Submission Guidelines

The International Journal of Psychology and Strategic Communication (IJPSC) publishes original scholarly research within its interdisciplinary scope. These Submission Guidelines define the mandatory requirements for manuscript submission, editorial assessment, peer review, revision, acceptance, and publication. The formal formatting requirements and the official templates are set out in the Instructions for Authors.

1. Submission of Manuscripts

The exclusive use of the IJPSC Submission & Review Portal ensures the confidentiality, integrity, documentation, and traceability of the complete editorial and peer-review process.

A complete submission consists of:

• the anonymised manuscript, prepared with the official IJPSC manuscript template;
• a separate title page with the full author information and declarations, prepared with the IJPSC title page template. The title page is seen only by the editors and is never forwarded to reviewers;
• the author metadata entered in the IJPSC Submission & Review Portal;
• supporting materials, where required (see Section 10).

By submitting a manuscript, the authors confirm that the work is original, has not been published previously, and is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal or publisher.

2. Types of Scholarly Contributions

IJPSC accepts scholarly manuscripts that fall within the journal’s aims and scope and meet its academic, methodological, ethical, and editorial standards. The following types of manuscripts are considered for publication:

• original research articles
• review articles
• conceptual articles
• case studies
• practice-oriented scholarly research articles

All manuscripts accepted as scholarly articles must successfully complete the journal’s editorial assessment and double-blind peer-review procedure by at least two independent external reviewers before publication.

No manuscript is accepted for publication as a scholarly article without successful completion of the required quality-control and peer-review process.

3. Initial Editorial Assessment

Every submitted manuscript undergoes an initial editorial assessment before external peer review. The editorial assessment verifies whether the manuscript:

• falls within the aims and scope of IJPSC;
• constitutes a genuine scholarly contribution;
• demonstrates sufficient originality and academic relevance;
• complies with methodological and ethical requirements;
• meets the journal’s formal submission standards, including the use of the official template and complete anonymisation;
• follows accepted standards of academic writing and referencing;
• is suitable for external peer review.

Manuscripts that fail to meet these requirements are rejected during the initial editorial assessment and are not forwarded to external reviewers.

4. Double-Blind Peer Review

IJPSC applies double-blind peer review as its mandatory peer-review model for scholarly articles.

Every manuscript that successfully completes the initial editorial assessment is evaluated by at least two independent external reviewers with appropriate expertise in the subject area of the manuscript.

Reviewers are independent of the authors and are not members of the journal’s editorial team for the purpose of evaluating the manuscript concerned.

Under the double-blind peer-review procedure:

• the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers;
• the identities of the reviewers are concealed from the authors;
• review reports are handled confidentially through the IJPSC Submission & Review Portal;
• reviewers are required to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest before accepting an assignment.

Authors must submit an anonymised manuscript file that does not contain names, affiliations, acknowledgements, self-identifying statements, or other information that directly reveals the identity of the authors. The author information is provided only on the separate title page and in the portal.

5. Reviewer Assessment

Reviewers evaluate the manuscript according to scholarly and disciplinary standards. The review includes an assessment of:

• the originality and scholarly relevance of the work;
• the clarity of the research question or objective;
• the quality of the theoretical and conceptual framework;
• the appropriateness and transparency of the methodology;
• the validity of the analysis and the interpretation of findings;
• the consistency between evidence and conclusions;
• the engagement with relevant scholarly literature;
• the integrity of references and citations;
• compliance with research-ethics requirements;
• the manuscript’s overall suitability for publication in IJPSC.

Reviewers submit a reasoned assessment and recommendation through the IJPSC Submission & Review Portal.

6. Editorial Decisions

Reviewer recommendations constitute an essential part of the editorial decision-making process. The final publication decision remains the responsibility of the editor responsible for the manuscript. The possible editorial decisions are:

• Accept
• Minor Revision
• Major Revision
• Reject

An editorial decision is based on the manuscript, the reports of at least two independent external reviewers, the authors’ responses to requested revisions, compliance with the journal’s policies, and applicable research-integrity requirements.

7. Revision, Acceptance and Proofs

Authors invited to revise a manuscript must address the comments and concerns raised by the reviewers and editors. A revised submission must include:

• the revised manuscript, still anonymised, with all changes clearly marked (tracked changes or highlighting);
• a structured, point-by-point response explaining how each reviewer and editorial comment has been addressed, with page and line numbers of the revised manuscript. Authors should use the IJPSC response-to-reviewers template. The response must not reveal the identity of the authors.

A request for revision does not constitute acceptance for publication.

Revised manuscripts are reassessed by the responsible editor and are returned to the external reviewers when further expert evaluation is required. Additional independent reviewers are appointed whenever this is necessary to ensure an adequate and impartial scholarly assessment.

After acceptance, the authors submit the final version of the manuscript with all changes accepted. In this version, anonymised information such as references to the authors’ own work or the names of funders and ethics committees is restored. An updated title page is required only if author information has changed. The editorial office prepares the article in the IJPSC layout, adds the author information from the title page, the editorial dates and the DOI, and sends the corresponding author a proof for approval. At the proof stage, only the correction of errors is permitted; substantive changes require the approval of the editor.

