Purpose and Scope
IJMECS welcomes proposals for special issues that address a focused, timely, and significant topic within the journal's aims and scope. A special issue must make a clear scholarly contribution and must be managed according to the same editorial, ethical, and peer-review standards as regular issues.
Guest Editor Eligibility
A special issue should normally be managed by two to five Guest Editors with complementary expertise and appropriate geographic and institutional diversity. The Lead Guest Editor and all Guest Editors must have a strong publication record and recognized expertise in the proposed field. Their identities, affiliations, countries or regions, institutional contact details, and relevant academic profiles must be publicly available on the special-issue page.
All proposed Guest Editors must disclose any personal, institutional, professional, or financial conflicts of interest and must agree to follow IJMECS editorial and ethical policies.
Proposal Requirements
The Lead Guest Editor should submit:
(1) the name of IJMECS as the intended journal;
(2) a concise proposed special-issue title, normally no more than 15 words;
(3) the aims, scope, significance, and expected contribution of the special issue;
(4) a list of proposed topics;
(5) the names, affiliations, countries or regions, institutional emails, ORCID identifiers or institutional profiles, short biographies, and relevant publications of all Guest Editors;
(6) a proposed call for papers;
(7) a realistic timetable for submission, review, revision, and publication;
(8) a plan for attracting submissions from a broad and appropriate scholarly community; and
(9) a conflict-of-interest statement from each Guest Editor.
Proposal Evaluation
The Editor-in-Chief and unconflicted members of the IJMECS Editorial Board evaluate each proposal for relevance, scholarly merit, Guest Editor expertise, feasibility, diversity, and potential conflicts of interest. Approval of a proposal does not guarantee acceptance of any manuscript or publication of the special issue.
The Editor-in-Chief may modify, postpone, merge, or cancel a proposed special issue when it does not attract sufficient high-quality submissions, when editorial standards cannot be maintained, or when ethical or integrity concerns arise. Suitable manuscripts may be transferred to a regular issue with the authors' agreement.
Editorial Oversight
The Editor-in-Chief retains responsibility and oversight for every special issue. Guest Editors manage assigned manuscripts as handling editors, select independent external reviewers, supervise revision, and submit editorial recommendations. They do not make the final acceptance decision.
The final decision on every special-issue manuscript is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized independent Associate Editor who has no conflict of interest with the manuscript. MECS Press staff and special-issue sponsors do not influence academic decisions.
Double-blind External Peer Review
IJMECS applies the same double-blind external peer-review process to special-issue and regular submissions. The identities of authors are concealed from reviewers, and the identities of reviewers are concealed from authors.
Every primary research article and review article must receive substantive reports from at least two independent external reviewers before it can be accepted. External reviewers must not be members of the IJMECS Editorial Board, Guest Editors for the special issue, or employees of MECS Press. They must have relevant expertise and no personal, institutional, professional, or financial conflict of interest with the authors or manuscript.
Guest Editors cannot review manuscripts that they manage. An Editorial Board member or Guest Editor cannot replace either of the two required external reviewers.
Authors submit an anonymized manuscript and a separate title page. All communication between authors and reviewers is conducted anonymously through the Manuscript Tracking System.
Reviewer Selection
Guest Editors select reviewers on the basis of expertise, publication record, independence, and absence of conflicts of interest. Reviewer identities must be verified through reliable academic sources. Author-suggested reviewers may be considered but are subject to the same independence and verification requirements.
When two external reviewers provide materially conflicting recommendations, a third independent external reviewer may be invited. A manuscript cannot be accepted with fewer than two substantive independent external reports.
Editorial Decisions and Revisions
Reviewer recommendations are:
- Accept;
- Minor revision;
- Major revision; or
- Reject.
Reviewers make recommendations; they do not make final decisions. Guest Editors evaluate the reports and authors' responses and submit a documented recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief or authorized independent Associate Editor.
Major revisions are normally returned to the original external reviewers. Minor revisions may be assessed by the handling Guest Editor when the external reports clearly identify the required changes. The final academic decision remains with the Editor-in-Chief or authorized independent Associate Editor.
Conflicts of Interest and Guest Editor Submissions
Guest Editors must not handle:
(1) their own manuscripts;
(2) manuscripts submitted by colleagues from the same institution;
(3) manuscripts submitted by recent collaborators, supervisors, students, or close personal associates; or
(4) any manuscript in which they have a financial, personal, or professional interest.
Such manuscripts are assigned to an independent editor appointed by the Editor-in-Chief. The conflicted Guest Editor is excluded from reviewer selection, access to reviewer identities, editorial discussion, and the final decision. Guest Editor manuscripts undergo the same double-blind external peer-review requirements as all other manuscripts.
Research Integrity
All special-issue submissions are subject to the journal's plagiarism screening, authorship, conflict-of-interest, data, human and animal research, informed-consent, image-integrity, generative-AI, correction, and retraction policies.
The journal may investigate or discontinue a special issue if it identifies compromised peer review, fabricated reviewer identities, inappropriate citation requests, paper-mill activity, undisclosed conflicts of interest, Guest Editor misconduct, or other manipulation of the editorial process.
Reviewer Acknowledgement
IJMECS may publish an annual acknowledgement of external reviewers who have consented to be named. The acknowledgement does not identify which manuscript a reviewer evaluated and does not make the reviewer a member of the Editorial Board.
Fees and Editorial Independence
Special-issue manuscripts are subject to the same fee policy as regular manuscripts. IJMECS does not charge submission or peer-review fees. For manuscripts originally submitted on or after 1 April 2026, an Article Processing Charge applies only after formal acceptance. Full or partial waivers may be requested by eligible authors.
Payment, waiver status, sponsorship, and subscription decisions are handled separately from peer review and have no influence on reviewer selection, editorial decisions, or publication priority. Journal subscriptions are voluntary and are not a condition of manuscript acceptance or publication.
Questions and Proposals
Special issue proposals should be sent to service@mecs-press.org.
Publication ethics concerns may be reported confidentially to integrity@mecs-press.org.