Build a society conference handoff that preserves the journal’s decision

1. Agree the route before advertising it

Write a short operating agreement between the society and journal office. Identify the proposed article types, the period covered, who may invite authors and who answers questions. Define the journal’s independent decision role, ordinary fee information and any approved support. The society should review the final invitation wording before using it in the conference programme.

ICMJE’s guidance on externally funded or guest-edited collections preserves editorial control and requires relevant funding information. Apply the journal’s actual policy to the proposed collection and record who accepts each responsibility.

Decide what happens when the programme ends but manuscripts remain under review. A collection deadline should not force an editor to call an unresolved manuscript accepted. Plan how authors will receive an update, whether ordinary issue publication remains an option and which office retains responsibility for an active submission.

Reference: ICMJE: supplements, theme issues and special series

2. Make the invitation precise and optional

State that the authors are invited to submit for assessment, with a link to the current author instructions. Explain which material is being requested, how to disclose previous dissemination and how to ask about the fit of a protocol, review or completed study. A conference attendee should not have to infer these terms from a poster bearing two logos.

Ask the author group whether it wishes to proceed. Confirm who can authorise the transfer and what files are covered. A declined invitation should close that invitation record without becoming an editorial rejection. Keep an unanswered invitation open until the agreed follow-up process ends; it is not evidence that the authors lack interest or have abandoned their research.

If a society supports fees or manuscript preparation, give the actual scope and conditions in separate, approved wording. Keep support eligibility separate from editorial selection. An invitation should not imply that paying society dues, attending the conference or using a service will influence the scientific decision.

3. Assign an owner at every handoff

Use one internal reference to connect the conference item, permission record and journal submission identifier. Keep the receiving system’s identifier once a submission exists. The society coordinator can verify that files arrived, while the editor evaluates their content. Avoid two offices independently sending contradictory requests to the same author.

Transfer only the material within the agreed permission and access arrangement. Conference reviewer comments need their own policy and confidentiality assessment; a journal should not receive them automatically just because it receives the abstract. Preserve any relevant declared relationships for the editor’s assessment, without circulating private information to the whole organising committee.

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4. Follow a fictional programme without inflating its results

In this invented programme, 12 author groups receive invitations. Eight agree to the defined transfer, two decline and two have not replied. Among the eight agreed transfers, five have complete intake packages, two need missing files and one has an unresolved prior-publication question. The sums are 8 + 2 + 2 = 12 and 5 + 2 + 1 = 8.

The journal then assesses the five complete packages. It sends two for external review and declines three at initial assessment. No acceptance or publication has occurred in this scenario. These later decisions do not change the fact that all five intake packages were complete; completeness and editorial outcome are different fields.

5. Reassess the manuscript on its own evidence

The handling editor needs the full manuscript, related material and relevant disclosures. A conference award or supportive discussion can explain how the authors were invited, but it cannot replace the journal’s assessment. If the study changed after the meeting, identify the actual new version and changes before reviewer assignment.

A reviewer who judged the conference item may or may not be suitable for the journal task. Consider expertise, prior involvement and declared relationships under the journal’s policy. Do not treat the conference score as a completed journal review or promise that the same reviewers will endorse an expanded manuscript.

If an organiser is an author, move the relevant editorial decision to the agreed independent route and confirm that the system assignment follows that decision. The public collection description should explain the process accurately. It should not claim independent review merely because an independence clause appears in a planning document.

6. Evaluate the programme with useful, bounded measures

Report invitations, permitted transfers, complete intake packages, editorial decisions and publications separately, with a date and an explicit denominator. Record unresolved statuses. If timing matters, define the start and end events: invitation-to-reply measures a different interval from complete-submission-to-decision. Do not substitute one for the other.

Review where work stalled and what the office can improve: unclear instructions, missing files or an unowned question. Ask authors for feedback through the approved channel and distinguish responses received from the whole invited group. Changes to next year’s programme can be proposed from these observations; claims that the programme improved research quality require different evidence and should not be inferred from a larger invitation count.

Questions for a practical final check

• Authority and collection scope are agreed.
• Invitations describe independent consideration.
• Transfers have clear author permission.
• Each received package has an accountable owner.
• Stage totals reconcile without implying acceptance.
• Reported intervals and feedback denominators are defined.