8. Independence and Conflicts of Interest

Editors and reviewers must disclose all actual or potential conflicts of interest that could affect their independence, objectivity, or impartiality.

A reviewer or editor with a relevant conflict of interest must not participate in the assessment or publication decision concerning the affected manuscript.

Manuscripts submitted by an editor, Editorial Board member, or other person directly involved in IJPSC are handled independently. The author concerned has no involvement in reviewer selection, peer review, editorial assessment, or the publication decision.

IJPSC limits editorial endogeny in accordance with the DOAJ criteria. Because the journal follows a continuous publication model, research papers in which at least one author is an editor, Editorial Board member, or reviewer of IJPSC must not exceed 25% of the research papers published in a calendar year. Any such manuscript is subject to the same independent double-blind peer-review requirements as other scholarly articles. An editor, Board member, or reviewer who is an author or co-author of a submission is excluded from reviewer selection, editorial assessment, and the publication decision for that manuscript.

9. Special Issues and Guest-Edited Content

Articles submitted for a special issue or other guest-edited collection are subject to the same editorial standards, the same mandatory double-blind peer-review procedure, and the same requirement for at least two independent external reviewers as regular IJPSC scholarly articles. Special-issue articles are clearly identified as such.

The Editor-in-Chief retains responsibility for the scholarly and editorial integrity of the journal, including all special issues and guest-edited content. Guest editors are appointed only after their academic credentials and suitability for the role have been reviewed and approved, and their work is overseen by the Editor-in-Chief or designated members of the Editorial Board.

Guest editors do not make independent final publication decisions. Their activities remain subject to oversight by the Editor-in-Chief or a designated member of the Editorial Board.

A manuscript authored by a guest editor is handled independently, and the guest editor has no involvement in its assessment, reviewer selection, peer review, or publication decision.

Where a guest editor submits a paper to the special issue concerned, the manuscript is handled through an independent review process. Papers authored or co-authored by the guest editor or guest-editing team must not make up more than 25% of the total content of that special issue or guest-edited collection.

10. Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts must be written in clear academic English and must demonstrate a coherent scholarly structure appropriate to the research design and type of article.

Before submission, authors must ensure that the manuscript has been prepared using the official IJPSC manuscript template and complies with the journal’s Instructions for Authors. All files must be uploaded in an editable format (DOCX, DOC, or ODT); DOCX is preferred. PDF-only submissions are not accepted. The manuscript should contain an abstract of approximately 150–250 words and three to six keywords.

Because IJPSC uses double-blind peer review, the review manuscript must be fully anonymised. Author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, contact details, ORCID iDs, identifying file metadata, and other information that could directly reveal the identity of the authors must be removed from the file supplied to reviewers. Complete author information is provided on the separate title page and entered in the IJPSC Submission & Review Portal.

Tables and figures must be clearly labelled and cited in the manuscript. References must be complete, accurate, consistently formatted in APA 7th edition style, and should include DOI information where available. Supporting research materials, including datasets, questionnaires, interview guides, appendices, code, or methodological documentation, must be supplied where they are necessary for scholarly evaluation and where their submission is lawful and ethically appropriate. All co-authors must have approved the submission, and the manuscript must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal, publisher, or publication venue.

Research articles should contain the elements appropriate to their design, including:

• title, abstract and keywords;
• introduction and research context;
• a clearly formulated research question, objective or hypothesis;
• an appropriate theoretical or conceptual framework;
• a transparent methodology;
• results or findings, discussion and conclusion;
• limitations, where relevant;
• declarations (conflict of interest, funding, data availability, ethics approval and informed consent, use of generative AI);
• complete references.

The manuscript must provide sufficient information to enable reviewers and readers to understand the research design, methods, evidence, analysis, and conclusions.

11. Author Information

Author information is provided on the separate title page and entered in the IJPSC Submission & Review Portal. It must not appear in the anonymised manuscript submitted for peer review. The following information must be supplied for each author:

• full name;
• institutional affiliation and country;
• ORCID iD, where available;
• the email address of the corresponding author.

The title page also contains the author contributions (CRediT taxonomy), acknowledgements and the non-anonymised declarations (for example, the names of funders). This information is added to the article after acceptance.

All persons listed as authors must have made a substantive scholarly contribution to the work and must approve both the submitted manuscript and the final version accepted for publication.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, purchased authorship, and the omission of individuals who meet the criteria for authorship are prohibited.

12. References and Citation Integrity

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, completeness, relevance, and integrity of all references and citations contained in their manuscript.

References must identify the cited source clearly and must support the statements or arguments for which they are cited.

Fabricated references, non-existent sources, citation manipulation, coercive citation, misleading citations, inappropriate self-citation, and references that do not substantiate the associated claims are prohibited.

13. Research Ethics and Publication Integrity

IJPSC requires all authors to comply with recognised principles of research integrity and publication ethics. Research and publication misconduct is not accepted. The following practices are prohibited in particular:

• fabrication or falsification of data or results;
• plagiarism;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• inappropriate manipulation of images or data;
• fabricated or manipulated references and citation manipulation;
• misrepresentation of authorship;
• undisclosed conflicts of interest;
• comparable breaches of research integrity.

