Submissions

Author Guidelines

Articles sent for publication in the Spanish Journal of Development Cooperation (Revista Española de Desarrollo y Cooperación) (REDC) must comply with the rules set out below and will be assessed by two independent and anonymous experts. These individuals may recommend that an article be accepted without changes, accepted subject to changes or not accepted for publication.

The journal does not charge to receive articles, whether for assessment or publication. The editorial management of the journal is handled using the Open Journal Systems (OJS) system.

The following should be taken into account before submitting a manuscript:

• Nature of article: articles should report the findings or progress of original and high-level research on development cooperation issues.
• Exclusivity: articles sent to REDC must be unpublished and their authors undertake not to simultaneously submit them for the consideration of other publications.
• Formal elements: text is to be sent in Word format and must comply with the bibliography and style requirements outlined in the “Author Guidelines” section.
• Anonymisation: text must be anonymised as outlined in the “Author Guidelines” section.

Author Guidelines.

The author guidelines include a range of formal and substantive guidance and are published on the REDC website. In addition, the information for authors includes the manuscript editorial process and the publication selection and assessment standards based on the OJS.

1. Manuscripts

Articles are to be delivered by means of three files:

1.1. Identification. For each article (including reviews), all authors must attach a file that includes the following information:

• Title of paper in Spanish, English and French.
• Volume and edition of REDC for which publication is proposed, as well as manuscript type: miscellaneous, monograph or review.
• Name of author(s), institutional affiliation, academic position and qualification.
• ORCID identifier for all authors.
• Email and postal address for all authors, identifying the corresponding author.
• Any acknowledgements.
• State any source of financing that has provided a framework for the work underpinning the article.
• Nomination of 4 persons from outside the authors' institution(s) to review the article.

1.2. Article. Title, keywords and abstract (in Spanish, English and French), full and anonymised text.

1.3. Authorship. In cases involving three or more authors, the authors must explain their contributions in line with the document available on the Web site [Dowload file], which must be delivered together with the anonymised manuscript and the identification document.

2. Format

Texts that do not comply with the requirements outlined below will be returned to their authors. Manuscripts must take into account the following issues:

• The language of the publication is Spanish.
• The text must be anonymised. The label *anonymised* will be used to obscure all references, citations, statements and acknowledgements that could directly or indirectly allow identification of authorship. If the article is approved for publication, a non-anonymised version must be submitted.
• Word format is to be used, with size 12 Times New Roman font and line spacing of 1.5.
• Articles must be between 5,000 and 8,000 words in length on DIN A4 paper (including charts, boxes, tables, figures, notes and bibliography).
• Reviews must be no more than 4,000 words in length (including notes and bibliography).
• All articles must include a title in Spanish, English and French.
• All articles must include an abstract in Spanish, English and French, each respectively to be no more than 8 lines in length.
• All articles must include five keywords in Spanish, English and French.
• Harvard style must be used as the citation system.
• Tables, charts, boxes, figures or images used in an article must have a title (above) and a source (below). They must be located in the corresponding position in the text (not at the end or in a separate document).
• Authors must have the corresponding rights to use any images included in articles. Images must have a minimum resolution of 200 ppi (300 ppi is recommended) in JPEG or TIFF format, and a width of at least 70mm with the corresponding height.
• Notes must always be included as footnotes. Their function is to clarify or qualify certain points included in the main text and they should only be included where strictly necessary. Bibliographic references should not be included as footnotes.
• Abbreviations are to be placed in brackets after the full term on the first occasion they appear in the text. For example: Organisation of American States (OAS).
• Sections must be ordered consecutively and always using Arabic numerals, as follows: 1., 1.1., 1.1.1. Numbering must not go beyond the third level.
• Articles should take a diversity-sensitive approach, avoiding any discriminatory bias against groups and individuals. Articles should not make assumptions about readers' beliefs or affiliations and should avoid any claims of superiority based on race, gender, culture or any other characteristic. Articles should use non-biased language, using terms that avoid stereotyping. In this regard, it is recommended to consult the Basic Guide to the Use of Non-Sexist Language.

3. Bibliographic references.

Bibliographic references are to follow the Harvard style. References to publications with a digital object identifier (DOI) must include the relevant DOI. Publications without a DOI may be referred to as outlined below:

• BOOKS: surnames, initials of name (year of publication): title of book in italics, edition, place of publication, publisher.
  • Dahl, R. A. (1999): La democracia. Una guía para los ciudadanos, Madrid, Taurus.
• ARTICLES: surnames, initials of name (year of publication): "title of article", title of journal in italics, journal volume (journal number), pages. Available at: https://doi.org/ xx.xxxx/xxxxxxxx.
  • Enders, W. and T. Sandler (1993): “The effectiveness of antiterrorism policies: a vector- autoregression-intervention analysis”, American Political Science Review, 87(4), pgs. 829-844. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2938817

More information on sources and references using the Harvard style can be found here. 

