Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • SettingsThe submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
  • Submissions is written in English with consistent linguistic variant throughout the manuscript. Authors are advised to use a language-editing service before submission.
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format, use our template (individual files under 10Mb).
  • Authors may suggest up to three experts (PhD holders, different institution, no co-authorship in the last 5 years). Please provide their name, affiliation, and institutional email in the 'Comments for the Editor' box. The Editorial Board reserves the right to select independent reviewers to guarantee the quality and objectivity of the peer-review process.

Author Guidelines

Publication Schedule

Articles are published on a rolling basis following acceptance by the editorial team after peer review. The journal operates with two annual cut-off dates for issue allocation:

  • Submissions intended for the September issue must be received by the end of March.
  • Submissions intended for the November issue must be received by the end of June.

Submission Process

1 – Prepare your manuscript using the journal template and submit it in one of the following formats:
- Practice-Based Research Contributions (including Working Papers or Visual Research Essays);
- Research Articles (Full Papers).
​2 – Complete the submission through the online submission system:
- Register or, if already registered log in.
​- Select "New Submission" and follow the instructions.
​3 – All submissions undergo an initial editorial check followed by double-blind peer review.
- Multiple revision rounds may be required.
​4 – After acceptance, and where applicable, Article Processing Charges (APCs) must be completed prior to publication in accordance with the journal’s APC policy.
5 – Accepted manuscripts are published online following copy-editing, layout preparation, and final author approval, typically within approximately five weeks.
6 – Articles are published online on a rolling basis following acceptance and production, and are subsequently assigned to the relevant annual issue for indexing and archival purposes.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Article Processing Charges (APCs) apply to this journal. Since January 2026, a single APC rate applies to all accepted articles under the Gold Open Access model.
A waiver policy is available for eligible authors and may be granted based on documented financial need or institutional eligibility, in accordance with the journal’s APC policy. Waivers are limited to a maximum of two articles per issue.
Full details regarding APCs and waiver conditions are available in the journal’s APC policy.

Open Access Policy

This journal is fully open access. All content is freely available to users and institutions without charge. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, and to use them for any lawful purpose without prior permission from the publisher or authors.
This policy is aligned with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and the definition of open access adopted by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Publication, DOI, and Indexing

All accepted articles are assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and made freely available online. The journal ensures long-term accessibility through standard metadata practices and participates in indexing, discovery, and preservation infrastructures relevant to academic publishing.

Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts will be checked by the Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not comply with the journal’s ethical policies or do not meet its standards will be rejected prior to peer review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.

After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the Editor-in-Chief or Guest Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and is methodologically and academically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Rejection decisions at this stage will be confirmed by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer Review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it is assigned to two or more reviewers. Reviewers are selected and invited based on the expertise required for each submission. Reviewers are expected to hold a PhD and/or have recognized expertise in the relevant field.

To ensure the absence of conflicts of interest and an unbiased peer review process, reviewers may not be members of the journal’s Editorial Team, must not have co-authored publications with the author(s) within the past five years, and must not be affiliated with the same institution as the author(s).

The journal operates a double-blind peer review process, ensuring that both authors and reviewers remain anonymous. Peer review reports are confidential and will only be shared with others with the reviewer’s explicit consent.

Editorial Decision and Revision

With the exception of editorials and commentaries, all articles and essays undergo peer review. Editors communicate one of the following decisions:

  • Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper is accepted subject to minor revisions based on reviewer comments. Authors are given five days for revision.
  • Reconsider after Major Revisions: Acceptance depends on substantial revision. Authors must provide a point-by-point response. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed.
  • Reject and Encourage Resubmission: The manuscript is rejected but authors are encouraged to resubmit after substantial revision and/or additional supporting analysis.

All reviewer comments must be addressed in a point-by-point response. Where authors disagree with a reviewer, a clear justification must be provided.

Production and Publication

Once accepted, the manuscript undergoes copy-editing, language editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the journal website.



Guidelines

Essential title page information
• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using either British or American spelling, but be consistent, and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Contributors
All authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described.

Copyright
This journal will be Open access. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will acknowledge automatic full availability of the content. All content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. This permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.

Language
Please write your text in British or American spelling. One spelling must be used consistently throughout the text.

Structure
- Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

- Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

- Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

- Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).

Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article.

Image Formats
TIFF or JPEG: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 200 dpi.

Reference Style (APA 7th Edition)

In-Text Citations

Single author: Use the author's last name and the year of publication. Initials are not included unless necessary to avoid ambiguity. Example: (Smith, 2020) or Smith (2020) found that…
Two authors: Include both authors' last names and the year. Example: (Smith & Jones, 2020) or Smith and Jones (2020) demonstrated that…
Three or more authors: Include the first author's last name followed by et al. and the year. Example: (Kramer et al., 2000) or Kramer et al. (2000) reported that…
Multiple citations: When citing multiple sources, list them alphabetically, separated by semicolons, and include chronological order if the same author has multiple works. Example: (Allan, 1995, 1996a, 1996b; Allan & Jones, 1995)
Direct or parenthetical citations are both acceptable depending on sentence structure.
Personal communications (emails, interviews, letters) are cited in-text only and not included in the reference list. Example: (J. Smith, personal communication, March 15, 2020)


Reference List

Journal titles should be spelled out in full and italicized. Book titles and book chapter titles should use sentence case; only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. Include DOIs as URLs when available: https://doi.org/xxxx

Journal Article Example: Anselin, L., Varga, A., & Acs, Z. (1997). Local geographic spillovers between university and high technology innovations. Journal of Urban Economics, 42(3), 442–448. https://doi.org/10.1006/juec.1997.2045

Book Example: Marlow-Ferguson, R., & Lopez, C. (2001). World education encyclopedia: A survey of educational systems worldwide (2nd ed.). Thomson Gale.

Chapter in an Edited Book Example: Eberts, R. W., & McMillen, D. P. (1999). Agglomeration economies and urban public infrastructure. In P. Cheshire & E. Mills (Eds.), Handbook of regional and urban economics (Vol. 3, pp. 1455–1495). Elsevier.

Web References Example: When citing web sources, provide the full URL. Include additional information such as author, date, and title if available. Example: World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019


Use of Large Language Models (LLMs)

To ensure transparency, ethical practice, and the integrity of the scholarly record, any use of LLMs must be clearly disclosed by the authors.

Authors must indicate the use of LLMs in the Acknowledgements or Methods sections. Identify the LLM tool and its contribution, where relevant. Briefly describe the tool used and its role (e.g. language editing, stylistic improvement, exploratory literature assistance, or idea structuring).

All content generated or assisted by LLMs must be critically reviewed and verified by the authors. Authors retain full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, validity, and ethical integrity of the manuscript. Potential biases, inaccuracies, or unsupported statements produced by LLMs must be carefully addressed. LLMs or AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Compliance with these guidelines is required to meet ethical publishing standards, including those recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For further guidance, see:
https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

 

Articles

Research Articles present original or substantially revised research results that have not been published elsewhere. These contributions are expected to engage with clearly defined research questions and methodological or conceptual frameworks.

  • Recommended length: approximately 5,000 words
  • Word count includes title, abstract, tables, notes, and references
  • Each article may include up to 15 images (or more if justified)
  • Authors may extend the length during the review process when necessary
  • Submissions must be original and not under consideration elsewhere
  • Authors are encouraged to use professional language editing prior to submission

Practice-Based Research Contributions

This category includes Working Papers and Visual Research Papers that explore research through visual, experimental, or practice-based approaches. Contributions may combine text and image as integrated research outputs.

  • Recommended length: approximately 2,000 words
  • Word count includes title, abstract, tables, notes, and references
  • Each contribution may include up to 15 images (or more if justified)
  • Submissions must present original research or documented research processes not previously published elsewhere
  • Authors are encouraged to ensure linguistic clarity prior to submission

Copyright Notice

This is an Open Access journal. Upon acceptance of an article, authors acknowledge the automatic and full availability of their content.

Submissions published prior to 01/01/2026 are licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Submissions published from 01/01/2026 onwards are licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Authors retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Authors are permitted to post their work online in institutional or disciplinary repositories, as well as on their personal websites.
Under the CC BY license, attribution is mandatory. It is strictly prohibited to sell or redistribute the work under false authorship; credit must invariably be given to the original authors and to the journal where the article was first published.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Read our Journal Ethics and Malpractice Statement on the About the Journal page.