FRJ (Financial Research Journal) strictly applies a double-blind peer-review policy to ensure the highest standards of fairness, objectivity, and academic quality in the manuscript evaluation process.
In the double-blind review system, anonymity is maintained at two levels:
Reviewer anonymity: Reviewers are not informed of the identity of the authors, and their identities are not disclosed to the authors at any stage of the review process.
Author anonymity: The identities, affiliations, and any identifying information of authors are concealed from reviewers throughout the evaluation process.
FRJ implements this rigorous anonymity framework for several key reasons:
• Reducing bias: Concealing author identity helps minimize potential bias related to gender, institutional affiliation, nationality, academic status, or publication history. This ensures that all manuscripts are evaluated solely on scientific merit.
• Content-focused evaluation: By removing identifying information, reviewers are encouraged to focus exclusively on the quality of the research, including methodology, results, and scholarly contribution, rather than the reputation of the authors.
• Strengthening research integrity: A blind and impartial review process enhances the credibility and integrity of the published scientific record.
To ensure the effectiveness of the double-blind review process, authors must carefully prepare their submissions:
• The main manuscript file must not include author names, affiliations, or any identifying information in the text, figures, tables, or supplementary materials.
• All identifying details, acknowledgements, and institutional affiliations must be included only in a separate title page file.
• Self-citations should be written in a neutral form; for example, instead of “our previous study showed,” authors should use “previous studies have shown.”
• While complete anonymity cannot always be guaranteed (e.g., through specialized topics or citation patterns), authors are expected to take all reasonable precautions to prevent identification.
The double-blind review policy is a core principle of FRJ and plays a central role in maintaining its selective publication standards, which reflect an acceptance rate of approximately 20%.