Arbitration and review system

STAGE 1: RECEPTION

The journal's secretariat acknowledges the receipt of submissions and will return those not meeting the formal requirements.

STAGE 2: SCIENTIFIC REVIEW

The manuscript will undergo an external scientific review. The journal uses a double-blind peer-review system, whereby two reviewers specialized in the field report to the editorial board on the submissions received.

At least 40% of the reviewers will be women. Individuals affiliated with the members of the editorial board or the Andalusian Institute of Public Administration may be appointed to review submissions, provided that their number is less than 50% of the total number appointed annually.

The journal's secretariat will email the reviewers requesting their collaboration. The reviewer will state their decision to review the submission or not. The evaluation will be based on the following criteria, which will be considered jointly:

◦ Quality of the research conducted, in terms of advancement of knowledge.
◦ Originality, novelty, and interest of its subject matter.
◦ Methodological quality.
◦ Practical relevance of the research conducted.
◦ Contribution to improving the functioning of public administrations.
◦ Grammatical correctness.

STAGE 3: EDITORIAL REVIEW

Once informed, the editorial board will decide on the publication of the papers, which will be subject to the corrections deemed necessary by the evaluators.

• The editorial board will determine the papers to be published in each issue, considering the following criteria, listed in order of preference:

   ◦ Scientific quality and practical relevance (50%).
   ◦ Novelty and interest of the topic (20%).
   ◦ Order of arrival at the journal (10%).
   ◦ Gender parity (10%).
   ◦ Whether the author belongs to a foreign institution (10%).

• The editorial board will also determine the section where each submitted manuscript will be published.

• Every published paper will include the dates of submission and acceptance by the editorial board.

STAGE 4: PROOFREADING

Those who authored the articles selected for publication will be required to correct the proofs, which must be returned within a maximum of 5 days. Only error correction is permitted in this proofreading process; substantial changes to the proofs are excluded. This proofreading process may be repeated up to a maximum of 3 iterations.

If the journal does not receive a response to the proofreading process from the author, the journal may decide to publish the article without further ado, or not publish it at all.

TIMELINE

Manuscripts containing all the articles that will comprise the journal issue must be compiled for layout no later than the sixth month of the semester.

Once all the articles comprising the issue have been laid out, the journal's secretary will authorize printing, which must be carried out no later than one month after the end of the semester and, in any case, within one month of the compilation of the manuscripts for layout.

After printing authorization, the journal will be published in print, and the issue will be typeset on the website. The digital edition must be completed no later than 30 days after printing authorization.

The primary objective of the print edition will be to maintain it in archives and libraries, under the provisions of Article 8.1 of the journal's regulations. The institutional distribution of print copies will be carried out under legal obligations and the provisions of the editorial board.