Jais Review Process

Review Process (jais-review-process)

When to trigger

• You are about to submit and want to understand how JAIS will handle the paper
• A decision letter arrived and you need to read it correctly before reacting
• You are unsure who owns the decision (Senior Editor vs. reviewers) and how to weight comments
• You want to understand JAIS's "developmental reviewing" culture and how to engage it
• You are deciding whether a major-revision invitation is worth the effort or signals a likely path to acceptance

Fit is screened before quality

Like its Basket siblings, JAIS screens fit before it spends reviewer effort on quality — the Editor-in-Chief (or a deputy) assesses whether the paper belongs in JAIS and in the declared category before routing it for full review. This is why a technically excellent paper can be desk-rejected: not because the work is weak, but because the contribution is not a JAIS contribution, or the category is wrong. Practically, the fit screen rewards the upstream work in jais-topic-selection and jais-contribution-framing more than any amount of late polish. If you keep getting desk rejects, the problem is almost always fit or contribution, not execution.

How JAIS review actually works

JAIS runs a double-blind process: the Editor-in-Chief routes a submission, typically to a Senior Editor in the relevant category, who manages the review (commonly through an Associate Editor and reviewers). The distinctive feature is the journal's stated commitment to "developmental reviewing" with "an editorial board of eminent scholars engaging with authors on promising papers" — JAIS frames itself as trying to build good papers, not merely gate them. Practically: the SE's letter is the authoritative synthesis of where the paper stands and what it needs, and a developmental tone in the letter is a real signal that the editor sees promise.

The masthead changes: Monideepa Tarafdar is Editor-in-Chief (effective Sept 1, 2024); category Senior Editors (e.g., Literature Reviews — Gregory Vial; Research Perspectives — Dirk Hovorka; Foundational — Varun Grover; Policy and Impact — Roman Beck) are 待核实. Confirm at aisel.aisnet.org/jais.

Category routing shapes the review

Because JAIS has seven categories each with its own SE, the category you chose at submission determines who reviews you and against what bar. A Theory submission is read for generative theory; a Foundational submission for disciplined description of a novel phenomenon; a Literature Review for method and theoretical payoff. If a paper is mis-categorized, expect a fit challenge or a re-route before substantive review — which is why category selection (jais-topic-selection) is upstream of everything.

What the seven Senior Editors signal about routing

Each category's Senior Editor brings that genre's standards, so the identity of your handling editor is a clue to what your reviews will emphasize. A Theory submission routed to the Theory SE will be pressed hardest on construct novelty and generativity; a Literature Review under Gregory Vial on method and theoretical payoff; a Research Perspective under Dirk Hovorka on the strength and defensibility of the argument; a Foundational submission under Varun Grover on disciplined description of a genuinely novel phenomenon; a Policy and Impact paper under Roman Beck on the credibility of the research-to-policy bridge (SE names 待核实 — confirm before relying on them). If your paper would be stronger under a different category's bar, that is a topic-selection signal, not a review-process one.

Read the decision letter for what it actually says

A developmental SE letter on a major revision is closer to a roadmap than a verdict. Mine it for the editor's priorities; those, not reviewer word-count, set your revision plan.

Timeline and expectations, calibrated

JAIS, like its Basket siblings, runs a multi-round developmental process: an initial decision, then typically one or more rounds of major then minor revision before acceptance. Plan for this. A first-round major revision is the normal path to publication, not a near-miss; the work happens across rounds as the SE and reviewers engage the paper. Treat exact turnaround times, acceptance rates, and impact-factor figures as 待核实 — they move and vary by category — and do not let an optimistic timeline tempt you into a thin, rushed revision that squanders a developmental opening.