Instructions for Authors

Thank you for choosing to submit your paper to us. These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly. Please take the time to read and follow them as closely as possible, as doing so will ensure your paper matches the journal's requirements.

About the Journal

Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy is an Open Access international, peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality, original research. Please see the journal's Aims & Scope for information about its focus and peer-review policy.

All articles will be made permanently and freely available online immediately after acceptance, and publication is free of charge for the authors and their institutions.

Please note that Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy only publishes manuscripts in English.

Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy accepts the following types of article: original research articles, literature reviews and theoretical discussions, book reviews, responses/critiques and invited commentaries.

Preparing Your Paper

Structure

Your paper should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (if applicable); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages at the end of the manuscript); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Word Limits

Please include a word count for your paper. Contributions should typically have between 7,000 to 8,000 words (indicative) with a max of 10,000 if justified (not counting bibliography, references or supplementary material).

Reviews should be 3,000 to 4,000 words (indicative) with a maximum 6,000, depending on the number of books being reviewed (not counting bibliography and references).

Peer Review and Ethics

Format-Free Submission

Authors may submit their paper in any scholarly format or layout. Manuscripts may be supplied as single or multiple files. These can be Word, rich text format (rtf), open document format (odt), PDF, or LaTeX files. Figures and tables can be placed within the text or placed at the end of the manuscript. Large figure files can be submitted as separate documents. Figures should be of sufficient resolution to enable refereeing.

There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to evaluate a manuscript: abstract, author information/affiliation, figures, tables, funder information, and references. Further details may be requested upon acceptance.

In-text references should be in 'name + year' format. For manuscripts submitted in LaTeX format a .bib reference file must be included. All bibliographic entries must contain a corresponding in-text citation. Author name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title, year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate) and page numbers are essential.  The addition of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers is recommended.

Spelling can be US or UK English so long as usage is consistent.

Note that, regardless of the file format of the original submission, an editable version of the article must be supplied at the revision stage.

Checklist: What to Include

  1. Author details. Please ensure all listed authors meet the  authorship criteria. All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript. Where available, please also include ORCiDs. One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF. Authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer-review process, the new affiliation can be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after your paper is accepted.
  2. Abstract Should contain an unstructured abstract of 200 words.
  3. Graphical abstract It should be a maximum width of 525 pixels. If your image is narrower than 525 pixels, please place it on a white background 525 pixels wide to ensure the dimensions are maintained. Save the graphical abstract as a .jpg, .png, or .tiff. Please do not embed it in the manuscript file but save it as a separate file, labelled GraphicalAbstract1.
  4. You can opt to include a video abstract with your article.
  5. Between 3 and 7 keywords.
  6. Funding details. In order to support transparency and avoid concerns being raised about undeclared funding support, please declare all sources of financial support that helped to cover the expenses associated with the preparation of your article. You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx]. If no funding was obtained for the reported work, please declare that no funding was obtained.
  7. Disclosure statement. This is to acknowledge any financial or non-financial interest that has arisen from the direct applications of your research. If there are no relevant competing interests to declare please state this within the article, for example: The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.
  8. Declaration of generative AI use. Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process. If generative AI was not used, please state this (suggested wording: The authors report generative AI was not used in their research or preparation of this manuscript). Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparation to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
  9. Supplemental online material. Supplemental material can be videos, filesets, audio files, or anything that supports (and is pertinent to) your paper. We publish supplemental material online alongside the main article.
  10. Figures. Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size). 
  11. Tables. Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text. Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. Please supply editable files.
  12. Equations. If you are submitting your manuscript as a Word document, please ensure that equations are editable.
  13. Units. Please use SI units (non-italicized).

Using Third-Party Material

You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.

Submitting Your Paper

Submit your manuscript through the journal’s online submission system.