Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica publishes original works on issues related to local and regional administration with a multidisciplinary nature, especially in social sciences that contribute to the understanding of the journal's purpose: Law, Administration Science, Political Science, Public Management, Sociology and Economy.

The Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica accepts, either in Spanish or in English, the following type of contributions:

• Artículos (Articles): research papers (theoretical or empirical) that offer an original, critical, complete (about legal, jurisprudential and doctrinal information) and  systematic study of a topic, that submit the conclusions reached.
• Estudios Breves (Brief Studies): research works of lesser extent and/or depth that approach the scientific study on a subject.
• Comunicaciones y comentarios Jurisprudenciales (Communications and jurisprudential comments): they will be research works about the main normative or jurisprudential novelties, in order to study and describe them as well as to realize a critical analysis of them and to propose legal solutions to the raised problems.
• Recensiones (Book reviews): they will be critical commentaries of monographs related to the main theme addressed by the magazine.

Preparation for submission

Submissions should always be made through the journal's website. In doing so, the authors declare that the text has not been published or is not being evaluated in another journal.

Two versions of the text will be sent: a full version and an anonymised version. Even though the application requires some personal data on the submission’s author (such as their name, their institutional filiation, ORCID number (if available), email address, and a biographical note of no more than 60 words), it is crucial that the rest of the text be completely anonymised, so as to ensure the double blind review.

The submission should include (at the beginning of the article or in a separate document) a note briefly explaining the scientific or professional contribution of the text.

Features of the manuscripts

Author(s) who submits a work for possible publication in the Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica must previously verify that the text completely adjusts to the following norms: 

• To ensure that the second version is properly anonymised, the author shall remove (by covering them by the wording *anonymised*) any quote, expression of gratitude, reference or any other allusion that may allow a direct or indirect identification of the submission’s author(s) (except for the initial header data, AUTHOR, AFFILIATION, ORCID, EMAIL, BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE).
• Manuscripts should be sent in Microsoft Word format (.doc /.docx) using the journal’s website. The journal will not accept nor mantain correspondence about texts sent by any other way or format than those established.

Cada artículo debe incluir:

• Title, in the language of the article (Spanish and English). Spanish / English translation, depending on the language used.
• An abstract of no more than 200 words in each version (Spanish and English). It should be structured and set out clearly and concisely, using bold headings, the objectives, methodology, results and conclusions of the work..
• Keywords: a maximum of 5 keywords in both Spanish and English (which shall be internationally accepted key terms in the disciplines of the social sciences, or frequent expressions in bibliometric classifications).
• Summary. A summary should be included in the same language of the work that relates each of the sections that make up the document (up to the third level if they exist).
• Bibliographical references, including their relevant DOI numbers (if existent).
• When the articles are the result of research that has received public or private funding, especially in competitive processes, i.e.: European, national, regional research projects; contracts; institutional subsidies, grants, etc., the source of funding must be specified, preferably as a footnote on the first page or in the Acknowledgements section.
• The length of the texts by sections, including title, abstracts, keywords, footnotes, graphs, tables and bibliography, will be: For articles, minimum of approximately 11,000 words and maximum of 18,000 words. Only if the Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica considers that there are justified reasons for the scientific interest of the work may, exceptionally, this limit be exceeded. For brief studies, a maximum of approximately 11,000 words. For communications and jurisprudential comments, a maximum of approximately 16,000 words.
• Articles preferably will follow the IMR&D structure (introduction, methods, results and discussion), followed by the bibliographical references.
• Book reviews should be no longer than 2,000 words, and they will begin by specifying the following information about the reviewed book: author(s), title, city of publication, publisher, year of publication, and number of pages. They should also include the name and surname, institutional affiliation, and e-mail address of the author(s) of the review.
• Non-textual elements (tables, charts, maps, graphs, illustrations, etc.) that contains the work should appear inserted in the appropriate place in the text. Moreover, they should be delivered separately, as an additional file, editable graphics in OpenOffice Calc (ods) format or Microsoft Excel (xls) and maps, illustrations or images in jpeg or tif at 300 ppp. All of them will be numbered and entitled, specifying its source in a footnote, and there should be an explicit reference to them in the text.
• The format of the text shall observe the following rules:

• It shall have a 12 point size for the text, 1.3 line spacing and 3 cm margins for the document.
• The text shall not incorporate indentation, unless it corresponds to quotes or list paragraphs.
• Footnotes shall be placed at the end of each page, with 10 point size, following their numeration, and not at the end of the text. It is suggested to use them as limitedly as possible and for their use to be linked to explanation, and never to bibliographical quoting.
• Pages shall be numbered below in the lower part of the page starting at the page of the abstract, which shall be page 1.
• The sections or subsections of the text shall be numerated (in ordinary numerals and separated by full stops) and shall be titled in minuscule and bold letters. The headings on Introduction, Conclusions and References shall preferably be non-numbered. The hierarchy of the heading of each section shall follow the following format:

  1.
  1.1.
  1.1.1.

