ManuscriptLab’s Journal Management provides academic journals with end-to-end operational support across three critical areas — Editorial Office Support, Ethical Compliance Management, and Editor & Reviewer Recruitment — keeping your journal running efficiently, ethically, and growing.
Journal Management is ManuscriptLab’s comprehensive operational support service for academic journals — covering the three critical management areas that determine whether a journal runs efficiently, maintains its integrity, and grows its editorial community over time.
Unlike copyediting or publication support, Journal Management addresses the operational backbone of a journal — the day-to-day work of managing submissions, ensuring COPE-compliant ethical standards, and building a strong, diverse editorial board of qualified editors and peer reviewers who keep the journal’s scientific quality high.
Full day-to-day management of your editorial office: manuscript tracking, author correspondence, reviewer coordination, decision letters, and editorial calendar — handled by our experienced journal management team.
COPE-guideline adherence, pre-submission plagiarism screening, ethics investigation support, retraction management, and post-publication correction handling — protecting your journal's long-term integrity.
Targeted identification, outreach, and onboarding of qualified associate editors and peer reviewers — building a diverse, active editorial board that keeps peer review turnaround times competitive.
Every journal needs three things to thrive: smooth operations, ethical credibility, and a strong editorial community. ManuscriptLab’s Journal Management addresses all three under one partnership agreement.
Your journal's day-to-day operations — managed professionally by our editorial team so your editors can focus on scientific decisions, not administrative tasks.
COPE-aligned ethics management — ensuring your journal meets international publishing integrity standards and is fully protected from integrity breaches and post-publication crises.
Building and sustaining a diverse, qualified, and engaged editorial board — the backbone of a journal's peer review quality, reputation, and long-term scientific credibility.
A closer look at the specific tasks, deliverables, and operational functions covered under each of the three Journal Management service areas.
Real-time tracking of all manuscript submissions from receipt through peer review to final decision — with author status updates, reviewer deadline monitoring, overdue review alerts, and monthly editorial office reporting to the editor-in-chief.
Professional management of all author and reviewer communications — reviewer invitation letters, reminder emails, decision notifications, revision requests, and rejection letters — all in your journal's voice, tone, and house style.
Implementation of COPE guidelines across all editorial decisions — authorship verification, conflict of interest declaration review, ethics investigation support, and preparation of formal documentation and responses for editors-in-chief to issue.
Full management of post-publication integrity issues — retraction notices, expressions of concern, corrections, and author response management — prepared in line with COPE retraction guidelines and CrossMark post-publication standards.
Systematic identification of qualified editors by subject area, institution, h-index, and publication record — with personalised outreach campaigns, invitation letters, and full onboarding support for all incoming editorial board members.
Building and maintaining a comprehensive peer reviewer database for your journal — matching reviewers to manuscript topics by subject expertise, tracking availability and response rates, and identifying high-performing reviewers for editorial board promotion.
Running a journal’s editorial office, ethics program, and editorial board recruitment in-house is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to scale. ManuscriptLab provides a cost-effective, expert alternative that grows with your journal.
Our journal management professionals have backgrounds in academic publishing, editorial office operations, and scholarly communication — not repurposed manuscript editors learning on the job.
Access to ManuscriptLab's network of 750+ PhD-qualified editors across 1,117+ subject areas — a ready-made talent pool for peer reviewer identification, editorial board recruitment, and board diversity strategy.
Detailed monthly reports for editors-in-chief and publishers covering submission volumes, reviewer turnaround times, ethics cases handled, editorial board growth metrics, and budget utilization across all three management areas.
A structured onboarding followed by continuous operational management — with monthly reporting and quarterly review calls to align on the journal’s evolving needs and priorities.
ManuscriptLab conducts a full operational audit — reviewing submission volumes, current workflows, ethics policies, submission system setup, and editorial board composition — before finalising the management scope and formal partnership agreement.
A dedicated journal management team is assigned — including an editorial office manager, an ethics compliance specialist, and a recruitment coordinator — all briefed on your journal's subject area, standards, and strategic goals.
Manuscript tracking, author and reviewer correspondence, decision letters, submission system management, and COPE-compliant ethics monitoring all commence — integrated into your existing editorial platform with no disruption to active workflows.
The recruitment team profiles editorial board gaps by subject area and geography, identifies qualified candidates, conducts personalised outreach, and manages the full onboarding of accepted editors and peer reviewers into your submission platform.
Editors-in-chief and publishers receive a detailed monthly operations report. A quarterly review call with ManuscriptLab's journal management lead aligns on performance data, editorial priorities, and any strategic adjustments needed.
📋 Fully managed: Once onboarded, ManuscriptLab handles all three management areas continuously — so your editors focus entirely on scientific evaluation and editorial leadership, not operational administration.
Journal Management is ideal for any journal whose editorial office is stretched — whether due to rapid growth, limited in-house resources, or the need for specialised ethics and recruitment expertise.
Senior editors who want to focus purely on scientific evaluation and editorial strategy — delegating operational management, ethics compliance, and board development to an experienced external team.
Publishers managing multiple journals who need a scalable editorial operations partner to reduce internal headcount without compromising on editorial quality, ethics standards, or compliance requirements.
Society publications with volunteer editors and limited staff who need professional editorial office management, COPE ethics expertise, and access to ManuscriptLab's global reviewer and editor network.
Recently launched journals that need to build editorial board credibility, establish COPE-compliant ethical compliance standards, and create scalable operational systems from the ground up.
Compliant Process
Flexible plans covering one, two, or all three management areas — scalable to your journal’s size, submission volume, and operational complexity. Custom multi-journal programs available.
From individual faculty to entire research departments — here is what our institutional partners say about Departmental Publication Support.
Join academic journals and publishers worldwide that rely on ManuscriptEdit for professional editorial office management, COPE-compliant ethics support, and strategic editor and reviewer recruitment.
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