Editorial policy

Publication ethics

The Journal of Nonsmooth Analysis and Optimization adheres to the Code of Practice of the European Mathematical Society. In particular, the journal publishes original articles that have not been published elsewhere (preprints on institutional or public repositories do not count for this purpose). Any form of plagiarism implies rejection of the article and may be brought before the Ethics Committee of the EMS; this includes but is not limited to

  • outright plagiarism (presenting the work of other researchers, whole or in part, as one's own, either verbatim or rephrased);
  • self-plagiarism (presenting one's own previously published work, whole or in part, as novel);
  • deliberate replication of already known results and concepts, whole or in part, under new names or in new notation, without a appropriate reference and justification.

The journal is also committed to a transparent and fair peer review process. Any failure to uphold this standard by reviewers or editors should (with appropriate documentation) be immediately brought to the attention of the Managing Editors, who will investigate the claim and if necessary discuss further steps with the Advisory Board.

Review process

The journal operates under the standard single-blind peer review process. Submitted manuscripts are assigned by the Managing Editors to a Handling Editor based on the expertise and the workload of the latter. The Handling Editor

  • screens manuscripts for suitability for the journal and rejects submissions found to be obviously outside of the scope of the journal or not ready for peer review due to severe deficiencies in presentation;

  • selects, invites, and follows up on (usually two) reviewers that are sufficiently familiar with the subject matter of the manuscript to evaluate its novelty, correctness, and relevance to optimization;

  • makes a decision on accepting, rejecting, or requesting revision of the manuscript based on the reports of the reviewers;

  • communicates the decision to the authors.

All Handling Editor decisions should be supported by a brief justification based on the reviewers' reports or the editors own reading.

In case of acceptance, the Managing Editors will make sure the final version of the manuscript conforms to the journal style, assigns it to a Volume, and publishes it on the journal website in a timely manner.

Selection criteria

Manuscripts are selected based on their quality and potential interest within the nonsmooth optimization community. Correctness is an essential requirement. Novelty is expected from research articles. Articles of more expository nature, while not expected to provide novel results, should provide new insights into their subject matter.

Appeal procedure

Authors may appeal decisions by Handling Editors by contacting the Managing Editors.

Open access

The journal is committed to free open access to its contents, without any cost to authors or readers. Authors (or their employers) retain the copyright to their articles, but must grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to a standard Creative Commons (CC) license. (Many science funders specifically require the CC-BY license; other licenses required by employers or funding agencies are also acceptable as long as they grant the basic rights common to all CC licenses.)

As authors retain all rights, they are in particular free to share the manuscript in its final published form on their own web pages or institutional repositories. However, authors should indicate the publication venue and link to the journal version via its DOI.