1. Purpose and Scope

Peer review is a central component of the editorial process of Rigel. Revista de estética y filosofía del arte. Its purpose is to assess the scholarly quality, originality, methodological and conceptual soundness, ethical integrity, relevance, and clarity of manuscripts submitted to the journal.

The journal publishes research in aesthetics, philosophy of art, cultural theory, art history, visual studies, literature, intellectual history, and related areas of the humanities and social sciences. Manuscripts may be submitted in Spanish, English, or French. The language of submission does not influence the editorial decision or the standards applied during peer review.

2. Double-Anonymous Peer Review

Research articles and other scholarly submissions are normally evaluated through a double-anonymous peer review process. The identities of the authors are not disclosed to the reviewers, and the identities of the reviewers are not disclosed to the authors.

Authors must prepare an anonymized manuscript that contains no names, institutional affiliations, acknowledgements, self-identifying references, file properties, or other information that could reveal their identity. Author names, affiliations, contact information, ORCID identifiers, acknowledgements, and funding information must be provided separately.

3. Peer Review Process

4. Evaluation Criteria

Reviewers are asked to evaluate manuscripts according to the following criteria:

• Originality: the manuscript offers a distinctive and meaningful contribution to existing scholarship.
• Scholarly relevance: the subject is appropriate for the journal’s aims, scope, and readership.
• Theoretical foundation: the argument is supported by an appropriate conceptual and scholarly framework.
• Methodological soundness: the methods, interpretative approach, or analytical procedure are appropriate and clearly explained.
• Quality of argumentation: claims are coherent, logically developed, and adequately supported.
• Engagement with literature: relevant scholarship is represented accurately, critically, and sufficiently.
• Structure and presentation: the manuscript is clearly organized and written in an academically appropriate style.
• Ethical integrity: the work complies with applicable research, publication, copyright, and citation standards.
• Contribution to knowledge: the conclusions are justified and demonstrate the significance of the research.

5. Selection and Independence of Reviewers

Reviewers are selected on the basis of their subject expertise, research experience, publication record, independence, and ability to provide a fair and constructive assessment. Whenever reasonably possible, reviewers should not be affiliated with the same institution as the authors and should not have recent collaborative, supervisory, financial, personal, or professional relationships with them.

Authors may suggest qualified reviewers or identify individuals they believe should not review the manuscript. Such requests must include a reasonable explanation. The editors are not obliged to use suggested reviewers and retain full responsibility for reviewer selection.

6. Conflicts of Interest

Editors and reviewers must disclose any relationship or interest that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgment. Potential conflicts include institutional affiliation, recent collaboration, direct academic competition, financial interests, personal relationships, supervision, employment, or strongly held positions connected to the manuscript.

A reviewer who identifies a conflict of interest must decline the invitation or immediately inform the editorial office. Editors with a conflict must not participate in reviewer selection, assessment, discussion, or decision-making for the affected submission.

7. Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, author responses, and unpublished research information are confidential materials. Reviewers and editors must not share, reproduce, circulate, cite, or use them for personal, professional, commercial, or competitive purposes.

Reviewers must not contact authors directly. All communication concerning a submission must be conducted through the editorial office. Confidentiality continues after the review process has ended, irrespective of the final decision.

8. Artificial Intelligence in Peer Review

Reviewers and editors must not upload submitted manuscripts, excerpts, figures, personal data, review reports, or other confidential editorial materials to publicly accessible generative artificial intelligence systems or external automated services that do not provide adequate confidentiality and data protection.

Peer review requires human scholarly judgment. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, fairness, and confidentiality of their reports. Artificial intelligence tools must not be listed as reviewers and must not replace independent critical evaluation.

9. Editorial Decisions

Following editorial assessment or external peer review, authors may receive one of the following decisions:

Acceptance is not automatic after revision. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or evaluated by additional reviewers when further specialist assessment is necessary. In cases of substantially conflicting reports, the editor may seek an additional independent review.

10. Review Time and Delays

The journal seeks to conduct peer review as efficiently as possible without compromising scholarly quality. Review periods may vary according to the subject, availability of qualified reviewers, complexity of the manuscript, number of revision rounds, and responsiveness of authors and reviewers.

Reviewers who cannot complete an assessment within the requested period should inform the editorial office promptly. Authors will be notified when an exceptional delay materially affects the processing of their submission. The journal does not guarantee acceptance or publication within a fixed period.

11. Research and Publication Ethics

Reviewers must alert the editor to suspected plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, fabricated or falsified information, inappropriate image manipulation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, unethical research practices, copyright infringement, or substantial similarity to another work.

Reviewers should provide sufficient information to allow the editorial office to examine the concern, but they must not conduct personal investigations or make allegations directly to the authors. Ethical concerns are assessed separately from the reviewer’s recommendation concerning scholarly quality.

12. Submissions from Editors and Editorial Board Members

Manuscripts submitted by editors, editorial board members, or individuals closely associated with the journal are subject to the same standards of editorial assessment and independent peer review as other submissions. The author concerned is excluded from reviewer selection, editorial discussion, access to confidential reports, and the final decision. Responsibility is assigned to an independent editor with no relevant conflict of interest.

13. Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision when they believe that a significant factual, procedural, or ethical error affected the evaluation of their manuscript. An appeal must identify the manuscript, state the grounds clearly, and provide a reasoned response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments.

Disagreement with the academic judgment of reviewers is not, by itself, sufficient grounds for an appeal. Appeals are considered by an editor who was not directly responsible for the original decision whenever practicable. The outcome of the appeal is final.

14. Materials Not Subject to Standard External Review

Editorials, announcements, corrections, obituaries, interviews, exhibition notices, and certain commissioned materials may be assessed editorially without standard external peer review. Book reviews, review essays, translations, and other non-research contributions may be externally reviewed when the editors consider specialist evaluation necessary. The publication category should not be presented as a peer-reviewed research article unless it has completed the journal’s standard external review process.

15. Responsibilities of Reviewers

• Provide an objective, respectful, specific, and constructive assessment.
• Evaluate the work rather than the identity, nationality, institution, beliefs, or personal characteristics of the author.
• Support criticisms with clear scholarly reasoning and, where appropriate, relevant references.
• Avoid hostile, defamatory, discriminatory, dismissive, or personally directed language.
• Declare limitations in expertise and review only those aspects they are qualified to assess.
• Avoid requesting unnecessary citations, especially citations to the reviewer’s own work.
• Preserve confidentiality and disclose all actual or potential conflicts of interest.
• Inform the editor promptly of serious ethical concerns or significant overlap with published work.