Submissions

This journal is not accepting submissions at this time.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • You claim to have read and to comply with the Author Guidelines and the policies contained in the "About the Journal” section on the website (including the Ethics Code, the Open Access Policy, the Copyright Notice and the Privacy Statement).
  • You have stated your current position and affiliation (e.g. Associate Professor at the University of Bologna) in the comments for the editors section below (it appears after clicking on the submission link). In case of co-authorship, indicate each authors’ name, current position and affiliation.
  • You claim this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors and that the author(s) do not have any conflict of interest (state otherwise in the comments for the editors section, providing the name of the funding organisations and the grant number or the specific competing interest)
  • You claim author(s) did not use artificial intelligence tools in the research, writing and editing of this manuscript (state otherwise in the comments for the editors section, specifying the type of usage and the model’s name and version)

Author Guidelines

1. Submission Requirements

The University of Bologna Law Review requests that authors comply with the following standards. The manuscript must: 

  • be written in British English (American English may be considered in exceptional cases);
  • be in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or Open Document Text document file format (Other formats such as PDF are not accepted);
  • be anonymised by removing from the document any identifying information, self-citations should be written in the third person and formatted as if by another author;
  • contain a title, a short abstract (max. 500 words), 5 keywords and up to 3 JEL Codes (optional)
  • contain all the references in the footnotes (endnotes are not accepted), preferably following The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed.); 
  • refer to one of the following Editorial Sections and have an adequate length excluding metadata and footnotes (the Journal may consider manuscripts exceeding the 20,000 word limit in exceptional cases of outstanding scholarly contribution)
    • 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 University of Bologna Law Review does not accept:

  • manuscripts previously published elsewhere except as specifically permitted under the Secondary Publications and Working Papers Policy. Deposited preprints are not considered publications under this policy. 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  submission.
  • submissions from undergraduate students (students pursuing their first degree) as sole authors.
  • simultaneous submissions along with other journals.
  • complete dissertations, such works must be adapted into self-contained articles before submission.

Authors should provide datasets with every empirical submission if not already included in the manuscript text. Authors must also provide proper attribution and copyright information for any tables, graphs, figures, or images included in their submission. Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions for copyrighted materials and must provide documentation of such permissions when required.

2. How To Submit 

During a call for papers (indicatively March-April and September-October, see the Announcement Section for exact dates), authors can submit their manuscripts through the UBLR website using the link at the top of the page. The Journal does not accept manuscripts submitted in other ways or outside the calls for papers (see the Publication Frequency Policy).

3. What To Expect Next

Within 48 hours of submission the corresponding author will receive either a confirmation of receipt or a desk rejection if the submitted manuscript does not comply with Author Guidelines. Submissions that receive a desk rejection may be amended only during the call for papers: it is not allowed to amend or resubmit manuscripts after the call for papers’ deadline.  

Within 3 weeks of the confirmation of receipt, the corresponding author will receive the outcome of the preliminary assessment and the manuscript will either proceed to peer review or be rejected. Manuscripts that are rejected at this stage cannot be resubmitted during the same call for papers. 

The peer review process typically takes up to 8 weeks, depending on reviewer availability and manuscript complexity. After this stage, manuscripts that receive a publication offer move to the production phase (copyediting, proofreading, and graphics). The average overall time to publication is 33 weeks (last update: August 2025).

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