Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. Submission Process

Authors wishing to submit their manuscripts to the University of Bologna Law Review, they are required to:

• read the Editorial Policies
• read the Editorial Sections
• read the Ethics Code
• read the Copyright Notice (see below)
• comply with the Submission Requirements
• submit your anonymized manuscript via email to bolognalawreview@unibo.it along with the required type (see §2.1) and metadata (see §2.3) or register and proceed with the Online Submission 

The Journal accepts submissions (via e-mail/OJS) only during Call for Papers periods.

During the Call for Papers, the Journal does not accept simultaneous submissions along with other journals. 

The Journal cannot accept submissions from undergraduate students (i.e. "student at a university or college who is studying for his or her first degree" Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers ) as sole authors.

2. Submission Requirements  

§ 2.1. Types

The University of Bologna Law Review accepts for publication original manuscripts not previously published elsewhere except as specifically permitted under the Secondary publications and Working Papers Policy (§2.5). Deposited preprints are not considered publications under this policy.

The submission must refer to the following types of manuscripts:

- Articles & Essays

- Notes

- Conference Papers

§ 2.2. Format

The University of Bologna Law Review requests that Authors comply with the following standards of format and length of the submission:

• The manuscript must be written in correct British English language (American English may be considered in exceptional cases). 
• The manuscript must be in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or Open Document Text document file format. Other format (e.g. PDF) are not accepted.
• The manuscript must be anonymized (for support in anonymization, see the process on the bottom of the page)
• The manuscript must be in length (articles metadata and footnotes, excluded):  
 
• Articles & Essays (Articles: min. 8,000- max. 20,000 words / Essays: min. 5,000 - max 12,000 words)
• Notes (min. 3,000 - max. 8,000 words)
• Conference Papers (min.4,000 - max.10,000 words)

The Journal accepts footnotes, only. Endnotes are not accepted. References must be inserted into footnotes: preferably, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed.) shall be applied as citation code.

The Journal may consider manuscripts exceeding the length of 20,000 words in exceptional cases of outstanding scholarly contribution.

Complete dissertations, LL.M. or PhD theses cannot be considered for publication. Such works must be substantially adapted into self-contained articles before submission.

§ 2.3. Metadata

The manuscript must also contain:

• Title
• Subtitle (optional)
• Keywords (maximum 5)
• A short abstract of maximum 500 words in length
• JEL Codes (maximum 3) for manuscripts where an Economic perspective related to Legal Studies is being emphasized (optional)

In a separate attached file (Disclaimer): 

• Author's name and surname (for each author, in case of co-authorship);
• Current institutional role / professional activity (for each author, in case of co-authorship);
• An e-mail address (the corresponding author's email address, in case of co-authorship);
• Current institutional/professional affiliations (for each author, in case of co-authorship);
• Editorial Section Statement concerning the preferred editorial section (Articles/Essays/Notes/Conference Papers) for the submission and acknowledge that the Editorial Office reserves the right to reassign manuscripts to the most appropriate section during the Preliminary Evaluation Assessment;
• A Funding Disclosure Statement concerning any supporting agencies, source of research funding or other institutional support have facilitated the research provided with the name of the funding organisation/s and the grant number; if none, state “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors";
• A Competing Interest (CI) statement (for each author, in case of co-authorship); if none, state "The authors declare no competing interests";
• An Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Disclosure Statement concerning any use of generative AI tools or AI-assisted technologies in the research, writing, editing, or preparation of the manuscript, specifying the tools used and their application; if none, state "The authors declare no use of artificial intelligence tools in the preparation of this manuscript";
• A Preprint Information Statement (optional): if the manuscript has been deposited as a preprint, please provide repository name  (e.g., SSRN, arXiv, RePEc) and URL; if none, state "This manuscript has not been deposited as a preprint";
• A cover letter (optional);

§ 2.4. Datasets 

Authors should also provide datasets, with every empirical submission (if social research methods are applied), if are not already included in the text of the manuscript. They may be preferably submitted via email or through OJS platform together with the manuscript and the disclaimer or upon request by the Editorial Office during the Preliminary Evaluation Step.  

§ 2.5. Secondary publications and Working Papers Policy 

The Journal prioritizes original scholarship. For manuscripts previously published elsewhere in other languages, in substantially different forms, or as working papers with ISBN, authors must contact the Editorial Office prior to submission. Each case will be evaluated individually for compliance with COPE and ICMJE secondary publication guidelines in order to be admitted to the submission.

Submissions which do not comply with the Publication rules (2.2, 2.3 and 2.5) will be promptly rejected by the Journal (Desk rejection) and they may be re-submitted only during the Call for Papers terms. In case of Desk rejection, the Editorial Office will support Authors to comply with Publication Guidelines for re-submission. 

Due to the high volume of submissions received for each Call for Papers, manuscripts that are declined during the Preliminary Editorial Assessment cannot be resubmitted to the same Call for Papers, even in updated/modified form.

Data Anonymization

To ensure the integrity of anonymous peer-review, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:

• The authors of the document have deleted their names from the metadata (e.g. frontpage).
• The authors of the document have removed personal information from the file properties by taking the following steps:
  • Microsoft Word for Windows:
    • Go to File
    • Select Info
    • Click on Check for Issues
    • Click on Inspect Document
    • In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the check boxes to choose the type of hidden content that you want inspected.
    • Click Remove All
    • Click Close
    • Save the document
  • Microsoft Word for MacOS:
    • Go to Tools
    • Click Protect Document
    • Select Remove personal information for this file on save
    • Click OK and save the file
  • PDF:
    • Go to File
    • Select Properties
    • Remove any name in the author field
    • Click OK
    • Save the document