Research involving human participants, personal data, sensitive information, or activities requiring institutional ethical approval must comply with all applicable ethical, institutional, professional, and legal requirements.

Where ethical approval, informed consent, or consent for publication is required, the manuscript must contain an appropriate statement confirming compliance in the Declarations section. In the anonymised manuscript, the name of the approving body may be replaced by a placeholder and is restored in the final version.

Allegations of research or publication misconduct are investigated in accordance with the journal’s publication-ethics policies and recognised standards of scholarly publishing.

14. Plagiarism and Research-Integrity Screening

Submitted manuscripts are subject to editorial research-integrity assessment. IJPSC uses appropriate plagiarism-detection, similarity-checking, reference-integrity, and other quality-control procedures as part of its editorial workflow.

Automated screening results do not determine editorial decisions independently. Findings generated by automated systems are reviewed and evaluated by an editor or another appropriately qualified person before any decision is made.

Confirmed plagiarism, fabrication, manipulation, or other serious breaches of research integrity result in rejection of the manuscript and may lead to further action in accordance with the journal’s publication-ethics policies.

15. Use of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, validity, integrity, and scholarly quality of all content submitted to IJPSC, including content prepared with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence or other automated tools.

Generative artificial intelligence systems, large-language models, chatbots, and other automated tools cannot be listed or credited as authors.

Authors must disclose substantive use of generative artificial intelligence in preparing a manuscript when such use extends beyond routine spelling correction, grammar correction, language editing, or formatting. The disclosure is made in the Declarations section of the manuscript (“Use of generative AI”) and names the tool and its purpose.

Authors must independently verify the accuracy and validity of all information, data, references, citations, analyses, and other outputs produced with automated tools.

Generative artificial intelligence must not be cited as an authoritative scholarly source.

Editors and peer reviewers must preserve the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and review materials. Confidential manuscript content must not be entered into external generative AI systems or other automated services where confidentiality, intellectual property, data protection, or the integrity of the editorial process could be compromised.

Peer reviewers and editors must not use generative artificial intelligence to create scholarly peer-review assessments, reviewer recommendations, or editorial publication decisions.

Editorial use of automated tools is subject to human oversight. Automated systems do not make independent decisions concerning manuscript acceptance, rejection, peer review, research integrity, or publication.

16. Originality and Exclusive Submission

Manuscripts submitted to IJPSC must constitute original scholarly work.

A manuscript must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal, publisher, or publication venue.

Authors must disclose relevant overlap with previously published or publicly available work, including related articles, reports, conference papers, working papers, and preprints.

Duplicate publication and redundant publication are prohibited.

17. Copyright

Authors retain copyright in their published work without restriction. Copyright is not transferred to IJPSC.

Authors grant IJPSC a non-exclusive right of first publication and the right to identify itself as the original publisher of the article.

Authors retain the right to share, deposit, reproduce, distribute, and reuse their published work in accordance with the applicable Creative Commons license.

The copyright terms applicable to scholarly articles are separate from any copyright terms applicable to the IJPSC website, journal design, logos, trademarks, or other non-article material.

18. Licensing

IJPSC publishes scholarly articles under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Under CC BY 4.0, published material may be copied, shared, distributed, displayed, adapted, transformed, and reused for any lawful purpose, including commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the author or authors, a reference to the license is provided, and any changes made to the original material are indicated.

The license does not transfer copyright from the authors to IJPSC.

19. Open Access

IJPSC is a fully open-access journal.

All published scholarly articles are freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication.

Readers are not required to pay, subscribe, register, or create an account to access the full text of published scholarly articles.

There is no embargo period for published scholarly articles.

20. Author Charges

21. Continuous Article-Based Publishing

IJPSC operates a continuous article-based publishing model.

Following successful completion of peer review, final editorial acceptance, and production, articles are published online without waiting for the completion of an entire issue.

Each published article is assigned to the relevant volume and issue, receives a DOI registered with Crossref, and remains permanently accessible through the journal website.

22. Publication Dates and Article Record

Published scholarly articles display the principal dates of the editorial process:

• Received: date of the first submission;
• Revised: date of the last revised version;
• Accepted: date of the final editorial acceptance;
• Published: date of online publication.

The published article constitutes the journal’s version of record. Subsequent substantive changes are documented transparently through the journal’s post-publication procedures.

23. Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Changes

IJPSC maintains the integrity of the scholarly record after publication.

When significant errors, ethical concerns, research-integrity violations, or other circumstances affecting the validity or reliability of a published article are identified, IJPSC takes appropriate corrective action.

Depending on the circumstances, this includes publication of a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or another clearly identified post-publication notice.

Post-publication actions are governed by the journal’s Corrections and Retractions Policy and are documented transparently as part of the scholarly record.

24. Submission and Review Records

The IJPSC Submission & Review Portal is the journal’s official system for manuscript submission, reviewer assignment, peer-review documentation, editorial decisions, revisions, and communication relating to submitted manuscripts.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must use the official system for all substantive stages of the manuscript review process.

25. Final Submission Requirement