Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Challenge Journal of Concrete Research Letters provides an international forum for research advancing the science, technology, performance, and application of concrete, cementitious materials, and closely related composites.

The Journal considers experimental, theoretical, numerical, computational, and data-driven studies that provide a clear contribution to the understanding, formulation, production, characterization, durability, sustainability, or engineering performance of concrete and cement-based materials.

Areas of Interest

The scope includes, but is not limited to:

  • Cement, supplementary cementitious materials, aggregates, admixtures, water, and other concrete constituents;
  • Hydration, reaction mechanisms, microstructure, and interfacial transition zones;
  • Concrete mixture design, proportioning, production, mixing, casting, curing, and quality control;
  • Fresh-state behavior, rheology, workability, setting, and early-age properties;
  • Mechanical behavior, including strength, stiffness, fracture, fatigue, creep, and shrinkage;
  • Durability, transport properties, service-life prediction, and deterioration mechanisms;
  • Reinforcement corrosion, bond behavior, and protection methods;
  • Concrete exposed to fire, elevated temperature, freeze–thaw cycles, chemical attack, radiation, and other severe environments;
  • Fiber-reinforced, self-compacting, high-performance, ultra-high-performance, lightweight, heavyweight, and pervious concrete;
  • Engineered cementitious composites, mortars, grouts, and related cement-based composites;
  • Alkali-activated, geopolymer, and other alternative cementitious systems intended for concrete applications;
  • Low-carbon concrete, recycled constituents, industrial by-products, waste-derived materials, and circular use of resources;
  • Life-cycle performance and environmental assessment of concrete materials and technologies;
  • Bio-based, multifunctional, smart, self-healing, and other advanced cementitious materials;
  • Additive manufacturing and three-dimensional printing of concrete and cementitious materials;
  • Repair materials, protective systems, and rehabilitation technologies for concrete;
  • Experimental methods, nondestructive testing, imaging, and advanced material characterization;
  • Numerical modeling, optimization, statistical analysis, and machine-learning applications focused on concrete behavior or performance;
  • Standards, test methods, and performance-based assessment of concrete materials; and
  • Concrete structural elements where the principal scientific contribution concerns concrete material behavior, durability, or technology.
Types of Contribution

Manuscripts should provide one or more of the following:

  • New knowledge concerning concrete or cementitious-material behavior;
  • A scientifically supported improvement in materials, production, or testing methods;
  • A rigorous evaluation of durability, sustainability, or service performance;
  • A validated predictive, numerical, or data-driven model;
  • A critical and systematic review of a significant research area; or
  • A technically important case study producing conclusions of broader relevance.
Outside the Scope

The Journal does not normally consider:

  • General structural analysis or design studies in which concrete-specific behavior is only incidental;
  • Studies limited to chemical or mineralogical characterization without demonstrating relevance to concrete or cementitious-material performance;
  • Descriptions of waste or alternative materials without adequate incorporation into, and evaluation within, a cementitious system;
  • Routine mixture-comparison studies lacking a clear research question, appropriate controls, or scientific interpretation;
  • Unvalidated statistical, optimization, or machine-learning studies unsupported by adequate experimental or reliable published data;
  • Construction-management, cost-estimation, or architectural studies without a substantive concrete-research contribution; or
  • Purely local project reports that do not generate transferable scientific or engineering knowledge.
Readership

The Journal is intended for researchers, academics, materials scientists, civil and structural engineers, concrete technologists, practitioners, postgraduate students, and other professionals concerned with concrete and cementitious materials.

The Journal is published quarterly.

 

Section Policies

Research Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Reviews

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Case Studies

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Short Communications

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Discussions

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Letters to the Editor

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

The Journal applies a double-blind peer-review process to scholarly content identified as peer reviewed in the Section Policies. The identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other throughout the review process. Editors have access to the information necessary to administer the submission and make editorial decisions.

Initial Editorial Assessment

Each submission undergoes an initial editorial assessment before external peer review. The assessment may consider:

  • Relevance to the Journal's aims and scope;
  • Scholarly contribution, originality and overall scientific quality;
  • Methodological and ethical adequacy;
  • Completeness of the submission and compliance with journal requirements;
  • Clarity and suitability of the language and presentation; and
  • Potential plagiarism, duplicate publication or other publication-integrity concerns.

A manuscript may be returned for technical correction or declined without external peer review if it is outside the Journal's scope, does not meet essential scholarly or ethical requirements, is insufficiently prepared for evaluation or is otherwise unsuitable for consideration.

Author Anonymity

Authors must remove names, affiliations, acknowledgements and other information that could directly identify them from the manuscript and from any supplementary files intended for peer review. Identifying information must be provided separately through the submission system where requested.

