Submission
Submissions should be emailed to the Editor-in-Chief at: haralambides@ese.eur.nl.
Authors are advised that strict adherence to our "Instructions to Authors" will help speed up the refereeing and production stages for most papers. In addition to the submission instructions below, we recommend that you read the Editor's article “Does & Don’ts of Academic Publishing 2020” on his blog, at this address: https://haralambides-mel.blogspot.com/2020/11/maritime-economics-logistics-dos-donts.html. The article presents MEL’s Editorial Policy and Scope, as well as information and advice to prospective authors.
Two separate files must be transmitted as your submission:
Cover letter
The template for the required Cover Letter can be downloaded here: Cover Letter Template
The Cover Letter should be printed on headed paper and signed by the corresponding author. The letter should include full coordinates of all co-authors (i.e. affiliation; designation; institutional email), a maximum of 100 words on their background and, if available, two to three 'key' publications of each co-author, in the English language, and published in an English medium. Submissions not accompanied by a cover letter will not be considered, nor submissions with cover letters that diverge from the MEL Cover Letter Template. In MEL, the corresponding author is just the colleague who is in touch with the editorial office, and this function does not imply any other responsibility in the development of the paper. As authors also acknowledge in the Cover Letter, MEL assumes that co-authors are equally and indistinguishably responsible for the development of the paper. As such, author name-order is alphabetical. Often, divergence from this rule is requested by authors, especially in cases where one of the authors is a PhD candidate. In such cases, the first footnote of the typescript should be a brief ‘respective roles’ statement, detailing the role of each co-author in the development of the paper.
Please do not include your abstract in the Cover Letter but, instead, try to present the significance of your research and the reasons why, a journal such as MEL, should publish it (maximum 100 words).
Finally, the Cover Letter should include answers to the following three questions (maximum 100 words each): i) what is the contribution of the paper and its relation to the scope of MEL? ii) Is the main contribution of the paper methodological, or is its emphasis on the business/policy/societal ramifications of its conclusions? iii) Although not exclusively, MEL favors ‘incremental’ contributions. If you believe it would be helpful, please mention two works (and the number of their citations) of independent researchers in the past 5 years, published in reputable journals, and the way your own paper improves and advances that knowledge.
Manuscript
Manuscripts can only be accepted in MS Word format. Only in exceptional and well-justified cases, discussed in advance with the EiC, manuscripts would be allowed to exceed our limit of 8000 words (all-inclusive MS Word count). By submitting a paper for consideration, the corresponding author acknowledges, also on behalf of their co-authors, that the manuscript has not been accepted for publication by another journal, nor is it being refereed elsewhere at the same time. Withdrawing a paper under review without prior consultation with the Editor-in-Chief is not advisable.
Authors should detail any commercial interests they might have in the subject matter of their article. Maritime Economics and Logistics will not publish articles whose argumentation and or modelling is based on privy, commercially sensitive, or otherwise confidential information. Prior to submission, therefore, authors are advised to seek publication permission from the respective information or data sources and/or discuss with the EiC.
An electronic acknowledgement is sent when the paper has been safely retrieved, cleared and registered at the Editorial Office.
Author Lists
Authors are advised that any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted. These changes must be approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
The Editor will only consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted in exceptional circumstances. Publication of the manuscript will be suspended whilst the Editor considers the request. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.
