Author Guidelines

Before Submission

Authors should submit manuscripts that fit the journal scope and are not under consideration by another journal. The title page should include all author names and affiliations, corresponding author contact details, funding information, competing interests, data availability, ethics approval details where relevant, and author contributions.

Article Types and Length

Science, Society and Policy Research may consider policy analyses, empirical social research, evaluation studies, perspectives, structured reviews, and case studies. The journal does not set a rigid launch-stage word limit, but authors should match article length to evidence. Short reports must still contain enough method detail for evaluation; reviews must state their search or selection logic.

Manuscript Structure

Research articles should normally include:

• title, abstract, keywords, and a concise statement of the research gap
• methods or study design with enough detail for assessment
• results presented without selective reporting
• discussion that separates evidence from interpretation
• limitations, data availability, author contributions, competing interests, funding, and references

For this journal, authors should additionally address policy problem definition, evidence source, and stakeholder context. Manuscripts that use specialised reporting standards should include the relevant checklist as supplementary material.

Required Statements

Each submission should include:

• data availability
• ethics for human subjects
• funding
• competing interests
• policy or advocacy role disclosure

Data, Code, Materials, and Supplementary Files

Policy documents, interview protocols, survey instruments, coding sheets, and evaluation datasets should be shared where permissions and sensitivity allow. Suitable supplementary material may include evidence maps, coding sheets, interview guides, policy corpora, and evaluation instruments. Files should be named clearly, cited from the manuscript, and versioned where possible.

Formatting and References

The launch office may accept Word, LaTeX, or OJS-compatible source files. Author-date references are preferred; laws, policy reports, datasets, and public documents should be cited completely. Figures should be readable at single-column width, tables should be editable where possible, and abbreviations should be defined at first use.

Research Integrity and AI Use

Authors must identify prior dissemination, preprints, related submissions, reused figures, and any third-party material. Use of generative AI tools must be disclosed when they materially assisted drafting, coding, image generation, translation, data extraction, or analysis. AI tools cannot be listed as authors.

Editorial Screening

Submissions may be returned before review if they are outside scope, lack required statements, contain excessive overlap, use unverifiable data, or do not meet minimal scholarly standards for science, society, and policy research. In particular, desk rejection may apply to advocacy statements without evidence, policy claims without methods, or manuscripts with undisclosed organisational interests.