Focus and Scope

Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) is a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal that publishes original research articles, review articles, conceptual papers, and technological development studies in the field of environmental engineering. The journal focuses on advancing sustainable environmental infrastructure and systems through the principles of circular economy, life cycle thinking, and resource efficiency.

CIRCULAR provides a platform for high-quality interdisciplinary research that addresses environmental challenges by integrating engineering innovation, environmental science, sustainable technologies, and policy development. The journal also encourages the incorporation of ethical and philosophical perspectives, including Islamic sustainability values, as complementary approaches to environmental stewardship while remaining open to scientific contributions from researchers of diverse disciplines and backgrounds.

The journal accepts manuscripts in English and Bahasa Indonesia, with English strongly encouraged to enhance international visibility and readership.

The scope of the journal includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

1. Circular Environmental Systems Engineering, including circular economy, industrial symbiosis, resource recovery, material circularity, life cycle thinking, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
2. Water and Wastewater Engineering, including drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment, water reuse, water recycling, decentralized sanitation systems, and circular water management.
3. Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Technologies, including waste minimization, recycling, composting, anaerobic digestion, waste-to-energy, waste valorization, and sustainable material management.
4. Air Quality and Environmental Pollution Control, including emission control technologies, air quality management, pollution prevention, environmental monitoring, and life cycle-based environmental assessment.
5. Renewable Energy and Circular Bioenergy Systems, including biomass utilization, bioenergy, biogas, biofuels, renewable energy integration, and sustainable energy systems.
6. Sustainable Environmental Infrastructure and Green Technologies, including eco-design, green infrastructure, resilient infrastructure, nature-based solutions, low-impact development, and sustainable urban environmental systems.
7. Environmental Assessment, Modeling, and Decision Support Systems, including environmental impact assessment, environmental risk assessment, GIS applications, environmental modeling, digital technologies, and decision-support tools for sustainable environmental management.
8. Environmental Policy, Governance, and Sustainability Education, including environmental management systems, environmental governance, circular economy policy, environmental economics, sustainability education, and institutional approaches to environmental protection.
9. Islamic Environmental Ethics and Sustainable Development, including Islamic ecotheology, environmental ethics, maqāṣid al-sharīʿah and sustainability, stewardship (khalifah fil ardh), environmental justice, and the integration of Islamic values into sustainable environmental management.
10. Community-Based Environmental Innovation and Appropriate Technology, including participatory environmental management, community empowerment, indigenous knowledge, social innovation, appropriate technologies, and sustainable community development.

Section Policies

Peer Review Process

a. General Policy

The Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) implements a Double-Blind Peer Review system, in which the identities of both authors and reviewers remain anonymous throughout the review process. All submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous evaluation to ensure scientific quality, originality, methodological rigor, ethical integrity, and relevance to the journal's aims and scope.

b. Review Process

1. Initial Editorial Screening

Upon submission, each manuscript is evaluated by the Editorial Office to determine:

• Suitability with the journal's aims and scope;
• Compliance with the Author Guidelines and manuscript formatting requirements;
• Completeness of submission files and ethical compliance, where applicable;
• Plagiarism screening using similarity detection software.

Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements may be returned to the authors for revision or rejected before external peer review.

2. Reviewer Selection

Manuscripts that successfully pass the initial editorial screening are assigned to at least two (2) independent reviewers with expertise relevant to the manuscript's subject area. Reviewers are selected based on their academic qualifications, research experience, publication record, and absence of any conflicts of interest.

3. Peer Review Assessment

Reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on the following criteria:

• Originality and novelty of the research;
• Scientific significance and contribution to environmental engineering;
• Methodological rigor and technical soundness;
• Quality of data analysis and interpretation;
• Relevance to the journal's aims and scope;
• Clarity, organization, and readability of the manuscript;
• Adequacy and currency of references;
• Validity of the conclusions and overall scientific contribution.

4. Editorial Decision

Based on the reviewers' recommendations, the Editor will make one of the following decisions:

• Accept;
• Minor Revision;
• Major Revision;
• Reject.

If the reviewers provide substantially conflicting recommendations, the Editor may assign the manuscript to an additional reviewer before making the final decision.

5. Revision and Final Decision

Authors are required to revise their manuscripts in accordance with the reviewers' comments within the specified revision period. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the reviewers for further evaluation when necessary. The final publication decision is made by the Editor based on the reviewers' recommendations and the scientific merit of the manuscript.

c. Review Timeline

The peer review process typically takes 4–8 weeks, depending on reviewer availability, the responsiveness of the authors during the revision process, and the complexity of the manuscript.

d. Reviewer Ethics

Reviewers are expected to:

• Maintain the confidentiality of all submitted manuscripts;
• Provide objective, constructive, and evidence-based comments;
• Evaluate manuscripts solely on their academic merit, without discrimination;
• Declare any actual or potential conflicts of interest;
• Complete the review process within the requested timeframe.

e. Plagiarism Screening

All submitted manuscripts are screened using plagiarism detection software prior to peer review. Manuscripts with an overall similarity index exceeding the journal's acceptable threshold may be returned to the authors for revision or rejected at the Editor's discretion. Similarity reports are interpreted carefully, considering quotations, references, and commonly used technical terminology.

