IEEE Double-Blind Peer Review

IEEE does not apply a single, uniform peer-review model across all of its journals, transactions, and conferences. Most IEEE publications default to single-anonymized review, where authors’ identities are visible to reviewers but reviewer identities are withheld from authors. A growing number of individual IEEE societies, journals, and conferences have separately adopted double-anonymized (double-blind) review instead, where neither side knows the other’s identity through the editorial decision. Whether a given IEEE submission is double-blind depends entirely on that specific venue’s own author guidelines, not on the IEEE name generally.

Which IEEE venues use double-blind review

Adoption is decided at the society, journal, or conference-committee level. Documented examples include IEEE Communications Letters, which has run double-blind review since May 1, 2013; the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE RAS), which made double-anonymous review mandatory for its fully sponsored journals starting January 1, 2025; and the real-time-systems conferences RTSS and RTAS, double-anonymous since 2019. Several IEEE-affiliated conferences, including IEEE SecDev and IEEE Cluster, publish their own double-blind submission FAQs as well. Authors should always confirm the review model in the specific venue’s call for papers or author-guidelines page rather than assuming it based on other IEEE publications.

What authors must anonymize

Where a venue has adopted double-blind review, IEEE-affiliated author guidelines (for example IEEE RAS’s published rules) typically require authors to remove or obscure, in the manuscript, appendices, and any supplementary material submitted for review:

• Author names and institutional affiliations from the title page and body text
• Acknowledgments that name individuals or identify funding sources
• Author or lab logos, watermarks, and identifiers in figures, screenshots, or videos
• Faces in submitted photographs or video material, where feasible
• File metadata (author name, organization) embedded in the PDF or other submitted files
• External links — personal or lab websites, GitHub repositories, YouTube channels — that would reveal identity

Some venues allow essential images of genuinely unique equipment or devices to remain visible where full anonymization isn’t practical, and most permit restoring the removed material once a paper is accepted.

Self-citation and prior-work references

IEEE double-blind guidelines generally ask authors to reference their own earlier publications the same way they would reference any other author’s work, avoiding phrasing such as ‘in our earlier work’ or ‘as we previously showed’ that would identify the author to a reviewer. Neutral phrasing such as ‘prior work has shown’ or ‘related work in this area’ is the recommended substitute, and some venues additionally ask authors to keep the volume of self-citation to a reasonable minimum so that a dense citation trail to one research group doesn’t itself reveal identity.

Preprints

Double-blind IEEE venues generally do not prohibit authors from having posted a preprint (for example on arXiv) or from maintaining it on a personal site before or during review; IEEE RAS’s published guidance, for instance, permits preprint use while asking reviewers not to actively search for a submission’s preprint in order to identify the author. Authors should still check the specific venue’s policy, since preprint handling is not identical across every IEEE-affiliated publication.

What happens if a submission isn’t properly anonymized

Venues that have adopted double-blind review generally treat incomplete anonymization as a compliance failure rather than a minor formatting issue. Published guidance from IEEE-affiliated societies states that violations can result in the paper being desk rejected without full review, and that excessive self-citation identifying the author may not be restorable even after acceptance, unlike other de-identified material.

Related terms

For the general review-model definitions this policy is an instance of, see double-anonymized peer review and single-anonymized peer review, and the comparison of single-blind, double-blind, and open peer review. For IEEE’s separate authorship-eligibility criteria (distinct from its peer-review anonymization policy), see the guide to IEEE authorship guidelines.

Frequently asked questions

Does IEEE use double-blind review for all of its journals and conferences?

No. Most IEEE publications use single-anonymized review by default. Double-blind (double-anonymized) review is adopted individually by specific societies, journals, and conferences — IEEE Communications Letters and IEEE RAS’s fully sponsored journals are examples — so authors need to check the specific venue’s own guidelines rather than assuming a policy applies IEEE-wide.

How do I anonymize a manuscript for an IEEE double-blind submission?

Remove author names and affiliations from the title page and body, strip identifying acknowledgments and funding statements, remove author-identifying logos or watermarks from figures and videos, clear identifying file metadata, and avoid links to personal, lab, or repository pages that would reveal identity. Requirements vary somewhat by venue, so confirm against that specific publication’s author guidelines.

Can I cite my own earlier papers in an IEEE double-blind submission?

Yes, but phrase the reference neutrally — for example ‘prior work has shown’ rather than ‘in our earlier work’ — so it doesn’t identify you to the reviewer, and keep self-citation to what’s genuinely necessary for the review.

Can I post a preprint before submitting to an IEEE double-blind venue?

Generally yes at venues that have documented this, such as IEEE RAS, which permits preprints (e.g. on arXiv) while asking reviewers not to search them out to identify authors — but confirm with the specific venue, since this isn’t guaranteed to be identical across every IEEE-affiliated publication.