Boards and Reviewers, then it implies that sentiment and not quality is being used. Somebody without a sound track record of research publication cannot effectively review a manuscript for publication in Nature. I suspect that these are the category of reviewers that will make comments that will keep you be wondering if the reviewer has ever publish a work before.

What will happen if we mention their names so that both the Editor Board members and their associated Reviewers are made to defend themselves?

Nature journals function differently to many others with respect to their editorial staff. The editors of Nature are full time administrators - they will make an initial assessment before assigning an article for peer review. Though most of the editors have scientific training it’s just too big a job to be a researcher and editor for a journal like Nature, whereas other journals have editors who are also full time researchers and academics. As such many Nature Editors have stronger backgrounds in publishing than science. The scientific rigour is provided by the peer reviewers. For ‘Nature’ specifically, articles may be sound science but will be rejected if they don’t make a substantial leap forward for a given field. This doesn’t go for all the Springer Nature journals though, e.g. Scientific Reports.

You may find the same phenomena in other journals. In effect, the label 'editor' or chief editor, rather than chief scientist or equivalent tells the story. The chief editor may assess whether the submitted manuscript fits the readership, journal profile, scientific writing standards and style. Next, the editor may select the specialist assistant editor/reviewers. Further, the editor may communicate with the board/publisher where applicable and deal with appeals, letters and the likes. More than once an editor has written to us that our manuscript was not interesting for the readership of the journal. This may also imply the expectation that the article will not be cited at the level the journal strives for.