Submissions

Author Guidelines

Initial submissions:

There are no submission fees.

Papers should be in English, in PDF format, and should not exceed 10,000 words, excluding references, tables, and figure captions. An abstract of no more than 200 words must be included together with  4-6 keywords. The manuscript must be submitted without authors' names or affiliations to ensure a blind refereeing process.

The paper should be double-spaced, including text, tables, legends and footnotes, to facilitate reviewer annotation. Pages should be numbered. 

On a separate PDF document, authors should provide

• Their title
• Full names, affiliations, postal and email addresses of all authors
• Details of the corresponding author
• Number of figures and tables
• Acknowledgements and Declaration of Interest disclosures (see Paper Preparation below)
• Declaration on the use of AI tools (see Paper Preparation below)

If the paper is accepted, JECS would also require the source document, either in Word or LaTeX, and which should fully comply with the journal formatting requirements below (Paper preparation).

Paper preparation

Style and spelling

Oxford English spelling should be used. Authors whose first language is not English are requested to have their typescripts checked carefully before submission.

General format

Please submit your text as a PDF file. The paper should be double-spaced, including text, tables, legends and footnotes. Pages should be numbered.

Abstract and keywords

Abstract should maximum be 200 words, mentioning the purpose, methodology, findings, and practical implications or the results. Four to six keywords.

Figures

Figures should be self-explanatory; they should have a title above and an explanatory note below. They should be limited to the number necessary for clarity and must not duplicate data given in tables or in the text.

After acceptance, figures must be submitted as separate files in EPS, PNG, JPEG or SVG format. Figures should be prepared at publication quality resolution (a minimum of 300 dpi).

Tables

Each Table should be numbered in sequence using Arabic numerals. Tables should also have a title above and an explanatory note below. Tables should be editable rather than submitted as images, they should be prepared in Word or as LaTeX table environments rather than embedded as screenshots, and they should include clear column headers and footnotes explaining abbreviations and significance levels (where applicable).

Acknowledgements and disclosure statements

Sources of funding and support, and contributions of individuals that do not meet the Authorship criteria (see Authorship policy), should be noted in an “Acknowledgement” note.

The paper should include a note disclosing any conflicts of interest for each author. If there are no conflicts of interest, this should also be explicitly stated. Please see the Journal Policies.

Citations

Sources should be cited using the author-date system, following the Chicago Manual of Style, with citations in the text in parentheses by author’s last name and year of publication, and a reference list at the end, where full bibliographic information is provided. Reference lists should include DOI numbers where available.

Use of AI tools

At the time of submission, in their cover letter, authors must declare whether AI tools were used in the manuscript preparation process, specifying the tasks performed and the tools and versions used. Upon acceptance, an AI disclosure statement will be included before the reference list, in line with the journal's policy on the use of AI tools (see Journal Policies).

Proofs

Authors will have an opportunity to review proofs before publication. However, at the proof stage only typographical errors, factual errors in author names or affiliations, and minor formatting corrections will be accepted. Substantive changes to the text data, or conclusions will not be permitted at this stage. By submitting to JECS, authors agree to check and return proofs within two weeks of receipt.

Once published, corrections can only be made through the journal's formal corrections process, as described in the Journal Policies.

Copyright and other requirements

By submitting authors confirm that they are the corresponding/submitting author, that they hold, or have secured the necessary rights to, the copyright for the submitted work, and that they agree to publish with JECS if accepted. They should also comply with the Journal Policies, including the disclosure of the use of AI tools. For more details, see the Journal Policies.

Authors also consent that the journal may retain their email address for the purpose of communicating with them about the article. The Journal will not use rejected manuscripts for any purpose other than the review process.

Data and code availability

Where data and code are not subject to confidentiality, proprietary, or legal restrictions, authors of accepted papers are strongly encouraged to make available all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely. Data and code should be deposited in a recognised public repository such as Zenodo or Harvard Dataverse, with a persistent link or DOI included in the manuscript. All published articles must disclose where supporting data can be found or, where data cannot be shared, provide an explanation of the constraints that prevent disclosure.

For the journal's full policy on data availability, see the Journal Policies

Supplementary materials

The authors can also make available to the reader any supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript (i.e., it is not needed to understand the conclusions of the paper) but would nevertheless benefit the reader (for example, additional data). This material should be separately sent to the journal and can be made available as online content, linked to the online article.

Permissions information

If illustrations or figures are to be duplicated from previously published work, written permission must be obtained both from the publisher and the author, and a credit line giving the source added to the relevant Figure legend. If significant text material is to be reproduced from published sources, written permission is required from both publisher and author. For shorter quotations, it is usually sufficient to add a bibliographic credit. Written confirmation of permission, which may be in the form of an email, for the reproduction of either text or illustrations must accompany the manuscript. If permission has been sought but not yet obtained at the time of submission, authors should indicate this in their cover letter. Proof of permission will be required before publication.