4. Structure of manuscripts.

The Spanish Journal of Development Cooperation (REDC) accepts the following types of articles:

• Empirical research article. Its structure will include at least the following sections: introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions and bibliographic references.
• Theoretical article. Its structure will include at least the following sections: introduction, development, conclusions and bibliographic references.
• Book reviews. Must include all publishing details for the book.

5. Form of submission of manuscripts.

Articles are to be submitted via the OJS platform.

The identification document including the elements referred to in section 1.1 above must be included together with the anonymised article. In addition, if applicable, the authorship document must be added in line with the terms established in section 1.3 above.

6. Assessment process.

REDC reserves the right not to accept any manuscript before proceeding to the assessment process on grounds of quality, form or editing.

REDC’s Editorial Board undertakes to respect the principles of any code of ethics established for Ediciones Complutense scientific journals and it adheres to the Code of Good Practices (Código de buenas prácticas) produced by the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas).

The following will be valid grounds for not accepting articles:

1. Failure to adhere to the requirements that articles must be original and unpublished.
2. Lack of relevance to the scientific field examined in the journal.
3. Exceeding the maximum established length for the type of submission.
4. Not using proposed citation systems as required.
5. Failure to submit an article in the required format.
6. The article being subject to another journal’s assessment or publication process.

The external evaluation system maintains an external expert percentage in excess of 50%. The list of external reviewers forming part of the process is published on the Website.

Articles are subject to three phases of assessment:

PHASE 1. Preliminary formal review

After the author has been emailed to acknowledge receipt of their article, the Editorial Board will conduct a preliminary analysis of the article to confirm whether it meets the requirements outlined in these “Author Guidelines”. Each article must faithfully adhere to these requirements and will otherwise be returned to the author so that it can be adjusted accordingly. The author will be notified of any such return within a period of less than one month following receipt of the article.

PHASE 2. Double-blind peer review assessment

After the preliminary formal review, successful articles will be submitted for external review by at least two specialists of recognised standing in the area, who are not members of the Editorial Board. These specialists will assess the content of the article through the double-blind peer review system, which entails the anonymity of both the author and the reviewers.

Important features of Phase 2:

The essential criteria that will be taken into account for a positive assessment of articles will be as follows: pertinence of selected sources, quality of methodology used, originality of topic, academic significance, contemporary nature of bibliography, compliance with editorial rules, proper drafting in the language of the publication, structure of study, validity of conclusions and general scientific interest of the paper, as well as its most significant contributions to the areas covered by the journal.

The reviewers’ assessments have four potential outcomes:
“Accepted”; “Accepted subject to formal changes”; “Accepted subject to substantive changes”; and “Not accepted”.

In the event of discrepancies in the assessments of the assigned reviewers, the article will be assessed by a third specialist, whose opinion will prevail.

If the article is “Accepted subject to changes” (whether formal or substantive), it will be returned to the author so that they can insert the requested changes or corrections.

If the text is “Not accepted”, the authors will be notified of the reviewers’ grounds for their decision. The authors will be informed of the outcome of the assessment as well as the reviewers’ observations or recommendations, and they may subsequently resubmit their article to the journal as a new publication proposal, to be assessed as an independent submission.

After receiving notification, the author will have a cure period during which they must make the relevant corrections and changes and resubmit the article via the journal platform, so the editorial team can confirm that the required changes have been made before proceeding with publication.

If REDC accepts the manuscript, the author, following notification of acceptance, must give notice of their confirmation or withdrawal within a maximum period of seven days. The journal undertakes to publish the accepted manuscript within one year following the manuscript approval. If it fails to do so, it must seek the author’s consent to adjust the publication date or allow the accepted manuscript to be withdrawn.

PHASE 3. Final decision

Following the double-blind peer review, the journal’s Editorial Board will decide whether or not to publish the article based on the following criteria.

Having heard the opinion of the domestic or international reviewers, the Editorial Board will decide whether it is appropriate to publish the article depending on the relevance and originality of its content and formal structure.

The Editorial Board undertakes to inform the author via email of the acceptance or otherwise of their article within a period not exceeding one month following receipt of the reviewers’ assessments, in addition to stating which edition of the journal will contain the article in the event of acceptance.

Accepted articles will be published in their proposed form, except in the event of grammatical or drafting errors. In the latter case, the Editorial Board will not intervene on substantive matters affecting the content of the article, but it may insert minor drafting, spelling, punctuation and graphic design changes.

Texts that pass the three review phases will be published. Authors may only correct errata during the correction of proofs and may not make significant changes to their articles. Authors must correct the initial proofs within the established time period following delivery of proofs. They will otherwise be deemed to accept the corrections made by the journal’s Editorial Board.