The Journal takes reasonable measures to preserve anonymity but cannot guarantee that an author's identity will never be inferred from the subject matter, citations, publicly available material or other contextual information.

Reviewer Selection

Manuscripts proceeding to peer review are evaluated by independent subject experts who are not responsible for the editorial handling or decision on the submission. Reviewers are selected according to their expertise, experience, availability and absence of relevant competing interests.

Where appropriate, the editor may obtain additional statistical, methodological, ethical, technical or other specialist assessment.

If authors are invited to suggest reviewers, the suggestions may be considered but are not binding. Editors independently select all reviewers and may use reviewers who were not suggested by the authors.

Reviewer Independence and Competing Interests

Potential reviewers must disclose any personal, professional, academic, institutional or financial relationship that could affect, or reasonably appear to affect, their impartiality. A reviewer should decline the assignment when:

  • The manuscript falls outside their expertise;
  • They cannot provide a sufficiently careful review;
  • They cannot complete the review within a reasonable period; or
  • A competing interest could compromise the independence of the review.
Scope of the Review

Reviewers are asked to assess the manuscript objectively and constructively, considering matters such as:

  • Originality, significance and relevance;
  • Soundness and reproducibility of the methods;
  • Appropriateness of the data analysis and interpretation;
  • Consistency between the evidence, results and conclusions;
  • Adequacy and accuracy of the literature review and citations;
  • Compliance with applicable research and publication ethics;
  • Clarity, organisation and completeness of reporting; and
  • Specific revisions required to improve the work.

Supplementary materials made available to reviewers are considered as part of the submission where they are relevant to evaluating the research.

Editorial Decision

Reviewer reports provide expert advice to the editor but do not determine the editorial outcome. The Editor-in-Chief or a delegated editor retains responsibility for the final decision.

Editors assess the manuscript, reviewer reports, author responses and any other relevant information. An editor handling a submission performs editorial evaluation and decision-making and does not act as a reviewer for that manuscript.

No fixed number or combination of reviewer recommendations automatically determines acceptance or rejection. Where reports differ substantially or additional expertise is required, the editor may seek another review, request clarification or reach a reasoned decision based on the available evidence.

Possible editorial outcomes include:

  • Decline without external peer review;
  • Decline following peer review;
  • Revisions required;
  • Resubmission for further evaluation;
  • Acceptance subject to any required final corrections; or
  • Acceptance.
Revision and Further Review

When revision is requested, authors should submit a revised manuscript together with a clear, point-by-point response explaining how each editorial and reviewer comment has been addressed. Where a recommendation has not been followed, the authors should provide a reasoned explanation.

A request for revision does not guarantee acceptance. A revised manuscript may be:

  • Evaluated by the responsible editor;
  • Returned to one or more original reviewers;
  • Sent to a new reviewer or specialist; or
  • Subject to further revision or declined.
Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts, supplementary files, reviewer reports and editorial correspondence are confidential. Reviewers must not share, copy, retain or use unpublished material for personal or professional advantage.

Reviewer identities and reports are not published. Communication between authors and reviewers is managed through the editorial process.

Editors and reviewers must not upload manuscripts, supplementary files, review reports, personal data or confidential editorial information to external artificial intelligence systems where confidentiality and data protection cannot be assured.

Integrity of Peer Review

Fabricated reviewer identities, undisclosed conflicts of interest, review by an unauthorised person, coercive citation, manipulation of reviewer selection and attempts to improperly influence an editorial decision are prohibited.

Ethical concerns identified during peer review are handled in accordance with the Publication Ethics and Research Integrity Policy of Tulpar Academic Publishing.

Special and Invited Content

Invited submissions, special-issue articles and manuscripts authored by editors or editorial board members are not exempt from the Journal's normal scholarly and ethical standards. Such manuscripts are handled by an editor without a relevant competing interest and, where designated as peer reviewed, undergo independent peer review.

Content that does not undergo external peer review, if any, will be clearly identified by its article type or accompanying publication information.

Review Period and Withdrawal

The duration of peer review varies according to the subject, reviewer availability, number of revision rounds and complexity of the manuscript. The Journal does not guarantee a fixed decision or publication time.

Where a substantial delay occurs, the editorial office may inform the corresponding author. Authors may request withdrawal of a manuscript before final acceptance by submitting a written request through the editorial system or to the editorial office.

Appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they can identify a material factual error, procedural problem, relevant competing interest or significant information that was not adequately considered. Appeals are handled under the Publisher's Publication Ethics and Research Integrity Policy. Submission of an appeal does not guarantee reopening or further peer review of the manuscript.

 

Publication Frequency

Challenge Journal of Concrete Research Letters is published quarterly, with four issues per year. Articles are published collectively as part of an issue.

 

Open Access Policy

Challenge Journal of Concrete Research Letters provides immediate open access to all published content. Readers may access the Journal without subscription, registration or an embargo period.

The Journal supports the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Published content may be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, printed, searched, linked, indexed and otherwise lawfully reused, subject to the applicable license.

Unless otherwise stated, published content is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license permits sharing and adaptation, including commercial reuse, provided that appropriate credit is given, a link to the license is supplied and any changes are indicated.

Authors retain copyright in their articles and grant the Journal a non-exclusive right to publish and identify itself as the original publisher. Material owned by third parties is covered by the CC BY 4.0 license only when this is expressly indicated.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are made independently and are based on the scholarly quality, methodological validity, originality, clarity and relevance of the submission to the Journal's scope.

  • Reviewer reports provide expert advice to the editors but do not determine the editorial decision.
  • The Editor-in-Chief or a delegated editor retains responsibility for the final decision to accept, request revision, decline or otherwise act on a submission.
  • Editors perform editorial assessment and decision-making; they do not act as reviewers for manuscripts they handle.
  • Commercial, financial, institutional or personal considerations must not influence editorial decisions.
  • An editor must not handle a submission where a personal, professional, academic or financial relationship could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, impartiality. The manuscript will be assigned to another qualified editor.
  • Submissions authored by editors, editorial board members, publishing staff or persons closely connected with them are subject to an independent editorial and peer-review process.
  • Special issues, invited submissions and content handled by guest editors are evaluated according to the same standards as regular submissions.
  • The Publisher supports editorial independence and does not require an editor to alter a justified scholarly decision.

 

Publication Ethics

The Journal follows the Publication Ethics and Research Integrity Policy of Tulpar Academic Publishing.

The policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, publishing staff, submitted manuscripts and published content. It addresses authorship and contributorship, competing interests, research and publication misconduct, confidentiality, data integrity, artificial intelligence, corrections, retractions, appeals and complaints.

The journal-specific policies stated on this page supplement the Publisher's general policy. Where a journal-specific requirement is more detailed, both policies apply.

Read the full Publication Ethics and Research Integrity Policy

 

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must accurately reflect responsibility for and substantial intellectual contribution to the work. Each listed author must satisfy all of the following criteria:

  1. Have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of its data;
  2. Have drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
  3. Have approved the final version to be submitted or published; and
  4. Have agreed to be accountable for their own contribution and for appropriately addressing questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of the work.

All persons who meet the authorship criteria should be listed as authors. Persons who contributed to the work but do not satisfy all authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately. Gift, guest, honorary and ghost authorship are not permitted.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that:

  • The author list is complete and accurate;
  • All authors have approved the submitted version;
  • All authors are informed of editorial decisions and material changes to the manuscript; and
  • Authorship, affiliation and contact information supplied to the Journal is accurate.

Requests to add, remove or reorder authors must be submitted in writing, include a clear explanation and normally be agreed to by all affected authors. The Journal may suspend evaluation while an authorship issue is examined. Unresolved authorship disputes may be referred to the relevant institution because the Journal is not normally able to adjudicate disputes concerning individual contributions.

 

Competing Interests and Funding

Authors, reviewers and editors must disclose financial and non-financial interests that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, the research, peer review or editorial decision.

Authors
  • Authors must provide a competing interests statement, including a declaration that no relevant competing interest exists where applicable.
  • All sources of research funding, financial support, materials, equipment or other assistance must be identified.
  • The role of a funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation or the decision to submit should be disclosed where relevant.
Reviewers

Reviewers must disclose any personal, professional, academic, institutional or financial relationship that could affect impartiality. Where an interest may compromise the review, the reviewer should decline the assignment.

Editors

Editors must recuse themselves from handling submissions in which they have a competing interest. Responsibility will be transferred to another qualified editor.

The existence of a competing interest does not automatically prevent consideration or publication. Failure to disclose a relevant interest may, however, result in editorial or post-publication action.

 

Plagiarism and Redundant Publication

Submissions must be original and must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. Plagiarism, fabricated citations, misleading attribution, inappropriate text recycling, duplicate submission and redundant publication are not permitted.

The Journal uses similarity-detection software as part of its editorial assessment. Screening may be conducted before peer review, during evaluation, following revision or before publication.

A similarity percentage alone does not establish plagiarism or determine an editorial decision. Editors assess the source, nature, extent and context of the identified overlap. Properly quoted and cited material, standard methodological language and legitimate similarities are distinguished from inappropriate copying or misleading reuse.

