European Respiratory Journal 'Under Review': What the Status Means

The first status period is not the full scientific review. It is the journal checking whether the record can be handled: files open correctly, author metadata is complete, disclosures are included, and the manuscript appears to match the journal's scope. For European Respiratory Journal, this stage matters because a small administrative issue can look like a peer-review delay from the author's side. If the status changes quickly to Under Review, read that as a routing signal, not as proof that every reviewer has accepted.

The useful action during this stage is not to ask whether the editor likes the paper. It is to make sure every status email, submission-form field, and manuscript file points to the same claim. A mismatch between the cover letter, abstract, figure sequence, and supplementary files creates editorial friction even when the work is credible. For European Respiratory Journal, the file package should make clear that the manuscript is about respiratory-medicine consequence, ERS audience fit, clinical or translational relevance, patient-stratification logic, reporting-standard completeness, and ERJ versus AJRCCM or Lancet Respiratory Medicine routing rather than a generic manuscript looking for a prestigious home before a reviewer has to reconstruct the claim.

At this point the manuscript is being read for fit. The editor is not only asking whether the manuscript is polished, but whether the manuscript makes respiratory-medicine consequence, ERS audience fit, clinical or translational relevance, patient-stratification logic, reporting-standard completeness, and ERJ versus AJRCCM or Lancet Respiratory Medicine routing visible quickly enough to justify outside review. A manuscript can be technically careful and still difficult to route if the abstract promises one contribution while the methods, figures, data, or supplementary files support another.

The editor may be matching the manuscript to respiratory clinicians, pulmonology methodologists, epidemiology reviewers, translational respiratory scientists, statistics reviewers, ERS handling editors, and guideline-facing reviewers. That matching process can take time because the editor needs reviewers who can evaluate the central claim without rebuilding the manuscript's logic from scratch. Under Review can therefore cover both reviewer recruitment and active review.

At European Respiratory Journal, the handling editor is usually testing whether a respiratory manuscript changes clinical, mechanistic, patient-stratification, or research direction for a broad ERS readership. ERJ uses ScholarOne, publishes original research, reviews, research letters, and ERS statement material, and applies a relaxed first-submission formatting posture without relaxing the substance screen. That editorial culture matters because the Under Review label can remain static while the editor checks respiratory-medicine consequence, ERS fit, article type, reporting checklist completeness, trial or review transparency, and whether the manuscript belongs at ERJ rather than AJRCCM, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Thorax, Chest, or ERJ Open Research.

In parallel, the editor may be identifying two to four reviewers and checking whether the manuscript has the right scope for those reviewers. Recruiting reviewers can take 7 to 28 days when the topic sits between fields, depends on a specialized dataset, requires a particular methodological skill, or has a small conflict-free reviewer pool. A European Respiratory Journal manuscript can therefore show Under Review while the editor is still securing the right reviewer mix.

For authors, the useful question is not "has someone accepted yet?" The useful question is "if a reviewer accepts today, would the manuscript's respiratory disease or mechanism, patient group, clinical consequence, CONSORT or STROBE or PRISMA package, ERS venue fit, figures, trial registration, limitations, and rebuttal-ready response map make the claim easy to evaluate?" That is the difference between passive waiting and productive waiting.

This is the main period in which reviewers evaluate the paper. They are usually checking whether the conclusion follows from the methods, whether the strongest comparison or control is present, whether figures match claims, and whether limitations are honest. In European Respiratory Journal, the common weak point is not always the headline finding. It is often the missing bridge between the manuscript's strongest claim and the evidence a reviewer can audit quickly.

Active review is also where timeline anxiety becomes least informative. A quiet portal does not tell you whether one reviewer is late, whether the editor is waiting for another report, whether a reviewer declined and had to be replaced, or whether reports are already in synthesis. The strongest response is to prepare the material you will need under every plausible decision path.

Use the waiting window to produce a revision-ready response map. Put the likely objection in one column, the manuscript location in another, the strongest supporting figure or table in a third, and the limitation language in a fourth. If the decision is revise, that map saves days. If the decision is reject, it helps you choose a cleaner transfer or resubmission path.

After reports arrive, the editor has to turn them into a decision. This can still look like Under Review, Reviews Complete, Required Reviews Complete, or Decision in Process depending on the portal. Do not assume silence during this period means rejection. It can mean the editor is reconciling mixed reports, checking whether one reviewer misunderstood the scope, deciding whether another opinion is needed, or aligning a themed issue or production schedule.

The synthesis window is where the editor tests whether reviewer concerns are compatible. If one reviewer wants deeper methods and another wants a shorter argument, the decision letter may take longer because the editor has to decide which instruction governs the revision. That delay is procedural, not necessarily negative.

Not automatically. The most common explanation is reviewer recruitment or a delayed report, not a hidden rejection. The more useful interpretation is whether the elapsed time matches the stage. If the paper moved to Under Review quickly and then stayed there, the editor may still be waiting on one reviewer. If the status changed after several weeks, the editor may be synthesizing reports. If there has been no movement past 10 weeks, a polite inquiry is reasonable.

What you should not do is rewrite the manuscript in panic or submit elsewhere. Prepare the response materials that will matter if the decision is revise, reject with comments, transfer, or issue-scheduled acceptance.

Across our pre-submission review work with European Respiratory Journal manuscripts, three named status-risk patterns explain most of the productive work authors can do while the portal still says Under Review. These patterns are useful because they are tied to manuscript components a reviewer can inspect, not to generic advice about waiting.

