Ask reviewers to refer to the relevant reporting guidelines when evaluating the research and include links to these in the reviewer report form.

 Explain how reviewer contributions are used to facilitate the editorial decision in the initial contact email, reviewer report form and follow-up emails. Editorials can also be helpful in emphasising the importance of reviewer contributions.

The importance of a constructive report can be emphasised in the initial invitation email, reviewer report form and reviewer guidelines. Providing this information in presentations, editorials, and newsletters can also be helpful.

Add specific questions on the reviewer report form to focus attention on the methodology used in the manuscript, ensuring it is sufficiently detailed to allow for replication.

 A combination of approaches is helpful to ensure appropriate peer reviewers are invited, including individual knowledge, reviewer selection tools, and searches on specialty/areas of expertise.

Provide reviewers with contact information for the editorial office in the invitation email, reviewer report form and follow-up emails. Encourage reviewers to contact the editorial office with any questions they may have.

Ask reviewers about any potential conflicts of interest in the invitiation email. Peer review guidelines should include examples of potential conflicts of interest. Give reviewers the option to decline due to potential conflicts of interest.

Explain your approach to peer review confidentiality in reviewer invitation emails and include links to further information about the peer review process.

Check that reviewers who have been recently associated with the author (e.g. recent collaboration or located at the same institution) or who may have any other potential conflicts of interest are not invited to peer review. Editor support and training is helpful to discuss what could constitute a potential conflict of interest.

Encourage diversity when selecting reviewers, including but not limited to gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, nationality and location. Journals should take a proactive attitude to diversity by encouraging inclusivity and providing training for journal teams.

Discourage reviewers from raising unreasonable additional issues at re-review by giving reviewers clear guidance about what is expected at each stage. Emphasise that the purpose of the re-review is to ensure requested changes have been made.

Editors should seek to invite a diverse range of reviewers and should be aware of trends relating to diversity and bias within their journal and commuity. Editoral teams should receive implicit bias training and discuss implicit bias issues in peer review guidelines.

Inform reviewers of editorial decisions of manuscripts under review, including the reasons for such a decision.

Editors should also provide comments and guidance to the author in addition to those of the reviewers.

Reviewers should be recognised for the contribution they make, for example via Publons, certificates, awards, etc.

Reviewers should be encouraged to give feedback to the journal on how they found the peer review process.

The reviewer invitation email should ask reviewers to respond, even if they are unavailable to review. The invitation email could include a request for alternative reviewer recommendations, if the invited reviewer is unable to assist. Reviewers should also have a means to alert the editorial office if they believe that their review will be delayed. The editorial team should follow up if a reviewer is unresponsive or overdue.

Readers should be encouraged to raise any concerns with information on how to do this provided on the journal website. All concerns raised should be fully investigated within COPE guidelines and all feedback should be followed up on.

Journals should have a transparent policy on their approach to data sharing for their community and the policy should be correctly implemented.

Editorial criteria for consistent decision making should be discussed regularly. New editors should be given appropriate guidance and/or mentoring on their decision making with additional support from the Editor-in-Chief where necessary. The accept/reject rates of editors could be monitored and discussed regularly to ensure consistency of editorial decisions.

Journals should have a transparent policy on their approach to what types of image manipulation are appropriate and acceptable. Where possible, checks on images are advisable.

 Peer review confidentiality should be emphasised in the new editor training and the peer review confidentiality policy guidelines should be provided when editors handle manuscript submissions.

The preprint policy should be included in the author guidelines.

Plagiarizing the work of others is inappropriate and unethical. Journals will follow COPE guidelines in handling cases of suspected plagiarism.

Potential conflicts of interest of Editors should be collected and revised on an annual basis. These should be provided on the journal website.

 All members of the editorial team should be given guidance on how to handle potential conflicts of interest. If there is a potential conflict of interest for a handling editor, and other member of the editorial team should handle the manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest should be referred to the Editorial office and editors should be prepared to recuse themselves if conflicts of interest arise.

The manuscript evaluation process should be explained in author submission guidelines and reviewer invitation emails. Editors should be made aware of the process in training. Editorials detailing the process can help to explain the process to readers, authors and reviewers and can be linked to from author guidelines.

 Encourage editors to offer feedback on the editorial process. In regular meetings ask for feedback on editorial processes and editor experiences. Inform editors of changes to practice before implementing any changes. Annual editor surveys are helpfu to review practice.

It can be helpful to use screening tools for manuscript checks - such as those that highlight overlapping text or potential figure manipulation. Tools that can assist with finding potential reviewers are helpful too.

It can be helpful to use screening tools for manuscript checks - such as those that highlight overlapping text or potential figure manipulation. Tools that can assist with finding potential reviewers are helpful too.

Regular reporting and review of workflows and metrics are helpful. Monthly team meetings and broader annual meetings can help to make immediate and long-term workflow improvements.

Provide authors with guidelines for different types of article. Ask authors to confirm that they are complying with minimum requirements on reporting guidelines.

•  Ask authors to declare funding sources at submission and ensure this information is included in the article.
•  Ask authors to declare potential conflicts of interest at submission and ensure this information is included in the article.
•  Ask authors to declare potential conflicts of interest at submission and ensure this information is included in the article.

Ask authors to provide details of any ethical approvals, including information of the ethics committee and reference number where appropriate. Ensure that this information is included in the article.

The journal's approach to respecting the confidentiality of the peer review process should be explained on the journal website and in their author guidelines.

All journals should have a policy on authorship explained in the author guidelines that allows for transparency around who contributed to the work, and in what capacity, in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Ask authors to explain individual contributions to the research and state this in the article.