In-text citations and references

VERY IMPORTANT. In order to improve the indexing of the journal and that of all the authors cited in it, in-text citations and references must be prepared in accordance with the format established by the APA in its version 7, as defined in its Style and grammar guidelines.

It is VERY IMPORTANT to include the DOI identifier of those references that have it. At the following address you will find a utility for searching for DOIs: http://search.crossref.org/references. Failure to include DOI identifiers in references may be grounds for rejection.

COMMON REFERENCE EXAMPLES

This information comes from the Common Reference Examples Guide, 7th edition, a comprehensive list of examples of the most common types of references in APA Style 7. We include here examples for journal articles, books and book chapters, the most common in scholarly communication. Extensive information on references and reference examples can be found in chapters 9 and 10 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (2020), in the Concise Guide to APA Style (7th ed.) and in the Reference Examples pages on the APA Style website.

For guidance, you can also download the Guía rápida de APA. 7.ª, produced by the Biblioteca de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, which contains a quick reference for in-text citations and references adapted to Spanish.

The examples appear in English, as defined by the APA manual, and in a Spanish-adapted version:

Journal Article / Artículo de revista

Edwards, A. A., Steacy, L. M., Siegelman, N., Rigobon, V. M., Kearns, D. M., Rueckl, J. G., & Compton, D. L. (2022). Unpacking the unique relationship between set for variability and word reading development: Examining word- and child-level predictors of performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(6), 1242–1256. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000696

Edwards, A. A., Steacy, L. M., Siegelman, N., Rigobon, V. M., Kearns, D. M., Rueckl, J. G. y Compton, D. L. (2022). Unpacking the unique relationship between set for variability and word reading development: Examining word- and child-level predictors of performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(6), 1242-1256. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000696

Authored Book / Libro

Kaufman, K. A., Glass, C. R., & Pineau, T. R. (2018). Mindful sport performance enhancement: Mental training for athletes and coaches. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000048-000

Kaufman, K. A., Glass, C. R. y Pineau, T. R. (2018). Mindful sport performance enhancement: Mental training for athletes and coaches. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000048-000

Edited Book Chapter / Capítulo de libro

Zeleke, W. A., Hughes, T. L., & Drozda, N. (2020). Home–school collaboration to promote mind–body health. In C. Maykel & M. A. Bray (Eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools: Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 11–26). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000157-002

Zeleke, W. A., Hughes, T. L. y Drozda, N. (2020). Home–school collaboration to promote mind–body health. En C. Maykel y M. A. Bray (eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools: Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 11-26). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000157-002

Peer review process

The journal guarantees that the maximum review time for an article is two months.

1. Authors must consult the guidelines for submissions before sending a publication proposal. The submission will be accompanied by a brief note highlighting the contribution that the text has made to the discipline and guaranteeing the originality of the article, as well as the fact that it is not under review in another journal.

2. If the text in case meets all the formal requirements, the author will be informed and the evaluation process will begin.

3. Articles received are subject to an initial review by the Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local Editorial Board, which will assess the quality and thematic adequacy of the work and may be directly rejected without undergoing an external review. For this first review, the Editorial Board may require the assistance of members of the Advisory Board, if deemed necessary.

4. If the article overcomes this first filter, a "double blind" review process begins, in which neither the authors nor the reviewers know the identity of the other party. Articles will be sent to two external reviewers, specialists in the field or line of research, together with the article review form. In the case that the evaluations differ, or for any other reason, the Editorial Board may send the text to a third reviewer

5. In view of the reports of the reviewers, the Editorial Board may adopt one of the following decisions that will be communicated to the author(s):

• Publishable as it is (or with minor revisions).
• Publishable after revision. In this case, publication will depend on the realization by the author(s) of all the changes required by the editors. The deadline for making these changes will be two months. The author must attach a brief report explaining the changes introduced and how they comply with the requirements of the Editorial Board. Among the proposed changes may be the adaptation of the article to another section.
• Not publishable, but with the possibility of rewriting and resending the article. In this case, the resubmission of a new version will not imply any guarantee of publication; rather, the evaluation process will start again from the beginning.
• Not publishable.

