Q: What is the meaning of ‘Under review’ preceded by ‘Required reviews completed’ in Springer’s editorial system?

Hi Abanoub – welcome to the forum!

Firstly, it was interesting to note that you submitted to Springer on behalf of Pramana – Journal of Physics. We see that Pramana, belonging to the Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc), is presently published by Springer in a co-publishing arrangement.

Also, 10 months is a long time since submission, though fairly common too on the other hand. Additionally, it would no doubt have been exasperating to see reviewers assigned three times over these months and then go back to awaiting reviewers. :-/ It seems the associate editor (AE) had a challenging time finding reviewers for your paper – perhaps due to their availability/bandwidth, a conflict of interest, or a mismatch with your topic. Anyway, it’s great that it finally went for review and the review is now completed. Or well, so it seems, given the scenario.

So, coming to your query, ‘Under review’ typically means either of two things. It can refer to an internal review by AEs themselves. It can also refer to an external review by a new reviewer in case there's a disagreement among the current reviewers over the paper. In such cases, the AE sends the manuscript to an entirely new reviewer to help ‘break the deadlock’ or provide a new perspective.

As this is a Springer journal, it in all probability means the latter, that is, an external review. So, I’m afraid, you will have to wait for some more time to know the outcome for your paper. I know this may sound agitating (though you also appear quite stoic about it), but this also means they are doing due diligence on your paper. :-)

All the best with whatever’s next!

For more inputs on the ‘Under review’ status at Springer, you may go through these previous queries by other researchers:

• How long does it take for the status to change from "reviewers assigned" to "under review"?
• Does "Under Review" mean the paper has been assigned to an external reviewer?