Sincere Academy

Rationale & Assistance

We wish to assist in the following cases (after the individual had tried to raise their concern in front of the relevant entity):

Journal submissions:

  • Desk rejections three+ months after the submission date, without reasoning the decision.
  • Waiting time of eight+ months for peer review, without any news from the editor during this period.
  • Rejection despite positive peer review without sufficient explanation from the editor.

Book publications:

  • Waiting time of three+ months for a response regarding a submitted book proposal.
  • Waiting time of nine+ months for peer review of the manuscript (or of several full chapters) without any news from the press during this time.
  • Rejection of the manuscript despite positive peer review without sufficient explanation from the press.

Funding applications

  • Waiting time that exceeds the announced timeframe, without receiving any news about delays.
  • Rejection despite positive peer review without sufficient explanation from the committee.

Job applications

  • Waiting time that exceeds the announced timeframe, without receiving any news about delays.
  • Rejection of a short-listed candidate, without any explanation of the decision by the committee or information about the hired candidate 

              

Please note what we are NOT doing:

  • Helping in issues internal to academic groups or departments such as student-supervisor interaction or irresponsible conduct of a contributor to a group publication/application. While these issues may form critical obstacles for young academics’ careers, it would be over presumptuous for us to mediate from distance in such situations.
  • Appealing decisions. Our focus is responsible communication, not thorough investigations of whether decisions are just.  
  • Shaming. We do not have a user on social media and, in general, we wish to settle problem as discretely as possible. After running this service for a while, we will consider publishing the unresolved cases on this website, thus allowing visitors to read about shared challenges, or about entities that are repeatedly mentioned notoriously.