We welcome papers that are comparative and/or international in scope including those that focus on world regional or global social policies. Country case studies that locate national welfare systems within a comparative or international context are also welcome. Articles may deal with policy processes as well as welfare outcomes and cover the full range of the 'welfare mix' within social policy.
Appropriateness for JICSP
All submissions must fall within the remit of the journal, as described at the beginning of this document.
JICSP publishes the following types of papers:
- Original Article: research article of 8000 words (including tables, figures and references)
- Review Essay.
- Corresponding Note.
If your article is part of a special issue different word limits may apply. Please refer to the editors for more detailed instructions.
All manuscripts must meet the submission requirements set out in this document. Spelling, punctuation and grammar should be in UK English. Please submit your document in Microsoft Word, closely following the instructions on how to prepare your article in the sections below.
Discriminatory language should be avoided. Further guidance on avoiding sexist, racist and disablist language is published by the British Sociological Association (BSA) – see https://www.britsoc.co.uk/Equality-Diversity/.
Authors are requested to bear in mind the multi-disciplinary and international nature of the readership when writing their contribution.
Style Sheet
1. Manuscripts should initially be submitted in MS Word. They should be clearly typed in double spacing and should have 2.5cm margins. Type size should be no smaller than 12 points. All pages should be numbered.
2. Endnotes: Any endnotes should be kept to a minimum. If notes 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.
3. Referencing: References should follow the Harvard system for in-text citations. The full reference list should be placed at the end of the text and not in footnotes. References must be arranged alphabetically under author(s) surnames(s) followed by initials and then in chronological order if several papers by the same author(s) are cited. Examples are as follows:
Working Paper:
Atkinson, A. B. (2010). Poverty and the EU: The new decade. Macerata: Macerata University. (Macerata lectures on European economic policy, Working paper no. 24).
Journal article:
Bengtsson, M., de la Porte, C., & Jacobsson, K. (2017). Labour market policy under conditions of permanent austerity: Any sign of social investment? Social Policy and Administration, 51(2), 367-388.
Book:
Bonoli, G. (2007). "Too narrow and too wide at once": The welfare state as a dependent variable in policy analysis. In J. Clasen & N. Siegel (Eds.), Investigating welfare state change: The 'dependent variable' problem in comparative analyses (pp. 24-39). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Conference:
Cantillon, B. (2013). Beyond social investment. Which concepts and values for social policy-making in Europe? Paper for the annual ESPAnet conference, September 5-7 2013, Poznan University of Economics, Poland.
Report:
Christensen, T., & Fimreite, A. L. (2010). Nav in an international context (Report 1-2010). Bergen: Uni Rokkan Centre.
4. 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, sentence case and left justified.
5. 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) 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 labelled, and units identified.
Charges apply for all colour figures that appear in the print version of the journal. At the time of submission, contributors should clearly state whether their figures should appear in colour in the online version only, or whether they should appear in colour online and in the print version. There is no charge for including colour figures in the online version of the Journal. If you request colour figures in the printed version, you will be contacted by CCC-Rightslink who collect author charges on our behalf.
6. Spelling: British spelling should be maintained throughout the article (eg behaviour and organisation not behavior and organization).
7. Capitals: Please keep these to a minimum and be consistent throughout the manuscript.
8. 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.
9. 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’.
10. Dates should be in the form 1 May 1968; 1990s (no apostrophe); the twentieth century.
11. 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.
12. Quotations: should be clearly marked by double quotes and appropriately referenced
Declaration of funding
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.
Ethical considerations
Where the paper reports original research, confirmation must be given that ethical guidelines have been met, including adherence to the legal requirements of the study country. For empirical work conducted with human subjects authors must provide evidence that the study was subject to the appropriate level of ethical review (e.g. university, hospital etc.) or provide a statement indicating that it was not required. Authors must state the full name of the body providing the favourable ethical review and reference number as appropriate.
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.
Copyright
The policy of JICSP is that authors (or in some cases their employers) retain copyright and grant Cambridge University Press a licence to publish their work. In the case of gold open access articles this is a non-exclusive licence. Authors must complete and return an author publishing agreement form as soon as their article has been accepted for publication; the journal is unable to publish without this. Please download the appropriate publishing agreement at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-international-and-comparative-social-policy/information/author-publishing-agreement
Policy on prior publication
When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.
English language editing services
Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.
In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.
Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.
Competing Interests
All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their title page. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.
Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.
Author affiliations
Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.
For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.
ORCID
We encourage authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information. If you don’t already have an iD, you can create one by registering directly at https://ORCID.org/register.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
Supplementary materials
Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.
Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.
Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.