About the Journal

Combinatorial Commutative Algebra (CCA) is a diamond open access journal dedicated to high-quality research at the intersection of combinatorics and commutative algebra.

CCA was founded in 2025 by Sara Faridi, Tai Huy Ha, and Adam Van Tuyl, and is the first electronic journal devoted specifically to the field of combinatorial commutative algebra.

Focus and Scope

CCA publishes significant advances on a wide range of topics, including:

  • combinatorial aspects of monomial ideals (e.g., edge ideals, facet ideals, Stanley–Reisner ideals)
  • combinatorial aspects of toric ideals, semigroup rings, Ehrhart theory
  • combinatorial aspects of invariant theory
  • combinatorial aspects of homological algebra (e.g., Tor, Ext, local cohomology, free resolutions, Hilbert series)
  • weak and strong Lefschetz properties
  • combinatorial topology and f-vector theory
  • classical ideals and their varieties from a combinatorial commutative algebra perspective (e.g., determinantal ideals, parts of Schubert theory, Schubert calculus, initial ideals, Gröbner bases)
  • hyperplane, subspace, toric, and abelian arrangements
  • tropical geometry and combinatorial Hodge theory
  • applications of combinatorial commutative algebra (e.g., coding theory, algebraic statistics)

With an internationally recognized editorial board of leading experts, CCA offers a premier, freely accessible venue for advancing the field of combinatorial commutative algebra.

The Editorial and Peer Review Process

All submissions to the journal follow a structured editorial and peer review process, designed to promote fairness, quality, and transparency, as described below.

Triage and Assignment. Each new submission is first seen by the Editors-in-Chief, who perform an initial screening to determine whether the manuscript is within the scope of the journal and meets basic standards of quality and presentation. Submissions that are clearly out of scope or whose quality clearly fails to meet the journal’s standards may be declined at this stage without external review. Suitable submissions are forwarded to a Handling Editor whose expertise is closest to the subject of the manuscript.

Peer Review. The Handling Editor oversees the peer review process. They may consult Advisory Editors or other experts for quick opinions when appropriate. The Handling Editor then solicits at least one, and preferably more, referee reports from experts in the field. Refereeing is singly-anonymous: the identities of the referees are not disclosed to the authors, but referees can see the authors’ names.

Decisions and Revisions. Based on the referee reports and any additional expert input, the Handling Editor formulates a recommendation (e.g., accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject). Depending on the reports and recommendations, the Handling Editor may (a) return the manuscript to the authors with a request for revision, or (b) forward the manuscript, reports, and a suggested decision to the Editors-in-Chief. Final decisions on all manuscripts are made by the Editors-in-Chief, taking into account the Handling Editor’s recommendation and the referee reports, and are communicated to the authors.

Production. Accepted manuscripts are passed from the Editors-in-Chief to the Production Editors. The Production Editors check that the LaTeX files comply with the journal’s formatting and technical standards, and they work with the authors to prepare the final version for publication. The final, corrected version is then published on the journal website.

Ethics and Conflicts of Interest.  Editors-in-Chief are not allowed to submit manuscripts to the journal during their term of service. If a Handling Editor submits a paper to the journal, all editorial data connected to that submission will be blocked from their access.

Editors (of any role) and referees must declare any actual or perceived conflicts of interest with a submission and are obliged to recuse themselves from handling or refereeing such manuscripts. Examples of situations that typically constitute a conflict of interest include:

  • the editor or referee is related to an author or in a close personal relationship;
  • the editor or referee currently collaborates, or has recently collaborated, with an author on work closely related to the submitted manuscript, or they share a current or pending research grant;
  • an author is a current or former research student, postdoctoral mentee, PhD advisor, or postdoctoral supervisor of the editor or referee;
  • an author works in the same department (or equivalent unit) as the editor or referee.

Submissions by editors are handled under strict recusal and access separation to preserve the integrity and impartiality of the editorial process.

Ownership

Combinatorial Commutative Algebra is owned by its Editorial Board and Editorial Team.

Thanks

Combinatorial Commutative Algebra is an open-access, web-based mathematics journal that runs entirely on the generosity of its community. We have no income stream and no paid staff; the journal exists because many people and institutions are willing to contribute their time, expertise, and infrastructure.

Our articles are evaluated by anonymous referees who volunteer substantial effort to read, assess, and improve the papers we publish. We are deeply grateful for their careful work and for the essential role they play in maintaining the quality of the journal.

The journal’s website is generously hosted by McMaster University, and we warmly thank McMaster for its sustained institutional support of CCA.

We also wish to acknowledge the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (EJC), whose long-standing success and thoughtful practices have been an important model for us. We are thankful to the EJC editors for allowing us to adapt some of their language and policies, and we hope that Combinatorial Commutative Algebra will, in time, build a similarly enduring record of service to our research community.

Lastly, we thank The Combinatorics Consortium and Combinatorial Theory for their support.