Revista Direito GV IN NUMBERS: 2021 BALANCE SHEET AND PROSPECTS FOR 2022

Summary

This editorial takes stock of the Revista Direito GV’s 2021 year based on general data regarding the flow of manuscripts submitted to the journal in 2021, as well as presents the 2022 outlook for the review, which highlights the changes the community of authors, reviewers, and readers can look forward to. Since 2017, we have presented, through quantitative data, the various dimensions of editorial work, mainly: submissions received, geographic distribution, and the number of opinions issued. More recently, we have sought to incorporate the gender of those responsible for each submission. The objective is to provide information to the journal’s community and maintain a history of the review’s main milestones, providing wide transparency regarding our editorial processes, while preserving the principle of anonymous peer review. Finally, in this, as in previous editorials, we share information about future changes that the journal intends to implement in an effort to continuously improve the editorial processes and raise the quality of published articles.

Law; scientific journal; article submission; peer review; genre

Resumo

Este editorial faz um balanço do ano de 2021 na Revista Direito GV a partir de dados gerais relativos ao fluxo dos manuscritos submetidos ao periódico nesse ano, bem como apresenta as perspectivas para 2022, salientando quais mudanças a comunidade de autoras e autores, avaliadoras e avaliadores e leitoras e leitores pode esperar. Desde 2017 apresentamos, por meio de dados quantitativos, as várias dimensões do trabalho editorial, principalmente: submissões recebidas, distribuição geográfica e número de pareceres emitidos. Mais recentemente, buscamos incorporar a dimensão de gênero dos responsáveis pela submissão. O objetivo é prestar informações à comunidade da revista e manter um histórico de seus principais marcos, dando ampla transparência aos nossos processos editoriais, porém, preservando o princípio da avaliação anônima por pares. Por fim, neste, assim como nos editoriais anteriores, compartilhamos informações sobre as futuras mudanças que a revista pretende implementar, sempre com vistas ao aperfeiçoamento dos processos editoriais e à elevação da qualidade dos artigos publicados.

Direito; editoração científica; submissão de artigos; avaliação por pares; gênero

INTRODUCTION

In this first editorial of the year, we will present a 2021 balance sheet and the outlook for changes in 2022 to the Revista Direito GV .¹As in previous years, we join other journals in the humanities area (BARBIERI and CANHEO, 2021; CANDIDO and CAMPOS, 2020) in the exercise of providing objective information to their community of authors, reviewers, and readers about the journal’s processes by showing wide transparency in our editorial processes, but preserving the principle of anonymous peer review. With these annual editorials, we also aim to keep a record of the main changes and projects implemented. Let’s get to the data.

SUBMISSIONS

Graph 1 , below, shows that, in 2021, there was a slight inflection of 4.2% in the total number of eligible annual submissions when compared to 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and the last year of the Capes evaluation quadrennium. We consider eligible any manuscripts that have met the minimum formal requirements required by the journal’s editorial policy.

graph 1
– TOTAL SUITABLE SUBMISSIONS PER YEAR (2009 TO 2021)

In relation to total submissions, there was an inflection of 11.8% (from 567 in 2020 to 508 in 2021). Of these 508 original articles submitted in 2021, no less than 241 articles did not meet the minimum formal requirements present in our editorial policy and were returned to authors for adjustments ( unsubmit) . Of the 241 articles that received an unsubmit decision, 177 returned to our evaluation process, which were analyzed again for formal elements. Thus, in practice, we had 685 texts that had to be read and processed at the entrance door of the evaluation process in 2021. This is because, given the non-observance of the editorial policy by most authors who submit (47.5%) and, consequently, of the new submission after the unsubmit decision (34.9%), we analyzed the same article two to three times (of the 177 articles that returned from the unsubmit , 21 were returned twice to the authors for adjustments, and thus analyzed three times by the editorial team). The data also show that, of the 241 articles that received an unsubmit decision, 64 did not return to our evaluation process. Thus, we spent time in the initial analysis of 12.5% of articles that were not even evaluated in the second stage of the desk review .

As we have already observed in another editorial (BARBIERI and CANHEO, 2021), the number of articles that do not comply with these basic requirements is quite high. This initial analysis demands a lot of time from the editorial support team, much of it is wasted on manuscripts that will not even be evaluated. Careful preparation of each submission, with a careful reading of the journal’s editorial policy, would solve these problems and save the lean editorial team’s efforts. For this reason, as of 2022, the editors will no longer use the unsubmit tool; articles that do not comply with the editorial policy will be rejected out of hand.

