Q: Why haven't I heard from the Associate Editor even one month after the completion of the peer review?

We can understand how it feels. The review is completed, but you don’t know whether it’s an accept, a revise-and-resubmit, or a reject. And you haven’t known this for one month now. :-/ To make it worse, no one has replied to you.

Anyway, the delay is probably because the AE is very busy with other manuscripts and other journal tasks. However, you could write to them again. Maybe they missed your mail last time and will hopefully notice it this time and respond to you. This time, in case you didn’t do so last time, talk a bit more about the importance of the manuscript to your research goals and the need for a decision by a certain timeline.

In case you don’t hear from them again, you could try writing to them through any of the support/contact mail IDs provided on their site. We wouldn’t suggest withdrawing the manuscript yet, as it went for peer review and you don’t know that status. So, wait for some time, see what the next actions are from the journal side (if any), and then decide. If needed, you could write to us again for the next actions to follow.

Hope that helps. And hope this is soon resolved. :-)

Here are a few resources on journal communication that you may use for your next pieces of communication.

• What to do if the review process is delayed and the editor is unresponsive?
• What to do in case of delay at the journal end and no response from the editor?
• A practical handbook of templates for communicating with the journal