Guide for Authors

Guide for Authors

Submissions of articles

• The VTEI Journal only accepts contributions that correspond to its specialization.
• The VTEI Journal articles can be published in Czech, Slovak, and English. Due to the bilingual nature of the journal, articles submitted in Czech and Slovak are translated into English and English into Czech, so that both language versions are complete. In exceptional cases, after agreement with the editors, it is possible to publish articles in languages other than those mentioned above.
• Manuscripts should be submitted electronically via e-mail: info@vtei.cz or josef.nistler@vuv.cz
• Articles can be sent to the editors throughout the year. Inclusion in a specific issue of VTEI is subject to compliance with the editorial deadline (see Table), successful review procedure, and capacity of the given issue.

Editorial deadlines for 2026

The above editorial deadlines apply to 2026. Deadlines for subsequent years are determined on an ongoing basis according to the current publishing schedule of the journal.

Section – Accepted for printing

• To make scientific knowledge available as quickly as possible, expert articles that have successfully passed the peer review procedure, as well as informative articles, are published before the final editing and graphic edit on the VTEI Journal website in the Section – Accepted for printing. The articles are included in the Czech or English part of this section, depending on the language in which they were submitted by the authors.

 Binding rules regarding formal editing:

• The editors prefer manuscripts in Word, font size 12, single line spacing.
• Presentations of results in the form of clear tables or graphs, figures, etc. are welcome (for the table format, see the section Format of mathematical typesetting, figures, graphs, maps, and tables).
• The recommended length of a professional article is 5–7 printed pages including appendices (i.e., 10–20 standard pages of 1,800 characters including spaces). It is possible to attach additional appendices to the article which are only published online on the journal’s website vtei.cz.
• Manuscript pages must be numbered (including references, tables, figures, captions, and structural formulas).
• Text highlighting, superscript, subscript, italics, etc. can be used in the usual way, other text is not formatted and styles are not defined. Graphic editing is a matter of own typesetting.

Structure of professional and review studies:

• article title Czech/Slovak*,
• articles title in English,
• unabbreviated name and surname of the author(s), including title,
• full name and postal address of the author(s) and his/her/their e-mail address,
• identification of author(s) using ORCID,
• abstract in Czech/Slovak* and English (minimum 1,500 characters including spaces),
• keywords in Czech/Slovak* and English,
• text divided into sections – Introduction, Material and Method/Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion,
• acknowledgments,
• references,
• appendices (for example, figures, graphs, tables, maps) with captions in Czech/Slovak* and English.

*Does not apply to expert articles in English, for which the Czech translation will be provided by the editors.

Structure of informative articles (should not exceed 3–4 standard pages)

• article title,
• unabbreviated name and surname of the author(s), including title,
• full name and postal address of the author(s) and his/her/their e-mail address,
• a non-specified structure of the text according to the nature of the topic,
• optional – Acknowledgments, References, Appendices (figures with captions are preferred).

 Data articles

A data article is a distinct type of scholarly contribution whose primary purpose is to describe the origin, content, structure, quality, processing, and potential use of a dataset that has scholarly, research, or applied value and may be further used by the professional community.

A data article is not primarily intended for extensive interpretation of research results, the formulation of new scientific conclusions, or a review treatment of a topic. Its main purpose is to enable the clear, transparent, and reusable dissemination of data.

A data article should include, in particular:

• a brief statement of the purpose and significance of the dataset,
• a description of the origin of the data and the method of data acquisition,
• information on the methodology of data collection, processing, and quality control,
• a description of the structure and format of the dataset,
• information on data limitations and conditions of use,
• a link to a trustworthy data repository in which the dataset is stored.

Authors may make datasets available through a data article; at the same time, they are required to deposit them in a trustworthy data repository that, in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable), ensures their discoverability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability.

Suitable data repositories are understood in particular as those that ensure long-term preservation and availability of data, unambiguous identification of the dataset, and its citability, for example by means of a persistent identifier.

Data articles cannot include:

• review or summary texts without a link to a specific dataset,
• supplementary files to review or other articles, unless they are independently conceived as a publishable dataset,
• data for which the origin, structure, methodology of creation, or method of use is not sufficiently described,
• datasets that cannot be made available, at least to an extent consistent with the nature of the publication, for legal, ethical, or technical reasons.

In the peer review of a data article, particular attention is paid to:

• the relevance and scholarly value of the dataset,
• the adequacy of the description of the data and the methodology of its creation,
• the quality, clarity, and structure of the data article,
• the extent to which the dataset is accessible and usable,
• compliance with the journal’s formal and ethical requirements.