Regarding the Brazilian authors’ origins, in 2021, we continue with a large concentration of authors from the South and Southeast regions. São Paulo (20%), Paraná (9.4%), Minas Gerais (8.7%), Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro (each with approximately 7%) make up more than 50% of submissions. The Midwest region, led by the Federal District, accounts for 15.2%; the Northeast region for 20.6%; and the North region had 6% of submissions.

Regarding foreign articles, there was an increase in the number of submissions from 7.53% in 2020 to 10.6% in 2021. The origin of articles was also more varied, going from 13 countries in 2020 to 19 countries in 2021.²

The ratio between the number of manuscripts received and published has remained the same in recent years, approximately 8% ( Graph 2 ). The graph includes data from original articles, reviews, and translations that have been received and published throughout the 2009-2021 historical series.

graph 2
– NUMBER OF MANUSCRIPTS RECEIVED VERSUS NUMBER OF MANUSCRIPTS PUBLISHED PER YEAR, FROM 2009 TO 2021, IN %

AVERAGE TIMES

Table 1 , below, shows that we have managed to keep the evaluation time of all manuscripts from submission to the final decision, around four months in the last three years.

table 1
– AVERAGE (IN DAYS) OF EVALUATION OF MANUSCRIPTS FROM SUBMISSION TO FINAL DECISION (2016-2021)

	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
AVERAGE TIME (DAYS)	200	177	170	131	141	136

• Source: Own elaboration, based on the Revista Direito GV’s archives and ScholarOne Manuscripts/ Revista Direito GV .

From submission to publication, our goal continues to be, as best as possible, to approach the ideal period of 12 months suggested by SciELO (SCIELO, 2020). In 2021, the average time between submission and publication was 15 months and 10 days, compared to 14 months and 28 days in 2020, as can be seen in Table 2, below.

table 2
– AVERAGE (IN DAYS) FROM SUBMISSION TO PUBLICATION (2018-2021)

	2018	2019	2020	2021
AVERAGE TIME (DAYS)	480	416	453	465

Revista Direito GV’sRevista Direito GV

In recent years, we have tried to establish different strategies to try to reach the suggested 12 months, starting with the institution of continuous publication and going through numerous adjustments in the editorial processes, including an increasingly strict desk review . However, either because of the constant increase in editorial work or because of the increase in the total number of submissions (including unsubmit ), combined with other factors, such as lack of availability of reviewers (see below), limitations in the total number of articles published per year and reduced editorial staff, we are happy that the average times, although they have increased a little, have not returned to the level of 2018.

Today we understand that, despite all efforts, there are multifactorial limitations, both internal and external, related to the scenario of legal journals with Qualis A1, that exert pressure on our journal. Given this, our best efforts in 2022 will be to control this upward trend.

PEER REVIEW

As pointed out earlier (GROSS, 2020; BARBIERI and CANHEO, 2021), the peer review system remains one of the major bottlenecks in the processing of articles. In 2021, a very high number of invitations were made in the double-blind peer review stage: 511. A considerable increase of 37.4% in the total number of invitations compared to 2020 (372). However, of these invitations, only 202 resulted in the effective execution of an opinion, an increase of 18.1% compared to 2020 (171), by a commendable contingent of 189 people who worked in this role (compared to 166 in 2020). Of all the articles that went through the desk review and were sent for peer review (98), no less than 74.5% needed more than two invitations until we had two reviews, and it became increasingly common to have articles for which it was necessary to make five or more invitations to obtain two opinions.

GENDER DISTRIBUTION

Data for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 indicate a very uneven and stable distribution by gender year by year when analyzing the manuscripts’ authors.

In 2019, 2020, and 2021, there were, respectively, 45.6%, 40.2%, and 41.2% articles with only male authors (see Graph 3 ). The percentage of articles with mixed authorship³remained stable at 26%, as well as articles authored exclusively by women (29%).

graph 3
– PERCENTAGE OF SUBMISSIONS BY AUTHORS’ GENDER AND YEAR (2019 to 2021)

With regard to evaluators, there is less inequality in the distribution by gender. In 2019, 57% of evaluators were men and 43% were women. In 2020, the difference in this proportion widened: 62% of the evaluators were men and 38% were women, which perhaps reflects the burden that the Covid-19 pandemic imposed on women scientists. White women who are mothers and black women, in general, were the ones who suffered the most negative impacts on academic productivity during the pandemic (STANISCUASKI et al. , 2020). In 2021, inequality decreased again: we had the collaboration of 56% male evaluators and 44% female evaluators. Women have collaborated as evaluators in a significant way with our journal, performing fundamental work for the function of academic journals, however, in an anonymous and unpaid way.

