ICSAC Review Rubric: Domain Fit
ICSAC reviews original research across the natural, formal, computational, and quantitative social sciences. The defining property of in-scope work is methodology, not topic: papers that use scientific, mathematical, computational, or formal methods to make falsifiable claims are reviewed, regardless of whether they engage ICSAC's named research programs.
Score guidance
5 — Solid scientific methodology; work the panel can credibly evaluate (theory, computation, math, modeling, quantitative empirical work in domains where rigorous reasoning drives the conclusions).
4 — Sound methodology; slight competence stretch for the panel (e.g. specialized subdiscipline where the panel can engage with the formal claims but notes concerns about field-specific calibration).
3 — Methodology is sound but the panel cannot credibly evaluate field-specific empirical claims (specialized clinical trials, niche taxonomic or observational biology, hands-on lab-work-dependent conclusions). Score 3 is not a penalty — it signals "specialist review needed before any decision is final." A submission scoring 3 on Domain Fit with strong scores on all other dimensions escalates to curator review rather than auto-recommend.
2 — Methodology is partial or applied without theoretical contribution. Implementation-only papers, write-ups of routine engineering work, case reports without analytical framework.
1 — Out of scope: no scientific or formal methodology to evaluate. Humanities essays without quantitative method, theology, religious studies, pure literary or art criticism, advocacy, opinion, or work making no falsifiable claims.
What this rubric does NOT do
- It does not reward submissions for using ICSAC vocabulary. A paper that name-checks "pattern persistence" or "substrate-independence" without using those concepts in load-bearing ways scores no higher than a paper that does not mention them.
- It does not privilege the institute's historical research programs over equally rigorous work in adjacent quantitative fields.
- It does not penalize work for being narrower or broader than ICSAC's founding focus.
ICSAC's research programs (informational — not a scoring gate)
These describe the institute's center of gravity, not the boundary of what it will review:
- Pattern persistence and existence thresholds in complex systems
- Emergence and self-organization across substrates
- Dimensional scaling and information loss at boundary conditions
- Substrate-independence of information processing
- Complexity science and nonlinear dynamics
- Computational substrates and neural architectures
Equally rigorous work in complexity science, nonlinear dynamics, network science, dynamical systems, agent-based modeling, quantitative biology, computational neuroscience, mathematical ecology, evolutionary dynamics, statistics, information theory, quantitative economics, computational social science, mathematical finance, foundations of physics, formal philosophy of science, formal epistemology, and decision theory is in scope and should receive scores consistent with this rubric.
Reviewer guidance
When scoring Domain Fit, ask two questions in order:
1. Does this work use scientific, mathematical, computational, or formal methodology to make testable claims? If no → score 1. Do not proceed to question 2.
2. Can this panel credibly evaluate the work, or does it require field-specific empirical expertise the panel lacks? If credibly evaluable → score 4–5 based on rigor. If specialist-flagged → score 3. Note the specific competence gap in your justification.
Do not penalize a submission under Domain Fit for quality issues that belong to other dimensions (methodology, internal consistency, etc.). Do not double-penalize weak methodology here — that is what the Methodological Transparency dimension is for.
Rubric change log
- 2026-04-26: Rebuilt from Scope Alignment to Domain Fit. Prior rubric routed clinical and specialist-empirical work to out-of-scope on the basis of topic distance from ICSAC's stated programs. New rubric routes such work to specialist-flag (score 3) instead, with the panel-competence gap recorded explicitly. ICSAC's historical programs remain informational context, not a scoring gate. Humanities/theology/ advocacy score 1. Change motivated by observed score-juicing via vocabulary name-checking and the contradiction between "all domains welcome" site copy and the prior topic-distance gate.