Submissions

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 and the properties of the file, any identifying information;
• use third person to refer to work the authors have previously published, in the text and in the footnotes. For example, write “X and Y have demonstrated” rather than “we have previously demonstrated”. The authors’ own works are cited in the ordinary form required by these Guidelines, as for any other author, and not as “our previous study” or “see our”. References to the authors’ own publications are neither omitted nor anonymised. Figures and tables should not contain any reference to author affiliations;
• contain a title, a subtitle (optional), an abstract (max. 500 words), up to 5 keywords and up to 3 JEL Codes (optional);
• include all references in footnotes; endnotes and in-text citation systems are not accepted. Manuscripts must follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (22nd ed.); manuscripts using OSCOLA are also accepted at submission and are converted to The Bluebook during production. Citation styles that rely on in-text references (e.g. APA, Harvard, Vancouver) are not accepted;
• be original, not previously published and not under consideration by any other journal;
• refer to one of the following Editorial Sections and have an adequate length excluding metadata and footnotes:
  • 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 may consider manuscripts exceeding the 20,000 word limit in exceptional cases of outstanding scholarly contribution.

Through the OJS platform, authors enter their details in the submission metadata: name, email, country, ORCID iD where available, affiliation (institution, for academic roles), and current position in the Bio Statement field (e.g. "Full Professor", "Lawyer", "Independent Researcher"). In the case of co-authorship, all contributing authors are entered, and the corresponding author is marked as Primary Contact.

The University of Bologna Law Review will not consider:

• previously published manuscripts, while manuscripts that have been previously published in another language, or as ISBN-assigned working papers may be submitted only with prior authorisation from the Editorial Office following a case-by-case evaluation for compliance with COPE and ICMJE guidelines. Deposited preprints are not considered prior publications,  but authors must inform the journal if the work submitted to the journal has been posted on a preprint server (e.g. SSRN) and provide a link to the preprint, whether the posting occurs before or after submission;
• simultaneous submissions along with other journals;
• complete PhD/post-graduate dissertations, not adapted into self-contained articles before submission.

Research materials and data 

Publicly accessible sources, including legislation, case law and scholarship cited in the footnotes, are not uploaded. For manuscripts which rely on sources that are not publicly accessible or on research data, authors are required to upload, using the corresponding component at Step 2 of the submission process (Add File → Other):

• Research Materials: unpublished or archival documents, decisions not available through public databases;
• Data Set: bodies of legal materials analysed systematically (for publicly accessible materials, the data derived from them), and empirical data;
• Research Instrument: interview or questionnaire protocols;
• Research Results: supplementary tables or figures not reproduced in the manuscript.

Material already reproduced in the manuscript is not uploaded.

Authors must remove any information identifying them from the contents and the properties of each file, redact or pseudonymise personal data of third parties unless the source is already public in that form, and provide scanned documents in searchable form where possible. Material exceeding the size accepted by the system may be deposited in a repository and linked, or the Editorial Office may be contacted.

Where confidentiality obligations, professional secrecy or third-party rights prevent material from being shared, authors must state the reasons in the Comments for the Editor box.

Research methodologies based on machine learning are stated and documented in the manuscript. Where third-party proprietary software has been used in the analysis, the manuscript indicates an open-source alternative that allows the results to be replicated.

Where an article rests on research involving human subjects, informed consent must have been obtained from the participants or their legal guardians, and any ethics committee approval is stated in the manuscript with the name of the committee and the approval number.

Data Availability Statement 

A Data Availability Statement (DAS) is required where a manuscript rests on research data, that is, on a body of data capable of being deposited in a repository: a dataset, a corpus of legal materials analysed systematically, quantitative data, or interview or survey material.

The DAS is uploaded as a separate file at submission, under the Other component. It states where the data that support the findings can be found: the persistent identifier of any deposited dataset, references to any dataset already openly available, the part of the article in which the data are reproduced, or, where data cannot be shared openly, the reason and the corresponding author's email address for access on request. Where the data were derived from publicly available sources, such as documents coded by the author, it states both where the derived data are held and the sources from which they were derived. Where the data are still to be deposited, the identifier is not required at submission.

Data deposited in a trusted data repository are cited by their persistent identifier, in accordance with the Journal's Data Policy. Where the underlying data are to be deposited, deposit is postponed until after acceptance in order to preserve the anonymity of the peer review, unless the repository allows anonymous view-only access to files that are not yet public.

Third-party materials and permissions

Authors must provide proper attribution and copyright information for any tables, graphs, figures, or images included in their submission. Authors are responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions for copyrighted materials and must provide documentation of such permissions when required.

Images produced with the support of generative artificial intelligence are treated as material already protected by copyright: authors must observe the same precautions as for images published under restrictive licences, and should use them only where strictly necessary for research purposes.

Responsibility for the published content rests solely with the authors.

2. How To Submit

During a call for papers (see the Publication Frequency Policy), authors may submit their manuscripts exclusively through the UBLR website via the OJS platform. New users should register using the registration link, while existing users can submit directly through the login page. The Journal does not accept manuscripts submitted through alternative channels (e.g., email) or outside the designated call periods.

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 the Submission Requirements. 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 4 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 declined. Manuscripts declined at this stage cannot be resubmitted, in any version, during the same call for papers.

The peer review process typically takes up to 12 weeks, depending on reviewers' availability and manuscript complexity. Accepted manuscripts move to the production phase (copyediting, proofreading, and graphics) prior to publication.

For further details, see the Editorial Process. For any inquiries, support, or information about the Author Guidelines, please contact the Editorial Office.

Last updated: September 2026