Aims and Scope

Behavioural Public Policy is an interdisciplinary and international peer-reviewed journal devoted to behavioural research and its relevance to public policy. The study of human behaviour is important within many disciplinary specialties and in recent years the findings from this field have begun to be applied to policy concerns in a substantive and sustained way. BPP seeks to be multidisciplinary and therefore welcomes articles from economists, psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, primatologists, evolutionary biologists, legal scholars and others, so long as their work relates the study of human behaviour directly to a policy concern. BPP focuses on high-quality research which has international relevance and which is framed such that the arguments are accessible to a multidisciplinary audience of academics and policy makers.

Types of Article

The journal accepts the following types of article:

• Research Article*
• New Voices*
• Perspective*
• Findings from the Field*
• Book Review Essay
• Debate Essay
• Response*

* These article types may be eligible for APC waivers or discounts under one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access.

Appropriateness for BPP

All submissions must fall within the remit of the journal, as described at the beginning of this document.

All manuscripts must meet the submission requirements set out in this document, closely following the instructions on how to prepare your article in the sections below.

Authors are requested to bear in mind the multi-disciplinary and international nature of the readership when writing their contribution. Care must be taken to draw out the implications of their article for readers in other fields, other countries, and other disciplines.

Articles

Original research articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, including tables and figures, with an accompanying abstract not exceeding 200 words plus 4- 6 keywords.

If your article is part of a special issue of BPP, different word limits may apply. Please refer to your guest editor or the editors for more detailed instructions.

Submission of an article is taken to imply that it has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. 

New Voices

Articles for the New Voices section should be between 2,000 and 3,000 words, including tables and figures, with an accompanying abstract not exceeding 200 words plus 4-6 keywords.

Although the eligibility criteria are not strictly defined and may vary depending on circumstances, it is expected that New Voices authors are current PhD students, have recently finished their PhD (within two years of experience from the year when they have finally submitted their PhD thesis), or have completed a MSc degree and are establishing their first steps as researchers.

The BPP New Voices section will consider preferably single-authored submissions. However, where appropriate co-authored papers will be reviewed on the condition that all authors meet the eligibility criteria stated above.

Findings from the Field

The aim of this section is to showcase public policy applications of behavioural science. As such, the large majority of papers will be empirical – either diagnostic studies or tests of interventions. The primary criterion for publication is that papers should make a contribution to tackling an identifiable public policy problem; findings need not generalise to other contexts or to theory. Literature reviews and conceptual papers will not, in general, be considered. The section editors will consider non-empirical papers, provided that they describe novel lessons derived from direct experience of tackling policy problems or analysis grounded in behavioural science that has been deployed in a direct, practical policy application.     

Papers should be no more than 2,000-3,000 words in length.

Empirical papers should follow this structure, which should also be reflected in the abstract (maximum 200 words):

Policy problem: a concise description of the public policy challenge faced and policy context of the study.

Method: essential elements of the method employed – additional details and protocols required for replication can be relegated to supplementary material.

Results: primary statistical tests with a focus on the communication and visualisation of effect sizes relevant to the policy problem.

Discussion: summary of impact on the policy challenge and, where relevant, discussion of lessons learned and possible extensions    

Authors are strongly encouraged to focus throughout on the public policy relevance and impact of the study. 

Preparing your article for submission

Manuscripts should initially be submitted in MS Word. They should be clearly typed in double spacing and should have a left-hand margin of at least 25 mm/1 inch and a right-hand margin of at least 40mm/1.5 inches. Type size should be no smaller than 12 points. All pages should be numbered. Contributors are asked to retain an exact replica themselves for use in answering copy-editor’s enquiries and correcting proofs.

Title: Make sure your title describes your article. The most important function of the article title is to accurately and succinctly describe what your article does. Try to include the most important key words or phrases in your title and try to include the search terms you think that other researchers are likely to use to find your article.

Abstract: Repeat key phrases in the abstract. Search engines typically only search the title and abstract of an article so make sure that key phrases which describe the article topic also feature prominently in your abstract. Remember to make sure that your abstract still reads naturally as it also introduces your article to other researchers and readers.

Keywords: Be specific when choosing keywords. Remember keywords do not have to be single words and can include short phrases. It is important that keywords again match your article topic but it is also helpful to be specific as this is most helpful to researchers. Phrases which you’ve used frequently in the article are a good place to start in selecting keywords. Try to use words or phrases that you think would be likely search terms for a researcher interested in the topic.

Footnotes: Any footnotes should be kept to a minimum. If footnotes are used, they should be numbered consecutively (in superscript) within the text and listed in a separate section at the end of the article before the References. 