All authors should be copied into emails so that they are aware of the submission and subsequent decisions.

Ask all authors to provide their ORCID identifiers

 Information on how authors can appeal against editorial decisions should be included in the decision email, on the journal website and in the author guidelines.

Journals should seek feedback from authors about their experience of the editorial process via decision emails or surveys, and where appropriate, act on it.

As well as including checklists for authors in the author guidelines it can be helpful for editorial teams to check that relevant information is provided. Tips on how to write a manuscript suitable for consideration in the journal can be helpful to share.

 Researchers should adhere to transparent standards of reporting when describing their research. Checklists are available for a number of study designs and researchers should adhere to these.

 Journals will use peer reviewers who are experts in the relevant subject area to review the manuscript and their comments will inform the editorial decision.

 Reviewer comments should be constructive and sufficiently detailed to provide researchers with helpful feedback.

Researchers should provide a full account of the methods used in their manuscript, which is sufficiently detailed to allow for replication.

Reviewers with relevant subject expertise should be invited to peer review the manuscript. Researchers may suggest potential reviewers based on subject expertise, if they wish, either in the submission website or in their covering letter.

Researchers should be aware that if reviewers have any concerns or questions about the research presented they can raise these with the editorial office.

Researchers should be aware that if reviewers have any concerns or questions about the research presented they can raise these with the editorial office.

All parties should respect the confidentiality of the peer review process and not reveal any details of a manuscript or communications related to it, during or after the peer review process, beyond those that are released by the journal.

If there is an opportunity to suggest potential peer reviewers do not suggest researchers who may have a potential conflict of interest (e.g. recent collaboration or work at the same institution).

If there is an opportunity to suggest potential peer reviewers, encourage diversity by including a broad array of potential reviewers including those in underrepresented groups (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, nationality and location).

Reviewers should not raise unreasonable additional issues at re-review. If you are unclear about any suggestions made seek advice from the editorial office.

Reviewers should not include other individuals to assist them with peer review without first checking with the journal. The journal should be aware of other individuals who have contributed to the review process.

If there is an opportunity to suggest potential peer reviewers, encourage diversity by including a broad array of potential reviewers including those in underrepresented groups (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, nationality and location).

Details about the decision on your manuscript will be shared with all reviewers, to help them understand the reasons for the decision.

In addition to peer reviewers comments expect to receive editorial guidance on how to improve your manuscript.

Researchers may wish to openly acknowledge the contribution that peer reviewers made in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript if appropriate to do so.

All parties involved in the review process can give feedback to the journal on their experience.

Researchers can expect reviewers to be responsible in anticipating delays to the review process.

Researchers can be assured that journals followed COPE guidelines to investigate any potential issues raised by readers.

Journals should have a transparent policy on their approach to data sharing for their community and the policy should be correctly implemented.

Editorial criteria for consistent decision making should be discussed regularly. New editors should be given appropriate guidance and/or mentoring on their decision making with additional support from the Editor-in-Chief where necessary. The accept/reject rates of editors could be monitored and discussed regularly to ensure consistency of editorial decisions.

Journals should have a transparent policy on their approach to what types of image manipulation are appropriate and acceptable. Where possible, checks on images are advisable.

Peer review confidentiality should be emphasised in the new editor training and the peer review confidentiality policy guidelines should be provided when editors handle manuscript submissions.

The preprint policy should be included in the author guidelines

Journals should have clear policy and procedures for investigating potential research integrity and publishing ethics issues in accordance with COPE. The policy should be explained to new editors and be included in author and reviewer guidelines.

Researchers can be assured that journals followed COPE guidelines to investigate any issues raised by readers.

Conflicts of interest statements from editors give researchers confidence that all potential biases are transparent.

Researchers can be confident that editors will recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest.

Researchers should have a clear understanding of how a journal evaluates the submissions it receives via the information shared on the journal's website.

All parties involved in the review process can give feedback to the journal on their experience.

Researchers should be aware that journals use tools for manuscript checks and should share this information on the journal website.

Researchers can expect journals to information on average anticipated decision times on the journal website or in email communications or updates.

Researchers can expect journals to regularly review their own processes and take action to alleviate any delays.

Researchers can expect journals to share minimum requirements for completeness of reporting via the information shared on the journal's website.

Researchers should declare sources of funding and include a statement about this in the manuscript.

Researchers should provide details of any potential conflicts of interest in their manuscript.

Researchers should provide details of any ethical approvals in their manuscript, including information of the ethics committee and reference number where appropriate.

Researchers should respect the confidentiality of the peer review process as explained in the information on the journal's website and not reveal any details of a manuscript or communications related to it, during or after the peer review process, beyond those that are released by the journal.

The journal's policy on authorship should be explained in the information on the journal's website and allow for transparency around who contributed to the work, and in what capacity.

Researchers should explain each author's contribution to the research and state this in their manuscript.

All authors are copied into communication from a journal so that individual's are aware of the submission and subsequent decisions.

ORCID is a way of ensuring every researcher has a unique identifier. Researchers can expect journals to require an ORCID upon submission.

Authors have a right to be able to appeal against editorial decisions and information on how to do this should be provided on the journal website.

Feedback from researchers about their experience with the peer review process is always welcome.

It is possible to seek help from a journal on how to prepare your manuscript in the most useful manner, either via advice on relevant information or more formal copyediting.

Journals should share information on the various stages of peer review process or communicate this in an email confirming the submission of your manuscript.

Journals may share information on average times to initial decision and their acceptance rates on the journal website.

Researchers should expect journals to alert them to any potential delays in the peer review process.