Continuity plans are a practice that organisations undertake to ensure the ability for work to continue during unexpected circumstances, such as security breaches, weather events, terrorism, natural disasters . . . or pandemics. If your editorial team doesn’t already have an Editorial Office Continuity Plan to consider what you might do in particular situations – such as lack of access to systems, sickness, power outages, or team members unable to work from home – now would be a good time to put one in place.

“Business continuity is about having a plan to deal with difficult situations, so your organization can continue to function with as little disruption as possible… [it] recognises potential threats to an organization and analyses what impact they may have on day-to-day operations” – The Business Continuity Institute

A good continuity plan should ensure that nothing is dependent on one individual person, location, computer, or server. To help you create an Editorial Office Continuity Plan for your journal, we are sharing our recommendations below. Your Journal Publishing Manager or society leader will be able to support you in developing your plan.

Editorial Office Continuity Plan Checklist:

	Identify a back-up Editor-in-Chief, especially if you don’t have a Co- or Deputy Editor. This could be a member of the Associate Editor team, for example.
	Make sure that Wiley knows who the back-up Editor-in-Chief is and how to contact them.
	Ensure that the back-up Editor-in-Chief and your Wiley contact: a) Know how to get Editor-level access to the Electronic Editorial Office (EEO), and b) Have access to the journal email inbox.
	If possible, ensure that there is a back-up Managing Editor who has Admin-level EEO login details and has access to the journal email inbox.
	If you use an EEO other than ScholarOne Manuscripts or Editorial Manager, we recommend providing your Wiley contact with Admin-level login details for use if the Managing Editor is unable to access.
	Ensure that all parties have at least two forms of contact details for each team member and back-up person, in case your main method of communication becomes unworkable.
	Provide the back-up Managing Editor and Wiley with any manual, guide, or standard operating procedures documentation* for running the Editorial Office.
	We recommend writing up your plan and ensuring that a few key contacts have a copy. Please speak to your Wiley contact if you have any specific concerns to be addressed.

*If your journal is managed by Wiley’s Content Review team, a manual is already in place and being used in practice by your Editorial Assistant and/or Associate Managing Editor. For other editors wishing to create a Journal Editorial Office Manual, Wiley’s Content Review team have produced a toolkit and template based on their current practices in managing the peer review process for a number of Wiley journals. The toolkit is available via your Journal Publishing Manager.