Eligibility

Undergraduate students registered at any university, and graduates within twelve months of graduation for work done while a student. Every co-author must be eligible. Work that began as coursework or a dissertation is welcome; work published or under consideration elsewhere is not.

Standard

4,000 to 6,000 words, excluding references, tables, figures and appendices. The bar is a strong undergraduate paper: a real question, appropriate data or theory, a stated identification strategy and its limits, results interpreted with care.

The most common reasons papers are rejected after review are causal claims the design cannot support, results described but not interpreted, and a question the paper leaves unanswered.

Timetable

  • Day 5Screened and anonymisedyou receive a paper ID and an expected decision date
  • Week 2Desk decision
  • Week 3Two referees secured
  • Week 6Reports received
  • Week 8Decision letteraccept, minor revision, major revision, or reject
  • +14 / +28Revision returnedminor or major; one round of major revision
  • AcceptanceData and code check, line editthen the next issue

Submission

A submission consists of:

  • the manuscript, with no author-identifying information;
  • a separate title page: authors, affiliations, contact details, acknowledgements;
  • a cover note of up to 200 words: the question, the contribution, coursework or dissertation origin, any prior circulation;
  • a data and code declaration;
  • an AI-use disclosure.

The submission route opens on 12 October 2026. Until then, questions about a paper go to isej.org@gmail.com. See Policies for the AI-use and data-and-code rules.