Information For Authors

Article types

Research article – The maximum length of articles is 70.000 characters or between 10.000 to 15.000 words approximatively (including spaces, notes, tables, and bibliography). For contributions intended as comments/responses to an essay published in the same or the previous issue, the maximum limit is 25.000 characters. Articles exceeding these specified lengths may be returned to the author with a request to reduce them before being reviewed by the Editorial Office.

Special issue – Scholars are encouraged to submit proposals for special issues anytime. Each issue typically contains a minimum of five articles. The RIPP Editorial Board will thoroughly evaluate the proposal, ensuring a rigorous selection process. A special issue proposal should be sent to sps.ripp@unibo.it and contain the following information:

  • Statement explaining the topic and its relevance to public policy research;
  • A short bio of the guest editor(s);
  • A call for papers;
  • A schedule including submission deadline and completion of the editorial process.

Symposium – Collections of essays (maximum three plus a brief introduction) on a specific topic. Maximum 45.000 characters or 8.000 words for the essays, maximum 15.000 characters or 3.000 words for the introduction. The proposal for a symposium must be reviewed by the Editorial Board. The proposal should be sent to sps.ripp@unibo.it, specifying the provisional title and listing the papers to be included, each accompanied by an abstract of no more than 500 words. Following the acceptance of the proposal, the authors can proceed with the standard online submission procedure.

Young Scholars Annual Prize - The RIPP annually announces a Young Scholars Award for the best policy article written by young researchers under 35. The prize includes a €300 voucher for purchasing books from "Il Mulino", a one-year journal’s subscription, and the essay’s publication. The submitted article, written in Italian or English, should be sent directly to sps.ripp@unibo.it. Works submitted for the competition must be original, previously unpublished and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The maximum length of submitted articles is 70.000 characters or between 10.000 to 15.000 words approximatively (including spaces, notes, tables, and bibliography). In the case of multiple authors of one article, all co-authors should be under 35. The prize will be awarded by a jury of at least three experts in policy studies. The jury will evaluate the submitted essays anonymously, indicating the winning essay and making suggestions if improvements are needed for publication.

 

Peer review

Submissions are managed through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) software for journal management and publishing. The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editors initially check the all submissions for originality and appropriateness to the aims and scope of the journal. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for initial decisions on desk rejection or start of the peer review. The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editors guarantee the anonymity of the authors and do not serve as reviewers. The other members of the Editorial Board acting as Associate Editors do not serve as reviewers, and the authors of the manuscripts currently under review are not disclosed to them. When an article is sent out for review, it undergoes a double-blind peer review process, wherein it is anonymously reviewed by two or more referees not affiliated with the same department as the author(s). This process is consistently applied to both regular and special issues and symposia. For special issues and symposia, the journal may also ask the guest editors or the contributors to suggest potential reviewers. The evaluation reports from the referees are presented in their entirety and anonymously to the author(s) and to the guest editors.

The journal’s Editor-in-Chief evaluates the feedback from peer reviewers to make a decision. The possible outcomes include:

  • Accept submission. The article can be published, and no revision is needed;
  • Revisions required. The article requires minor changes that can be reviewed and accepted by the editor;
  • Resubmit for review. The article requires major changes and another round of peer review;
  • Decline submission. The article cannot be published.

 

Submission checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check that their submissions comply with all of the following items. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to authors.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor was it previously submitted to another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor);
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format;
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points rather than at the end;
  • In-text references must follow the author-date citation system (Author, year), and the reference list should adhere to the publisher’s style (see below);
  • Appendixes should be provided at the end of the main document, and not as a separate file;
  • As for publisher requirements, please note that all figures and graphs must be provided both in black, white and grey, and in colours after final acceptance.

 

Submission guidelines

Articles must be submitted to the journal via the platform available at the following address: https://submission.rivisteweb.it/index.php/ripp. RIPP accepts articles in non-proprietary text editor formats (.rtf, .odf) or Word format for Windows.

The article must be accompanied by the title in both Italian and English, an abstract in English of no more than 125 words, 3 to 5 keywords in English, a biographical note about the author no longer than five lines, the complete postal address, and the email address of all authors.

 

Preparing your manuscript

There are no strict formatting requirements. Submissions to RIPP must include two separate files to facilitate anonymous peer review: a Title Page and a Main Document.

Title Page should include the following information:

  • Corresponding authors and co-authors (provide full contact details for the corresponding author, including email and mailing address). Full names and academic affiliations are required for all co-authors;
  • Acknowledgements;
  • A statement reporting any competing interests and sources of funding;
  • The Author(s)’s ORCID ID.

The Main Document should be anonymous and include the title of the manuscript, abstract, keywords, full text, footnotes, references, figures, tables, and appendix. It is recommended that the number of self-citations is limited to three.

References should be in the following format:

Majone G. (1996), Regulating Europe, London, Routledge.

Pierson P. (1996), The path to European integration. A historical institutionalist analysis, in «Comparative Political Studies», vol. 29, n. 2, pp. 123-163.

Pierson P. (2000), Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics, in «American Political Science Review», vol. 94, n. 2, pp. 251-267.

Poterba J. – von Hagen J. (a cura di) (1999), Fiscal institutions and fiscal performance, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press.

Strauch R. (2000), Institutional reforms and Belgian fiscal policy in the 90s, in R. R. Strauch e J. von Hagen (eds.), Institutions, politics and fiscal policy, Boston and Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 215-234.

DFP – Dipartimento della funzione pubblica (1993), Indirizzi per la moderniz-zazione delle amministrazioni pubbliche, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato.

FATF - Financial Action Task Force (2016) Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach for Money or Value Transfer Services,  http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfrecommendations/documents/rba-money-or-value-transfer.html

 

After the final editorial decision

If your article is accepted, the RIPP Secretary and Editorial Office will oversee the production process. The production process includes correcting the proofs of your article and signing a license agreement with the publisher. Your manuscript will be published in one of the three regular issues RIPP publishes every year, available in both digital and print formats. The publisher also offers the option to publish the articles online as Early Access, allowing availability before assignment to a volume and issue. When articles are published as Early Access, the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is also made available. A limited number of Open Access agreements are available from the publisher each year; please contact the Editor-in-Chief for further information.