Expedited editorial decision in COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant lockdowns have interrupted the way scientists live and work. This nevertheless caused an unforeseen impact of COVID-19: the pandemic substantially increased editorial speed. Here, we causally identify the impact of the pandemic on the editorial decision time, based on a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity (RD) design that compares ( N = 339,199) papers submitted in the lead-up to and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that editors make acceptance decisions significantly quicker after the pandemic, reducing the editorial decision time of revised papers by 8.9 days on average. The pandemic, however, has unequal impacts on editors. The results reveal a larger reduction in editorial decision time for editors of high-tier journals, in the field of social science, or with busy work schedules. Finally, our findings also allude to the potential for the increase of editorial speed, and will stimulate policy changes in scientific enterprises that strive for accelerated publishing.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have disrupted scientists' lives, but it has unexpectedly resulted in increased editorial speed. A study using a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design compared papers submitted before and after the pandemic and found that editors made acceptance decisions significantly faster after the pandemic, reducing the decision time by an average of 8.9 days. However, the impact of the pandemic on editors was unequal, with greater reductions in decision time for editors of high-tier journals, in the social science field, or with busy work schedules.