The European Journal of Development Research

Authors should prepare and upload two Word documents:

1. The first should be a cover page and be uploaded under the ‘Title page’ field. Details of all authors’ institutional affiliations, their full postal and email addresses, and other contact information (phone number, alternative email) should be included. The corresponding author should be indicated, as well as the final (publishable) author order. Any acknowledgements should be included on the coversheet, as should a note of the exact length of the article (including notes, references and biographical data). Please note: the title page is the only file which is allowed to contain authors’ names and details; all the other files uploaded must be anonymous.
2. The second document should contain the abstract and full article text; all information identifying the author(s) should be removed from this file to allow it to be sent anonymously to referees. The anonymous article file should be uploaded under the “Blinded manuscript” field.

Articles should be formatted as A4 documents, double-spaced and with ample margins. All pages should be numbered consecutively. Submissions should be in Word. Figures can be in TIFF, GIF, JPEG, EPS, Postscript, PICT, Excel and PowerPoint (for further details see below). EJDR’s preferred reference style is Harvard.

Please note that, should your paper eventually be accepted for publication, it cannot be processed if it is in any format other than those listed above. You will be asked for the source files in an acceptable format, which will delay the processing of your paper.

Articles may be submitted and subsequently published in English and French. The EJDR does not provide copy editing facilities, and authors are responsible for making sure their articles meet an acceptable standard. If authors are not certain whether or not their text corresponds linguistically to international standards, they should present texts that have been language-edited by a native speaker of either French or English. A spelling check and grammar check should be performed before sending manuscripts to the editors.

Articles should be no longer than 9000 words all-inclusive in their final version (including title, abstract, acknowledgement, notes, references and any appendices including tables and figures). Authors should bear in mind that this limit also applies to papers accepted for publication. We thus highly recommend that some scope is left for possible revision following the refereeing process. Submissions over this limit will be sent back to authors for shortening, and any lengthy appendixes will be published online-only.

The article should begin with an indented and italicised abstract of maximum 150 words, which should describe the main arguments and conclusions of the article. For accepted manuscripts, EJDR will automatically translate the abstract into either French or English (we encourage bilingual authors to provide the abstract in both languages, thereby ensuring all nuances are preserved).

In addition to the abstract, upon submission authors are asked to provide between five and eight keywords.

Graphics (tables, figures and all other illustrations) are to be uploaded separately, under the ‘table’ or ‘figure’ file fields. Please see Artwork Guidelines for further details on figures.

All diagrams, charts and graphs should be referred to as figures and consecutively numbered. Tables should be kept to a minimum and contain only essential data. Each figure and table must be given an Arabic numeral, followed by a heading, and be referred to in the text.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any material previously published elsewhere (including illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations). Sources should be credited in the accompanying captions.

The journal is published in colour online, and print-published in black-and-white. Therefore, we prefer that you supply your figures in greyscale. Figures supplied in colour will be converted to greyscale for print.

Figures are shown in colour in the HTML (web) version of your article, but bear in mind that the PDF/print version will still be black-and-white, so please make sure that colour is not critical to understanding any figures; and do not describe elements of the figure in terms of their colours. We therefore recommend that even colour figures are prepared with their grayscale version in mind. For example, instead of using colours as a fill for bar charts, use different fill types (lines or other geometric styles); line graphs with several data series can usually be represented adequately in black-and-white by using different line styles and/or different shaped nodes; and so on. Please be particularly cautious when submitting maps with differently coloured areas; rather than colours, use different fills where possible, or different shades of grey.

Notes should be numbered consecutively and placed at the end of the paper, before the reference section. Please do not use footnotes, and do not use the foot/endnote macro in MS Word as this data is lost in the production process. Author acknowledgements should be provided separately on the cover page.

All submitted manuscripts are subject to checks using the iThenticate service, to detect instances of overlapping and similar text. The iThenticate software checks submissions against millions of published research papers, documents on the web, and other relevant sources.

Accurate and in-depth referencing is required for all EJDR submissions. All references cited in the paper should be listed in the reference section. Bibliographical references should be checked for accuracy. Please view the References section below for more details.

British spelling is preferred although any consistent spelling style is acceptable.

Please remember: the title page is the only file which is allowed to contain authors’ names and details; all the other files uploaded must be anonymous. Any supplemental files (except for Early Careers submissions; see below), figures and tables must also be anonymised.

The researcher and academic community is increasingly affected by the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools and Large Language Models (LLMs; such as ChatGPT) in the analysis of data and the writing of text. The debate around the use of AI and LLMs in academic and research publishing is ongoing. Hence, guidelines around its use (for authors, reviewers, and editors) are likely to evolve as new developments emerge on the technological, institutional, and practice front.

EJDR currently abides by the AI authorship recommendations of its publisher, Palgrave, and those of the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE). Authors must familiarise themselves with these policies, and abide by them when submitting their manuscripts to EJDR. Please note that, as explained in the ‘Submission checks’ tab above, all papers submissions to the journal are thoroughly checked for sourcing, textual overlaps, and inconsistent referencing.

