Procedures for Paper Review and Best Paper Awards
Review criteria, scoring system, selection procedure, and ethical principles for the Heritechne International Conference.
The Heritechne Best Paper Awards recognize outstanding scientific contributions that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of heritage science and technology. The awards aim to promote research quality and encourage the exchange of innovative ideas and methodologies applied to Cultural Heritage documentation, conservation, enhancement, and digital transformation.
Award Categories
Three awards will be assigned during the conference:
- Best Young Researcher: Awarded to young authors (first author and ≤30 years old at the time of paper submission) who present an original, methodologically sound, and clearly structured scientific contribution. The award highlights the quality and innovative potential of emerging research.
- Best Innovation Work: Granted for a contribution that introduces a particularly innovative approach.
- Best Interdisciplinary Work: Awarded to a contribution that effectively integrates multiple disciplinary fields, producing high-impact scientific and applied results through cross-domain collaboration.
Review Process
Each submitted paper will be evaluated by at least two reviewers, selected by the Heritechne Program Chair according to their expertise. Program Chair members with a conflict of interest are excluded from all stages of the evaluation process for the affected paper; furthermore, the identities of the reviewers remain blinded to them. Program Chair members are required to disclose any conflicts of interest and to refrain from any review of the papers involved.
The peer-review process is intended to assess the scientific quality of submissions and to provide a quantitative and qualitative basis for the subsequent award selection; it does not directly determine the assignment of the Best Paper Awards.
The review is based on the following scoring scale:
1 – Insufficient · 2 – Weak · 3 – Acceptable · 4 – Good · 5 – Excellent
Evaluation Criteria
| Criterion | Weight | Description |
|---|---|---|
| State of the Art and Bibliography | 20% | Completeness and relevance of the literature review; clarity in contextualizing the work within the current research landscape. |
| Contribution / Significance | 30% | Originality, novelty, and scientific or technological relevance of the proposed work. |
| Technical Soundness | 30% | Methodological rigor, quality of data analysis, and reproducibility of results. |
| Organization and Clarity | 20% | Structure, readability, and visual quality of figures, tables, and overall presentation. |
Each reviewer must also declare a Confidence Factor (CF) from 1 (limited knowledge) to 5 (expert), indicating their familiarity with the topic.
This CF is used as a weighting factor in the computation of the final aggregated evaluation.
Selection Procedure
Based on the weighted review scores and reviewers’ recommendations, the top three papers are identified for each award category. The final evaluation and selection of the Best Paper Awards will be carried out by the Conference Program Chair. The Conference Program Chair shall declare any potential conflict of interest and shall abstain from evaluating papers in cases of conflict.
Transparency and Ethical Principles
The selection process is conducted under principles of transparency, impartiality, and academic integrity. Any conflict of interest must be declared by reviewers or committee members.
The final decisions of the Heritechne Program Chair, taken in accordance with the established evaluation criteria, are definitive.