CIRCULAR is committed to maintaining a fair, transparent, objective, timely, and confidential peer review process in accordance with internationally recognized standards of publication ethics.

Publication Frequency

The Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) is published biannually, with two issues per year, in March and October.

CIRCULAR follows an issue-based publication model, whereby all accepted articles assigned to an issue are published collectively as a complete issue with its own Table of Contents.

Each issue contains original research articles and review articles that have successfully completed the editorial and double-blind peer-review process.

The journal is committed to maintaining a consistent publication schedule to ensure the timely dissemination of high-quality scholarly research in environmental engineering and sustainable environmental systems.

Open Access Policy

Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) provides immediate open access to all published content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge and accelerates scientific advancement.

All articles published in CIRCULAR are freely accessible, downloadable, readable, and shareable without subscription or access fees.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, adaptation, and reproduction in any medium, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and the source.

By adopting an open access publishing model, CIRCULAR aims to maximize the visibility, accessibility, dissemination, and scholarly impact of research in environmental engineering, circular environmental systems, and sustainable development.

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.

The LOCKSS Publisher Manifest page for this journal is available at:
https://ejournal.uin-malang.ac.id/index.php/jceis/gateway/lockss

Section Policies

Publication Frequency

The Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) is published twice a year, with issues released in March and October.

Each issue contains peer-reviewed original research articles and review articles in the field of environmental engineering, published in accordance with the journal's editorial policies and publication ethics. CIRCULAR is committed to maintaining a regular publication schedule to ensure the timely dissemination of high-quality scientific research and to support sustainable scholarly publishing.

Archiving

The Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) is committed to ensuring the long-term preservation and accessibility of all published articles. The journal maintains digital archives of its published content through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform and is committed to implementing appropriate digital preservation mechanisms to ensure continued access to scholarly content.

In the event that the journal ceases publication, reasonable efforts will be made to ensure that all previously published articles remain permanently accessible through the journal website or other appropriate digital archiving services.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

a. General Principles

The Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, scientific integrity, transparency, and academic responsibility. The journal follows the Core Practices and Ethical Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expects all parties involved in the publication process—including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher—to adhere to internationally recognized ethical standards.

b. Author Responsibilities

Authors are expected to:

• Submit only original manuscripts that have not been previously published or simultaneously submitted to another journal.
• Present research findings honestly, accurately, and objectively without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Properly acknowledge and cite the work of others.
• Ensure that all listed authors have made substantial scholarly contributions to the research and approve the final version of the manuscript.
• Disclose any financial, institutional, or personal conflicts of interest that may influence the research.
• Obtain ethical approval where required and comply with applicable research ethics standards.
• Cooperate with the editorial process by providing revisions, additional information, or supporting data when requested.

c. Editor Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for:

• Evaluating manuscripts solely on their scientific merit, originality, relevance, and contribution to the journal's scope.
• Making editorial decisions fairly, independently, and without discrimination based on nationality, gender, religion, institutional affiliation, or political beliefs.
• Maintaining the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts.
• Managing conflicts of interest appropriately.
• Taking appropriate action in response to suspected ethical misconduct in accordance with COPE guidelines.

d. Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers are expected to:

• Maintain the confidentiality of all manuscripts received for review.
• Conduct reviews objectively, fairly, and constructively.
• Evaluate manuscripts solely on their academic merit.
• Declare any actual or potential conflicts of interest and decline the review if necessary.
• Complete reviews within the agreed timeframe.
• Inform the Editor of any suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, unethical research practices, or other forms of publication misconduct.

e. Publication Malpractice and Research Misconduct

CIRCULAR does not tolerate any form of publication malpractice, including but not limited to:

• Plagiarism;
• Data fabrication or falsification;
• Duplicate submission or duplicate publication;
• Authorship manipulation or inappropriate authorship attribution;
• Citation manipulation;
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
• Image manipulation or other forms of research misconduct.

All submitted manuscripts are screened using plagiarism detection software before entering the peer review process.

If ethical violations are identified before or after publication, the Editorial Board will investigate the matter in accordance with the COPE Core Practices. Depending on the severity of the violation, appropriate actions may include manuscript rejection, publication of corrections, article retraction, notification to the authors' institutions, or other corrective measures considered necessary to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

Screening for Plagiarism

The Journal of Circular Environmental Infrastructure and Systems (CIRCULAR) is committed to maintaining academic integrity and preventing all forms of plagiarism.

All submitted manuscripts are screened using plagiarism detection software before entering the peer-review process. The Editorial Office evaluates the similarity report together with the context of the overlapping text, since similarity percentages alone do not necessarily indicate plagiarism.

Manuscripts containing evidence of plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, or other forms of academic misconduct may be rejected immediately or returned to the authors for clarification or revision, depending on the nature and extent of the issue.

If plagiarism or other ethical misconduct is identified after publication, the Editorial Board will take appropriate actions in accordance with the journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, which may include the publication of corrections, article retraction, or other editorial measures.