Referencing: Authors must use the Harvard System of Referencing (6th Edition). In this system citations in the text and footnotes list the author’s surname and the year of publication of the work in parentheses. Eg. (Sen and Williams, 1963). Where there are four or more authors, list the first author’s surname, followed by et al. and the year of publication. The full list of cited references is then provided alphabetically at the end of the article. References should contain, in the case of books, the names of authors as they appear on the title page, the year of publication, the full title including any subtitle, the name of the publisher and the place of publication and in the case of articles, the name(s) of the author(s), the year of publication, the full title of the article, the name of the journal, the volume and issue numbers, and the page reference (number of first and last page).

Le Grand, J. (2003), Motivation, agency and public policy: of knights & knaves, pawns & queens. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Harsanyi, J.C. (1982), Morality and the theory of rational behaviour. In A. Sen and B. Williams (eds), Utilitarianism and beyond. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Arrow, K.J. (1963), Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. American Economic Review. 53 (5), 941-73. 

Headings: Headings should not be numbered. First level headers should be in bold, sentence case and left justified. Second level headers should be in italic (not bold), sentence case and left justified.

Tables and Figures: Each table and figure should be on a separate sheet, numbered and collected together at the end of the article, after the References. Their place in the text should be indicated by a space and the words ‘Table X (Figure X) about here’. Tables should be clearly laid out; vertical lines between columns should be omitted, and horizontal lines limited to the top and bottom of the table, with an additional line below the column headings. Totals and percentages should be labeled, and units identified.

Spelling: Either British or American spelling is acceptable as long as consistency is maintained throughout the article (eg behaviour and organisation/behavior and organization).

Capitals: Please keep these to a minimum and be consistent throughout the manuscript.

Italics should be used for foreign words except proper names and words (such as role, elite) that have entered common English usage. The use of italics for emphasis is discouraged.

Abbreviations: Omit full stops in abbreviations consisting of capital letters (USA) and use capitals for acronyms (WHO). All acronyms should be expanded on first use to ensure ease of comprehension. Use eg. instead of ‘for example’ and ie. instead of ‘that is’. 

Dates should be in the form 1 May 1968; 1990s (no apostrophe); the twentieth century.

Numbers up to ten should normally be spelt out, except for percentages, exact quantities or a series of numbers. Use ‘per cent’ (not %) except in tables. Include a comma in numbers over 999. 

Optimising Your Article for Search Engines

We offer here just a few pieces of advice which you might want to consider when writing your title and abstract and choosing your keywords. Given the increase in published research and the importance of search engines as a research tool, these tips will help you to give your article the best chance of being read and cited.

1. Make sure your title describes your article. The most important function of the article title is to accurately and succinctly describe what your article does. Try to include the most important key words or phrases in your title and try to include the search terms you think that other researchers are likely to use to find your article.

2. Repeat key phrases in the abstract. Search engines typically only search the title and abstract of an article so make sure that key phrases which describe the article topic also feature prominently in your abstract. Remember to make sure that your abstract still reads naturally as it also introduces your article to other researchers and readers.

3. Be specific when choosing keywords. Remember keywords do not have to be single words and can include short phrases. It is important that keywords again match your article topic but it is also helpful to be specific as this is most helpful to researchers. Phrases which you’ve used frequently in the article are a good place to start in selecting keywords. Try to use words or phrases that you think would be likely search terms for a researcher interested in the topic.

Abstract and Keywords Preparation

For further guidance on how to prepare your Abstracts and Keywords, please refer to these guidelines.

How to prepare your materials for anonymous peer review

To ensure a fair and anonymous peer review process, authors should not allude to themselves as the authors of their article in any part of the text. This includes citing their own previous work in the references section in such a way that identifies them as the authors of the current work.

Please refer to our general guidelines on how to anonymise your manuscript prior to submission.

Tables and Artwork

Please refer to the following guidance about preparing artwork and graphics for submission.

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

If your article contains any material in which you do not own copyright, including figures, charts, tables, photographs or excerpts of text, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder to reuse that material. Guidance on how to do that can be found here.

Ethics and Transparency Policy Requirements

Please ensure that you have reviewed the journal’s Publishing ethics policies while preparing your materials. 

Please also ensure that you have read the journal’s Research transparency policy prior to submission. We encourage the use of a Data Availability Statement at the end of your article before the reference list. Guidance on how to write a Data Availability Statement can be found here. Please try to provide clear information on where the data associated with you research can be found and avoid statements such as “Data available on request”.

A list of suggested data repositories can be found here.

Funding statement

A declaration of sources of funding must be provided if appropriate. Authors must state the full official name of the funding body and grant numbers specified. Authors must specify what role, if any, their financial sponsors played in the design, execution, analysis and interpretation of data, or writing of the study. If they played no role this should be stated.