Journal Policies

The International Journal of Horticultural Science (IJHS) publishes both research and application oriented papers in the area of fruits, grapes and wine, vegetables, ornamentals, medicinal and aromatic plants, forestry, horticultural biotechnology and environmental management and horticultural economy. The journal is a diamond open access journal, publishing and downloading articles are both free of charge. All of our articles and Issues are available in the following repositories: University of Debrecen Electronic Archive

Authors are permitted to deposit publisher's version (PDF) of their work in an institutional repository, subject-based repository, author's personal website, and/or departmental website at any time after publication.  https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/37993

The Journal publishes the received and reviewed articles on its website, thus enabling members to have immediate access to the papers. Reactions to articles previously published in IJHS should be sent to the Editor.

Authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript is their original work (data including graphs, figures, tables, and illustrations), which has not been published previously. Authors must ensure also that the submitted manuscript has not been considered for publication elsewhere. Authors are aware that if the content detailed above has been published elsewhere, our Journal cannot accept it. Authors of the Journal are requested to sign the Authorʹs declaration document. The filled and signed form should be uploaded with the submitted article on the website of the Journal.

When submitting your article you can suggest 4-6 potential peer reviewers. The Journal Editors will not necessarily invite your suggested reviewers, but these proposals can help speed up the peer review process. Make sure that your suggestions are not current or recent colleagues of you or your co-authors. Please also give the contact information of the potential reviewers (organization, e-mail address).

Each paper is evaluated in a single-blind, peer review process. Manuscripts sent out for review will typically be assessed by at least two experts. However, in extenuating circumstances (e.g. because of a delay caused by an overdue reviewer), the Editor may make a recommendation based on the comments of only one reviewer, plus his/her own assessment of the manuscript.

Reviewers are allocated to manuscripts based upon various criteria including expertise, availability and workload. Only the leading specialists in the area of the manuscript are invited as reviewers. Reviewing usually takes two-four months. The decision of the Editor with the experts' comments will be sent to the authors. In case of the consideration of the manuscript authors are asked to improve their manuscripts based on the comments made by the Editor and the reviewers. When authors submit their revised work, they have to provide a corrected version of their manuscript using a Track Changes Mode and point-by point answers to the comments raised by the reviewers and the Editor.

Revisions and resubmissions of previously rejected manuscripts will be sent back to those reviewers who evaluated the original version of the manuscript. However, in some cases, the Editor may decide not to re-invite all original reviewers and/or may invite new reviewers.

Based on the publication frequency of IJHS, the time period between the received submission and the publication date is 3 to 10 months. The process is as follows:

  • allocation reviewers to the manuscripts: 5-7 days
  • duration of review: 2-4 months
  • duration of revision: 1-1,5 months
  • editing, paging: 3-7 days
  • waiting for publication: 1 week-5 months

Authors of the Journal are requested to sign the Authorʹs declaration document. The filled and signed form should be uploaded with the manuscript during the submission process.

To avoid plagiarism, after the submission, the manuscripts will be checked by an international plagiarism search software programme (iThenticate). If the similarity index is too high (above 20%) the manuscript will be immediately rejected. In ethical issues the COPE guidelines are followed (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).