Palgrave guidelines on AI: Artificial Intelligence (AI) (palgrave.com)
COPE guidelines on AI: Authorship and AI tools | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics

The Harvard style of referencing should be used, which entails references in the text in the form (name, date), and a full alphabetical bibliography at the end of the text. Use single quotation marks with double within if needed.

• In the text, refer to the author(s) names(s) (without initials, unless there are two authors with the same name) and year of publication.
• Et al should be used when citing works by more than two authors.
• Details of personal communications are included with the citation in the text, and not added to the reference list.
• Publications which have not yet appeared are given a probable year of publication and should be checked at proof stage on author query sheet. For example:
• Since Paterson (1983) has shown that… This is in results attained later (Kramer et al., 1984:16). Results have been reported (Robinson, 1989, personal communication) which suggest…
• Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be identified with a, b, c (e.g. 1974a, 1990b) closed up to the year. If there are two authors for a publication, put both names separated by ‘and’ (not &). If there are more than two authors, put the name of the first author with et al to follow.
• References to material only on the internet must be given in brackets in the text, not in the reference list. The full URL must be given.

Reference list

References should be placed in alphabetical order of authors. Et al should not be used in the reference list: give names of all the authors.

Examples of correct forms of references for alphabetical style:

• Papers in a journal

Adam, C., Chambas, G., Guillaumont, P., Guillaumont Jeanneney, S., and Gunning, J.W. (2004) Performance-based conditionality: A European perspective. World Development 32(6): 1059–1070.

Otto, L. (1976) Social integration and the status-attainment process. The American Journal of Sociology 81(6): 1360–1383.

Schiller, N.G. and Levitt, P. (2004) Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field perspective on society. International Migration Review 38(3): 1002–1039.

• Papers, Advance Online Publication

Minniti, M. (2010) Female entrepreneurship and economic activity. The European Journal of Development Research advance online publication 13 May, doi: 10.1057/ejdr.2010.18.Books

• Books

Carothers, T. (2006) Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment.

Jensen, E. and Heller, T. (eds.) (2003) Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Kaplan, R.S. and Morton, D.P. (2001) The Strategy Focused Organization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

• Chapters in books

Faist, T. (2004) The Border-Crossing Expansion of Social Space: Concepts, Questions and Topics. In: T. Faist and E. Özveren (eds) Transnational Social Spaces: Agents, Networks and Institutions. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, pp. 1–36.

Prime, P.B. (1994) China’s Economic Progress: Is it Sustainable? In: W. Joseph (ed.) China Briefing: The Contradictions of Change. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, pp. 51–78.

• Conference papers (published)

Harley, N.H. (1981) Radon Risk Models. In: A.R. Knight and B. Harrad, (eds) Indoor Air and Human Health. Proceedings of the Seventh Life Sciences Symposium; 29–31 October, Knoxville, TN. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 69–78.

• Conference papers (unpublished)

Kohli, A. (2004) Politics of Economic Growth in India: 1980–2000. Paper presented at a conference on State Politics in India in the 1990s; 16–17 December, New Delhi, India.

• Theses/dissertations

Young, W.R. (1981) Effects of different tree species on soil properties in central New York. MSc thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

• Newspaper/magazine articles (with/without named author)

Webster, B. (2008) Record bonus for Network Rail chief, despite Christmas chaos. The Times, 6 June: p1.

Economist (2005) The mountain man and the surgeon. 24 December, pp. 24–26.

Authors may use their own previous archive material (from repositories such as RePeC) and material from their own working papers, such as the ones used within their own institute or presented at conferences. If there is a high degree of overlap between the manuscript to be submitted and the author(s)’ previous archive material/ working papers, we recommend that:

1. A short acknowledgment is added to the manuscript, noting that some of the material included is developed from the archive paper xxx (title, authors and date) or from the working paper xxx (title, authors, date and place of presentation);
2. The archive paper/ working paper is listed in the reference section of the manuscript, and a URL provided. For further details on how to reference papers, please see the “Instructions for Authors: style guidelines” section.

See also http://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal-authors/rights-permissions/10052490 for more information about our rights and permissions policies.

In addition to the above submission requirements , all co-authors asking for their papers to be considered for the Early Career Researcher initiative are requested to:

- View the EJDR Early Career video prior to submission: EJDR Early Career Initiative - YouTube

- Upload a scanned copy of their title (PhD or Masters), including the date upon which it was obtained, amongst the manuscript documentation. When submitting your paper online, ‘supplemental files’ can be uploaded; we recommend you upload the copy of your title in this way.

- Provide details of your early career status in your covering letter.

- Ensure you mark your paper as an ‘Early Careers’ submission by ticking the appropriate box when promoted by the submission system.

For full details of the EJDR Early Careers initiative scheme and eligibility, please click here.

The EJDR is a double-blind peer reviewed journal. To ensure fairness, all manuscripts submitted to the journal are evaluated in a double-blind process by two reviewers.

The refereeing procedures for The European Journal of Development Research requires authors to nominate two reviewers whom they regard as authorities competent to evaluate their work. These reviewer nominations serve as a reference for the Editors. The reviewers chosen should be experts who have no relationship with the authors. If the authors decide to nominate reviewers with a past or present relationship, a declaration on the association must be made. The editors reserve the right to use neither, some, or all of the nominations.