Why do some papers get desk rejected from the European Journal for Sport and Society?

With the advent of online submissions and a proliferation of academic periodicals (including many wholly online, open-access scientific journals), the number of prospective academic papers entering the review process has increased over the past decades. Indeed, it has even been argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend in some fields (e.g. Nigrovic & Napper, 2021). The European Journal for Sport and Society (EJSS) is no different, seeing almost a 200% increase in the numbers of papers submitted yearly between 2017 and 2021. Concurrently, the journal’s print capacity has remained constant throughout this period, resulting in a lower proportion of papers being published. Inevitably, such changes place increasing pressure on our Editorial and Scientific Boards, as well as the wider sociology of sport community, to manage this high volume of manuscripts and to conduct peer reviews. What’s more, our experience in the editorial process (and as reviewers for other periodicals) is that the time and resources to contribute in this way are increasingly stretched across the community. Indeed, not all of the papers we receive move forward into the peer review process. When a new manuscript is received, it is always screened in two ways before going to peer review. Typically, this involves two ‘levels’ of screening prior to the peer reviewed process; (1) a technical screening in which manuscript style, length, anonymity and other practical information are reviewed, and (2) an editorial screening in which originality, contribution and issues concerning scientific rigour are considered by several members of the editorial board. Failure to pass either screening will result in the decision not to take a paper forward to review; a ‘desk reject’ decision. Of course, such screening is not considered a ‘full’ peer review, although we endeavour to provide feedback where possible. Yet it is an essential process in ensuring the journal runs in both an ethical and efficient way. Consequently, we feel that it is important to communicate how and why a paper might not pass these screening processes. In particular, the Editorial boardhave discussed what we consider the minimum standards we expect a paper to aachieve in order to justify our asking colleagues to spend their time conducting an anonymous review. In concluding these discussions, we felt it would be beneficial to the community to share our considerations. Our hope is that this supports authors to address these issues in the preparation of manuscripts, and in turn to increase the chances of their paper moving into the review process and to save time for all concerned. In so doing, we outline three interrelated issues below in brief. Notably, these standards are not dissimilar to those offered elsewhere i(e.g. Stolowy, 2017; Tadajewksi & Hewer, 2019), yet they do contain several considerations specific to EJSS and the sociology of sport in general. So, why might a paper be ‘desk rejected’ from EJSS?