Authors must:

  • Cite and acknowledge the words, ideas, data, figures and results of others appropriately;
  • Cite their own relevant previously published work where it is reused or discussed;
  • Disclose related manuscripts, prior publications, conference papers, theses, reports, preprints or other prior dissemination that may overlap with the submission; and
  • Explain any legitimate secondary publication, translation or substantial reuse at the time of submission.

Suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, citation manipulation or other inappropriate overlap will be assessed under the Publisher's Publication Ethics and Research Integrity Policy. Depending on the evidence and seriousness of the matter, the Journal may request an explanation or revision, suspend evaluation, decline the manuscript or take appropriate post-publication action.

 

Research Data and Materials

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, integrity and appropriate preservation of the data and supporting records underlying their work.

The Journal may request relevant materials where they are necessary to evaluate a submission, verify the reported findings or investigate an ethical concern. Such materials may include:

  • Raw or processed data;
  • Original and unprocessed images;
  • Calculations, analysis files or computer code;
  • Research protocols, questionnaires or measurement forms;
  • Ethics approvals, permissions or consent records; and
  • Other documentation necessary to understand or verify the work.

Authors should retain relevant research records for an appropriate period in accordance with applicable institutional, disciplinary, legal and funding requirements.

Where appropriate to the discipline and study design, authors are encouraged to include a data availability statement explaining whether and under what conditions the underlying data or supporting materials can be accessed.

The Journal recognises that public sharing may be restricted by participant confidentiality, data protection law, ethical approval conditions, security considerations, third-party rights or other legitimate limitations. Any such restriction should be explained clearly.

 

Use of Artificial Intelligence

This policy applies to generative artificial intelligence, large language models and other AI-assisted technologies used in the preparation, evaluation or publication of scholarly work.

  • Artificial intelligence systems cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot accept responsibility, approve the final work or respond to questions concerning its integrity.
  • Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, references, data, images, analysis, interpretation and conclusions of their submissions.
  • Use of generative AI to create or materially revise manuscript content must be disclosed transparently. The disclosure should identify the tool and explain how and where it was used.
  • Routine tools that only correct spelling, grammar or formatting without generating or materially changing scholarly content do not normally require disclosure.
  • Where AI is used as part of the research method, its use must be described sufficiently and reproducibly, including the relevant tool, version where available, purpose, inputs, validation and human oversight.
  • AI must not be used to fabricate or falsify text, references, data, results, images, participant information, reviewer identities or other research records.
  • AI-generated or AI-manipulated figures and research images are not permitted unless the use of AI is itself part of the reported research method and is described transparently and reproducibly.
  • Authors must verify AI-generated output against reliable original sources. AI-generated references or claims must not be accepted without verification.
  • Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts, supplementary files, review reports, personal data or confidential editorial information to external AI systems where confidentiality and data protection cannot be assured.
  • AI must not replace independent human judgement in peer review or editorial decision-making.

Undisclosed or inappropriate use of AI may result in a request for clarification or correction, rejection of a submission, withdrawal of a review report or appropriate post-publication action.

 

Fees and Charges

The Journal does not charge authors any manuscript submission fee or publication fee, including an article processing charge (APC).

No payment is required for peer review, editorial evaluation or publication of an accepted article. Editorial decisions are independent of financial considerations.

Readers may access published content without a subscription or access charge under the Journal's open access policy.

 

Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright in their published work and grant the Journal the right to publish and distribute the article.

Published articles are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Under this licence, users may copy, share, distribute, adapt and build upon the published work, including for commercial purposes, provided that:

  • Appropriate credit is given to the author or authors and the original publication;
  • A link to the licence is provided; and
  • Any changes made to the work are indicated.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any copyrighted figures, tables, text, questionnaires, data or other third-party material that is not covered by the licence applicable to the original source.

The licence applying to journal articles is separate from the copyright and terms governing the Journal's website, logos and other publisher-owned materials.

 

Disclaimer

The statements, opinions, interpretations and conclusions expressed in published content are those of the author or authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors, editorial board, Journal or Publisher.

Editorial acceptance and publication do not constitute endorsement of any opinion, method, product, service, institution or organisation mentioned in an article.

Authors retain responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of their work. The editors and Publisher take reasonable steps to support scholarly quality and publication integrity but cannot accept responsibility for consequences arising from the use or interpretation of published content.

References or links to external websites, products or services are provided for scholarly information and do not imply endorsement or guarantee their continued availability, accuracy or security.

 

Abstracting and Indexing

The Journal is currently covered by the abstracting, indexing and discovery services listed below. Coverage may vary by year, volume, document type or database policy.

This information is reviewed periodically and updated to reflect the Journal's current status. Inclusion in a discovery service does not necessarily mean that every published item is individually indexed.

Scopus
  
TR Dizin