The European Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (EJELS) is a fully open access peer-reviewed journal devoted to the empirical study of law and legal systems. It aims to bridge the substantive domain of law and the empirical approaches broadly conceived, ranging from quantitative to qualitative methods. The Journal is committed to fostering a methodologically pluralist, intellectually open, and disciplinarily inclusive academic culture. EJELS is not restricted to any particular field of law nor any particular legal system, but particularly welcomes submissions of relevance to a European audience.
About the Journal
The European Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (EJELS) is a peer-reviewed open access journal devoted to the empirical study of law and legal systems. The Journal is established, owned, and run by the European Society for Empirical Legal Studies (ESELS).
EJELS aims to (i) scientifically advance the field of empirical legal studies, (ii) bridge the substantive domain of law and the empirical approaches broadly conceived, (iii) promote the use of different empirical methods when researching legal and public policy questions, and (iv) provide evidence-based scholarship to be used by policy-makers and other stakeholders. In particular, it promotes methodological pluralism and strives to foster discussion between different disciplines.
In line with this vision, EJELS’s intended readership includes researchers in various disciplines, such as legal scholars, psychologists, economists, political scientists, criminologists, etc. Besides the academic community, the Journal targets readers from legal practice, policy makers, and other professionals interested in the field. Editorial decisions are based on the quality of the research. The Journal is not restricted to any particular field of law nor any particular legal system, but submissions need to be of relevance to a European audience.
In light of its methodological and disciplinary pluralism, EJELS is open to quantitative as well as qualitative scholars, acknowledging the richness in approaching different issues from various angles and using complementary or mixed methods approaches. The Journal aims to benefit from the domain expertise of legal scholars, as well as from their empirical methodologies, and from the methodologies of scholars from other sciences, such as social and computer sciences. The Journal is also meant to cover different types of research questions, such as explanatory as well as descriptive and explorative research.
EJELS is strongly committed to high quality and ethical research. We therefore require that all submitted work adheres to high ethical standards, and we may require documenting that the work has gone through ethical review when appropriate. In addition, the Journal adheres to the principles of Open Science: inclusion, fairness, equity, and sharing. This is reflected in the Journal’s own publishing practices, and also means that authors are required to make studies reproducible, including sharing necessary data and code.
Types of articles
The Journal publishes the following types of articles:
Research articles: should offer a significant scholarly contribution to a timely and relevant legal topic. This category includes review articles. The articles should typically be 8,000–12,000 words long. Research articles published in EJELS are peer reviewed.
New datasets: with the aim of advancing the sharing and reuse of scientific data, creating new avenues for research based on shared data, the Journal also publishes manuscripts that present and describe new datasets. New datasets published in EJELS are peer reviewed.
Methodological developments/teaching notes: to foster learning and development of methods the Journal also welcomes papers that describe newly developed, expanded, or especially adjusted methods to the field of empirical legal studies. Such manuscripts will typically be up to 12,000 words. Methodological developments and teaching notes published in EJELS are peer reviewed.
Short articles: manuscripts that even though they advance the scholarly field are briefer than a research article, for example those that deal with a niche topic, or replication studies. Such manuscripts are typically between 5,000-7,000 words. Short articles published in EJELS are peer reviewed.
Editorials: some editions of the Journal include an editorial, for example in Special Issues. These editorials are written at the request of the editorial board and are reviewed internally by the editors; they are not peer-reviewed.
EJELS also welcomes proposals for Special Issues on innovative and focused topics.
Editorial Policy
The review process proceeds as follows:
All submitted manuscripts are first assessed by the Managing Editor, who decides whether the manuscript falls within EJELS’s scope, is of sufficient language quality, conducts a plagiarism check, and in all other regards meets the Journal’s criteria for publication, or, if not, should be rejected. Manuscripts deemed suitable for further review are assigned to an Editor with area expertise. The Editor will make a determination on whether to a) request revisions, b) assign it for peer review, or c) reject the manuscript. This phase of the review process is expected to take between one and two weeks.
For manuscripts that proceed to peer review, the Journal solicits the opinion of at least two expert peer reviewers — and sometimes more when necessary to cover the theoretical, methodological, and substantive scope of the manuscript. Peer reviewers are tasked with highlighting the manuscript's general and specific merits and shortcomings. EJELS uses a double-blind review procedure before acceptance/rejection of manuscripts, which means that authors and reviewers are anonymous throughout the review process.
Based on the peer reviews, as well as on the assigned Editor’s assessment, the Executive Editorial board makes a decision to either a) accept the manuscript for publication, b) accept with conditions, c) ask the author for revisions, or d) reject the manuscript. This phase of the review process is expected to take between two and three months.
EJELS will not publish manuscripts for which a member of the Executive Editorial board or the Managing Editor is an author or co-author. It will exceptionally consider publishing manuscripts where a member of the advisory board is a co-author. In all cases, any member of the editorial team that has a direct or indirect interest in the publication of a manuscript will not in any way be allowed to participate in the processing of that manuscript. The author's affiliation with the Journal will also be indicated in the final publication of the manuscript.
EJELS follows an exclusive submission process. This means that manuscripts which are under consideration in other journals or have been published elsewhere cannot be considered for publication in EJELS. This includes articles that have previously been published in another language than English. The Journal will however permit authors to translate and re-publish articles published in EJELS in other journals and in other languages on the condition that the authors clearly state that it is a re-publication and link to the original EJELS version. The Journal accepts manuscripts that have previously been uploaded for review as preliminary versions, on personal websites, presented at conferences, or made available through other informal communication channels (“preprints”). However, authors must hold copyright for the text in question. Authors are also encouraged, when available, to include links to previous versions of the manuscripts in the version published in EJELS. Learn more about the Journal's policies.
Publication Fees
The Journal does not charge any publication fees.