The review report on a data article includes, in particular, an assessment of the timeliness and value of the dataset, the quality of its description, the factual accuracy of the text, the usability of the data, and a final recommendation regarding publication.

Peer Review Process

A manuscript of a research article is submitted electronically to info@vtei.cz  or josef.nistler@vuv.cz. First of all, the submitted manuscript is checked by the Editorial Office for compliance with formal requirements, the Guide for Authors, and the thematic scope of the journal.

If the manuscript shows minor formal deficiencies, the Editorial Office returns it to the author for completion or revision. In the case of more serious deficiencies, the manuscript may be referred to the Editorial and Scientific Board, which will decide whether it should undergo substantial revision or be rejected. The Editorial and Scientific Board reserves the right to reject a manuscript not only on substantive grounds, but also if it does not correspond to the scope of the journal or does not comply with the editorial guidelines.

Manuscripts of research articles admitted to peer review are subsequently subject to standard evaluation, in which each manuscript is sent to two independent peer reviewers, each of whom prepares a separate review report. Where justified, the Editorial Office may also request a third external review.

The reviewers assess in particular:

• the originality of the article,
• the contribution of the article to the relevant field,
• its methodological and factual soundness,
• the structure of the text, the quality of the discussion, and the clarity of the conclusions,
• the quality of the use of literature and other sources.

The review report contains, in particular, the reviewer’s assessment of the above evaluation criteria, comments on any deficiencies, and a final recommendation whether to:

• accept the manuscript in its present form,
• accept the manuscript after minor revision (corrections to minor methodological errors and text editing),
• return the manuscript for major revision and renewed assessment (substantial revisions to text or experimental methods needed),
• reject the manuscript for publication (article has serious flaws, additional experiments needed, research not conducted correctly).

Reviewers are selected by the Editorial Office in cooperation with the Editorial and Scientific Board, with regard to the scholarly focus of the manuscript, usually from among experts outside the Board itself. Their names are not disclosed to the authors.

The Editorial Office sends anonymised review reports to the author together with information on whether, and to what extent, the manuscript needs to be revised or supplemented.

If the reviewers request a major revision of the manuscript, the revised version is submitted and undergoes another round of peer review.

If the comments are only formal or partial in nature (minor revision) and the reviewers do not require a renewed assessment of the manuscript, the Editorial Office informs the Editorial and Scientific Board of the outcome of the peer review and requests its final approval for publication. The final decision on acceptance of the article is made by the Editorial Office, or, where appropriate, by the Editorial and Scientific Board, on the basis of the review reports and the assessment of how the comments have been addressed. The editorial and scientific board may also decide on a repeated review of the revised manuscript.

Where necessary, especially if one of the reviewers does not recommend the article for publication, the Editorial Office may request a third external review, which then serves as the basis for the final decision on further procedure.

Manuscripts of informative articles are not subject to standard peer review. Their content is assessed by the Editorial Office or by members of the Editorial and Scientific Board, depending on the nature of the text.

Before publication, all contributions undergo formal, linguistic, and layout editing by the Editorial Office. The final version of the article after editorial revision is sent to the correspondent author for approval.

Peer Review Taxonomy

The journal VTEI supports the STM initiative of STM: International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, which recognised the need to identify and standardise definitions and terminology in peer review practices in order to help harmonise nomenclature, as an increasing number of publishers adopt open peer review models. The peer review taxonomy, now used by a growing number of publishers, helps make peer review processes for articles and journals more transparent and enables the scholarly community to better assess and compare peer review practices across journals.

• The peer review system used by the journal may be characterised as follows:
• Identity transparency: single-anonymised peer review
• Reviewer interaction: The reviewer interacts with the editor
• Review information published: none

Open Access, Licensing and Publication Fees

The journal VTEI publishes its content in Open Access mode. Published articles are made available free of charge in electronic form.

By submitting a manuscript to the Editorial Office, the authors, or the person submitting the manuscript on their behalf, grant the publisher of VTEI a non-exclusive licence for publication of the contribution in both printed and electronic form with Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial” 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. If the person submitting the manuscript is not authorised to grant such a licence, a license agreement signed by all authorised persons must be submitted together with the manuscript. If no separate license agreement is attached, the publisher assumes that the person submitting the manuscript is authorised to grant the licence.

No publication or processing fees are charged to authors. All publishing costs are covered by the T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute, p. r. i.