2022 OUTLOOK

The Revista Direito GV editorial team, with the endorsement of its Editorial Board, will undertake throughout 2022 the implementation of the new editorial policy. In addition to procedural adjustments and clarifications, as well as adequacy, where relevant, to the new criteria for indexing and permanence of journals in the SciELO database (SCIELO, 2020), the main objective of the new text is to implement a refinement of the journal’s scope.

The new editorial policy seeks to explain the relationship between the journal’s scope and the DNA of the research produced at its sponsoring institution, the Fundação Getulio Vargas School of Law in São Paulo (FGV DIREITO SP). We see the journal as a space to construct dialogues with Brazilian and foreign researchers who are committed to themes, issues and methodologies connected with what is done within the walls of FGV DIREITO SP. We want to reinforce this thematic and methodological link between intra and extramural spaces, clarifying the role that the journal plays in maintaining an increasingly strong epistemic community around innovative Law and Development research results.

REFERÊNCIAS

• BARBIERI, Catarina Helena Cortada; CANHEO, Roberta Olivato. Revista Direito GV em números: balanço de 2020 e perspectivas para 2021. Revista Direito GV, São Paulo, v. 17, n. 1, e2100, 2021. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-6172202100 Acesso em: 7 mar. 2022.
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-6172202100
• BARBIERI, Catarina Helena Cortada; IZIDORO, Leila Giovana; CANHEO, Roberta Olivato. Revista Direito GV em números: balanço de 2019 e perspectivas para 2020. Revista Direito GV, São Paulo, v. 16, n. 1, e1938, 2020. Disponível em: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1808-24322020000100100&lng=pt&nrm=iso Acesso em: 15 mar. 2022.
  » http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1808-24322020000100100&lng=pt&nrm=iso
• BARBIERI, Catarina Helena Cortada; PASQUA, Juliana Silva. O que buscamos em um artigo científico? Revista Direito GV, São Paulo, v. 14, n. 3, São Paulo, p. 810-813, set./dez. 2018. Disponível em: https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1808-24322018000300810&script=sci_arttext Acesso em: 15 mar. 2022.
  » https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1808-24322018000300810&script=sci_arttext
• CANDIDO, Marcia Rangel; CAMPOS, Luiz Augusto. Pandemia reduz submissões de artigos acadêmicos assinados por mulheres, Blog DADOS, 2020. Disponível em: http://dados.iesp.uerj.br/pandemia-reduz-submissoes-de-mulheres/ Acesso em: 15 mar. 2022.
  » http://dados.iesp.uerj.br/pandemia-reduz-submissoes-de-mulheres/
• GROSS, Clarissa P. O parecerista: protagonista anônimo da qualidade. Revista Direito GV, São Paulo, v. 16, n. 2, e1957, 2020. Disponível em: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1808-24322020000200100&lng=pt&nrm=iso Acesso em: 15 mar. 2022.
  » http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1808-24322020000200100&lng=pt&nrm=iso
• SCIENTIFIC ELECTRONIC LIBRARY ONLINE (SCIELO). Critérios, política e procedimentos para a admissão e a permanência de periódicos científicos na Coleção SciELO Brasil. São Paulo, maio 2020. Disponível em: https://wp.scielo.org/wp-content/uploads/20200500-Criterios-SciELO-Brasil.pdf Acesso em: 15 mar. 2022.
  » https://wp.scielo.org/wp-content/uploads/20200500-Criterios-SciELO-Brasil.pdf
• STANISCUASKI, Fernanda et al. Gender, race and parenthood impact academic productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic: from survey to action. BioRxiv, 2020. Disponível em: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.04.187583v1 Acesso em: 15 mar. 2022.
  » https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.04.187583v1

• 1
  Thanks to the assistants of Revista Direito GV , Bárbara Magarian and Lívia Buzolin, for collecting and updating the data, as well as updating the graphs and tables.
• 2
  In descending order, considering the number of articles received, the origin of manuscripts is as follows: Brazil, United States, Argentina, Portugal, Colombia, United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Norway, Peru, Costa Rica, Russia, Ukraine, Belgium, India, Macau and Paraguay.
• 3
  For Revista Direito GV , an article has mixed authorship when it has at least one author of each gender, in any combination or proportion. Unfortunately, the way this data is collected does not allow us to identify gender preponderances in this group.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  29 Apr 2022
• Date of issue
  2022