Q: What does the status "Reviewer assignment pending" mean?
I submitted my revised manuscript to Molecular Neurobiology via Springer link editorial manager. The status is "Reviewer assignment pending" for 15 days. What does it mean? Have the reviewers started working on my manuscript yet?
The status "Reviewer assignment pending" clearly indicates that your paper has not yet been sent for peer review. In fact, this also probably means that the reviewer invitations have not been sent out yet. Once the journal sends reviewer invitations and the reviewers accept them, peer review will start and the status will change to "Under review." However, if one or more of the reviewers decline the invitation, the editor will have to look for reviewers again. This might lead to further delay. However, this sort of delay is quite common in academic publishing, and it is not really something to worry about. If however, the status does not change even after a month, you can send a polite email to the editor.
This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage