Skip to main content

Editorial Board

Current members

Editor-in-Chief

  • Nicolae Petrescu — Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest

Associate Editors

  • Corneliu Bajenari — Faculty of Finance and Banking, Bucharest University of Economic Studies

Section Editors

  • Mădălina Claudia Panescu — Faculty of Baptist Theology, University of Bucharest

Guest Editors

  • Nicole Daria Postolea — Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest

Editorial Board Members

Listed alphabetically by family name.

  • Florin Ciobanu — Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics, National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest
  • Stefan Ion — Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest
  • Bogdan Penciu — Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest

How the board is structured

Peer Academics is establishing a four-tier editorial structure. It is set out here so that authors and reviewers can see how decisions are taken, and how they will be taken once the remaining seats are filled. Each tier has defined authority, and each decision is recorded in the journal's internal records against the editor who took it.

Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief holds final responsibility for what the journal publishes and for the integrity of its editorial process. The Editor-in-Chief sets editorial policy together with the board, assigns submissions to Associate or Section Editors, takes decisions on manuscripts that no other editor can handle, rules on appeals against editorial decisions, and decides on corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions. The Editor-in-Chief also represents the journal to the Publisher. The Publisher appoints the Editor-in-Chief and does not instruct the Editor-in-Chief on individual manuscripts; the Publisher's only editorial authority is to appoint and, for cause, to remove.

Associate Editors

Associate Editors run the review of the manuscripts assigned to them. An Associate Editor carries out the initial assessment, may decline a manuscript without external review where it is out of scope or clearly below the journal's standard, selects and invites reviewers, evaluates the reports received, writes the decision letter, and judges whether a revision has answered the reviewers. An Associate Editor may recommend acceptance and may reject, and refers to the Editor-in-Chief any case involving a conflict of interest, an ethics concern, or a decision they do not wish to take alone.

Section Editors

Section Editors are responsible for a defined disciplinary section of the journal. A Section Editor advises on scope within that section, maintains and extends the pool of reviewers for it, handles or allocates submissions in that field, and keeps the section's standards aligned with the journal's policies. On the manuscripts they handle, Section Editors exercise the same authority as Associate Editors.

Editorial Advisory Board

The Editorial Advisory Board advises rather than decides. Its members review the journal's policies periodically, advise on scope and on new sections, suggest and, when asked, act as reviewers, and alert the Editor-in-Chief to developments in their fields. Advisory Board members do not take decisions on manuscripts. When an Advisory Board member handles a manuscript as a reviewer, they do so under the same anonymity rules as any other reviewer.

Appointment, terms, and removal

  • Who appoints. The Publisher appoints the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief appoints Associate Editors, Section Editors, and Editorial Advisory Board members, and informs the Publisher of each appointment.
  • Criteria. Candidates are assessed on their scholarly record in a discipline within the journal's scope, on relevant editorial or peer-review experience, and on their capacity to handle the workload. The board is assembled with attention to disciplinary, geographic, and institutional spread, so that no single institution or country dominates any tier.
  • Offer and acceptance. The journal's rule is that an appointment is made by a written offer setting out the role's duties and expected workload, and is confirmed by the appointee's acceptance; and that beyond a member's name and role, nothing is published about a board member without that member's confirmation that it may be published.
  • Term. Appointments run for three years and may be renewed. Renewal is not automatic: the Editor-in-Chief reviews each appointment at the end of its term, and the Publisher reviews the Editor-in-Chief's.
  • Resignation. Any member may resign at any time by writing to the Editor-in-Chief, and is asked to hand over any manuscripts in progress.
  • Removal. An appointment may be ended before term for sustained inactivity, for breach of the journal's confidentiality or conflict-of-interest rules, or for conduct incompatible with the journal's ethics policies. The Editor-in-Chief decides in the case of other editors; the Publisher decides in the case of the Editor-in-Chief.
  • Departures. When a term ends, this page is updated. The journal does not retain former members on the list.

Obligations that come with a board role

  • Confidentiality. Editors treat every submission as confidential. They do not disclose its existence, content, or fate to anyone outside the editorial process and do not use unpublished material for their own purposes.
  • Anonymity. Review is double-anonymous. Editors do not reveal reviewer identities to authors or author identities to reviewers, and do not circumvent the anonymized workflow.
  • Conflicts of interest. An editor who has a conflict with a manuscript — a shared institution, recent collaboration, supervisory relationship, financial interest, or personal relationship with an author — declares it and hands the manuscript to another editor.
  • Editors as authors. An editor may submit to Peer Academics, but takes no part in the handling of their own manuscript. Such submissions are assigned by the Editor-in-Chief to an editor with no relationship to the author, and where the author is the Editor-in-Chief, the Publisher designates an independent handling editor. The independent handling is recorded and stated on the published article.
  • Timeliness. Editors are expected to complete an initial assessment promptly and to keep manuscripts moving, normally reaching a first decision within the period stated in the Author Guidelines. Persistent delay is grounds for review of the appointment.

The journal's editorial policies are informed by the principles of COPE and ICMJE. Peer Academics is not a member of either organization.