In our pre-submission review work on European Respiratory Journal manuscript packages, each specific failure pattern below turns into a concrete status-window task: inspect the abstract, first figure or model, methods, cover letter, data files, reporting notes, and limitation language before the reviewer report arrives.

The pages that create the most avoidable status anxiety are not always the obviously weak papers. They are credible papers where authors wait passively during Under Review instead of preparing for the exact review objections most likely to arrive. Official guidance explains the workflow, but it rarely connects the status label to the manuscript components reviewers will test.

• European Respiratory Journal evidence-chain gap: The editor needs to see respiratory disease or mechanism, patient group, clinical consequence, CONSORT or STROBE or PRISMA package, ERS venue fit, figures, trial registration, limitations, and rebuttal-ready response map without piecing together the claim from scattered files. Prepare a one-page response map that ties the central claim to figures, methods, data files, theory, and limitations.

• European Respiratory Journal reviewer-routing risk: The wrong reviewer pool can make a sound paper look less convincing than it is. Use the waiting window to identify how the abstract, keywords, suggested reviewers, article type, and field framing point to respiratory clinicians, pulmonology methodologists, epidemiology reviewers, translational respiratory scientists, statistics reviewers, ERS handling editors, and guideline-facing reviewers.

• European Respiratory Journal source-to-claim friction: Reviewers move quickly from headline claim to evidence traceability. Check that source data, repository links, supplementary files, figure legends, models, theory logic, and methods are easy to audit.

• European Respiratory Journal revision-readiness gap: Revision speed depends on whether authors already know which objection is likely. Draft answer blocks for the two most likely reviewer concerns before the decision letter arrives.

• European Respiratory Journal risk: respiratory relevance appears only in the discussion rather than in the title, abstract, and first-page framing.

• European Respiratory Journal risk: CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, SQUIRE, STARD, or TRIPOD materials are incomplete for the study design.

• European Respiratory Journal risk: mechanistic or causal language exceeds the clinical, observational, or translational evidence.

• European Respiratory Journal risk: the manuscript is stronger for AJRCCM, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Thorax, Chest, or ERJ Open Research than for ERJ.

• European Respiratory Journal risk: ERS statement or guidance-document route is misunderstood as a normal article submission.

The recurring Manusights pattern is that authors often over-prepare the wrong asset while the manuscript is under review. They polish prose when the likely reviewer objection is a missing control, rewrite the introduction when the likely problem is a benchmark table, or wait for the decision letter when the abstract, methods, figures, theory, and supplementary files already reveal the response strategy. For European Respiratory Journal, the highest-value waiting work is to make the evidence chain explicit enough that a reviewer can test the claim without inventing the authors' logic.

Of the 100 most recent Manusights pre-submission reviews we use as a status-page pattern sample, the useful signal was not the portal label by itself. It was whether the draft already had a journal-specific evidence map before reports arrived. Official guidance explains the workflow, but that is why this page ties Under Review to respiratory disease or mechanism, patient group, clinical consequence, CONSORT or STROBE or PRISMA package, ERS venue fit, figures, trial registration, limitations, and rebuttal-ready response map instead of only defining the status phrase.

If you want a second set of eyes before the report lands, use the European Respiratory Journal AI review to identify reviewer-risk issues while the manuscript is still under review.

AJRCCM, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Thorax, Chest, ERJ Open Research, European Respiratory Review, Critical Care, and specialty respiratory venues can be cleaner routes when the manuscript is more US-anchored, practice-changing, review-only, critical-care-focused, or narrower than ERJ. Do not treat transfer planning as pessimism. It is a way to shorten the next move if the decision letter confirms the current venue is one level too broad, too narrow, too selective, or too format-specific.

Source limitations: this page uses public official-source guidance plus Manusights manuscript-risk interpretation; it cannot see the private reviewer invitations, report status, or handling-editor notes inside your manuscript record.

Public journal guidance can tell you the portal, article-scope language, submission route, and broad peer-review policy. It usually cannot tell you whether your specific paper has reviewers assigned, whether a reviewer has missed a deadline, or whether the editor is leaning toward revision or rejection. That is why this page separates official-source facts from practical interpretation. The official sources anchor the workflow; the Manusights contribution is the manuscript-level risk translation.

Official sources used for this Under Review interpretation:

• https://publications.ersnet.org/content/erj
• https://publications.ersnet.org/authors/erj/instructions
• https://publications.ersnet.org/authors/manuscript-preparation
• https://publications.ersnet.org/scholar-one-privacy
• https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/erj

Source-specific notes from this research pass:

• Official instructions anchor the submission portal, article-scope, and administrative routing for European Respiratory Journal.
• The local Manusights submission guide supplies journal-specific manuscript-risk patterns, including respiratory-medicine consequence, ERS audience fit, clinical or translational relevance, patient-stratification logic, reporting-standard completeness, and ERJ versus AJRCCM or Lancet Respiratory Medicine routing.
• The status-window advice is limited to elapsed-time interpretation and manuscript preparation; it does not infer a private decision from a public portal label.

• European Respiratory Journal hub
• European Respiratory Journal submission guide
• Critical Care submission guide
• BMC Medicine submission guide
• journal-selection guide
• not-ready warning signs
• cover-letter guide

Before you wait another month, run a European Respiratory Journal reviewer-risk check and prepare the revision map reviewers are most likely to force you to build later.