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On a submission for a 2nd-round revise-and-resubmit in an Elsevier journal, one reviewer who did provide 2 rounds of positive feedback did not accept the invitation to re-review, 40 days after the invitation has been sent.

The editor is quite in-active. It takes them one month to send the revised draft to the reviewers. So far, the revised manuscript has been resubmitted 70 days ago, one reviewer's report is already in (thanks to the new status-track link provided by Elsevier) but one reviewer still has not accepted the invite to review...

Any suggestion on what should I do? Should I contact the editor or the editorial office? I am in the field of Economics/Finance. In these fields and for this particular journal, waiting 70 days for a report is not that long. But the speed should be much faster for the 3rd resubmission. For some career reason, I really need to have this paper published soon. I do not know if the editor can decide simply based on one report, or if they have to invite a new referee in case the old one keeps the status of "no response." (That could be a disaster.)

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  • academia.stackexchange.com/questions/111996/… related
    – Sursula
    Commented Jan 9, 2023 at 7:49
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    Sorry, but there is not much you can do. As to timing, remember that it has been the holiday season in many countries, so you would expect things to slow down. Commented Jan 9, 2023 at 8:17
  • Just to second what @MaarenBuis said, i would not expect anything to go anywhere in any of December, and questionably in the first week of January in the Anglophone world. Commented Jan 9, 2023 at 10:00

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There's not much you can do unfortunately. It's a problem for the editors of the journal to solve. Do they want to wait or not wait, whether their journal can make a decision based on only one reviewer or if they must have at least two, etc. - these are all things that the editor must decide, and you have no say in them.

About all you can do is write to the editor asking for a status update. You could tell them that you really need this paper published soon because of [reasons], and if they're sympathetic, they might proceed to a decision. But it's still their prerogative if they choose to invite new reviewers. If they do, the only thing you can do is wait.

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