6. The Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica will publish annually the list of all the people who have conducted anonymous evaluations. 

7. If it is led to discover any of them, the Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica may make public any of the following scientific malpractices: plagiarism, falsification or invention of data, individual appropriation of collective authorship and duplicate publication.

Proofreading and Publishing

In case a work is accepted for publication, the publication proofs must be reviewed by the author within a maximum of three days.

The proofreading will preferably be done on the layout version submitted by the journal to the author(s) through annotations and comments in the PDF. Alternatively, it can be corrected using handwritten revision marks in the formatted document, preferably in red colour, sending a scanned PDF with sufficient image resolution. The corrections will be legible and will clearly indicate the location of the text to be corrected with respect to the formatted document. The original work should not be used for the correction, if it is necessary to add additional content it will be done in a separate document that only contains the addition and its location in the layout document. The layout version of the document sent to the author(s) may contain coloured texts in red with indications of revision.

Commitment to publish

The Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica undertakes to publish the papers approved in the peer review process within a maximum of 4 months from the date of the original submission.

Publication ethics

Approved by the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública Publications Commission in January 2023.

Revised: July 2024.

PUBLICATION ETHICS STATEMENT

All parties involved in the publication of scholarly journal articles: authors, journal editors, and reviewers should contemplate the expected standards of ethical behavior.

This statement is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Good Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. COPE provides resources for journal editors, reviewers, and authors on professional publishing standards at publicationethics.org. In addition to COPE, other organizations collaborate to identify best practices for scholarly publishing, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

The Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública is committed to high standards of critical scholarly review and professional publishing judgment. The journals published by Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública are under the editorial direction of independent editors. It is the editors of the journals who make all decisions regarding the content published in each issue; they ensure the accuracy, integrity, and originality of each published article. Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública supports editors in their efforts to manage their journals in an ethical and transparent manner, while adhering to established editorial principles and practices in their disciplines.

Additional information on the author guidelines for each journal can be accessed by going to the "Author Guidelines" section from the top menu of each journal.

EDITORIAL ETHICS STATEMENT

The editors of each journal are responsible for selecting which articles will be accepted for publication. Each journal editor, with the assistance from their editorial board, create the policies and guidelines for their journal while abiding by legal requirements regarding plagiarism, libel, and copyright infringement. The editors may request assistance from other journal editors or reviewers when making their decisions.

The editors evaluate the content of each manuscript to determine whether it is appropriate for the journal. They also evaluate its intellectual content without regard to the author's sex, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or political philosophy.

During the evaluation and revision of the article, the editor will respect the integrity of the original work, refraining from making interventions to the text with unpublished material without the express consent of the author of the original manuscript.

PEER REVIEWER ETHICS STATEMENT

Each journal has a Peer Review Process that assists the editor in making editorial decisions about the quality and suitability of a manuscript for publication. The journal editor can provide manuscript authors with feedback from each reviewer, which can help authors improve their manuscript.

Reviewers will consider the following criteria for acceptance or rejection of manuscript evaluation work:

• Be knowledgeable and experienced. They will only perform their function if they are considered competent in the subject they are proposed to evaluate.
• They will have time availability. Committing to respect the time limits and to follow the guidelines of the journal in their work. In case of acceptance, it is essential to meet the deadlines established for the completion of the review. In case of rejection, the journal's secretariat must be notified as soon as possible.
• They will assume a commitment of confidentiality so that they will not be able, during the whole process, to disclose the content of the article to a third party. Consultations with another expert may not entail any risk of breaching the confidentiality of the manuscript and must be previously consulted with the editor. The only authorized interlocutors for any question related to the evaluation process are the director and editors of the journal.

Reviewers who do not feel qualified to review a manuscript, or who believe that they will not be able to provide a prompt response, should notify the editor as soon as possible. The reviewer must be an impartial party with respect to the author(s) of the manuscript.

The journal uses the peer review system ("double-blind"), so that neither authors nor reviewers know the identity of the other party.

In the event that the author is identified, reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and decline the editor's invitation to evaluate a manuscript. A conflict of interest may occur as a result of:

• Animosity toward authors.
• Academic or family closeness: Belonging to the same university, department, research group, professional network, research project, etc. Having published articles with the author.
• Any other type of connection or conflict, including professional proximity.

It is important that reviewers inform the editor if they suspect or become aware of a conflict of interest for any of the above or any other reasons.

All submissions received for review should be treated as confidential documents. They should not be shared or discussed with others, except as permitted by the journal editor, who may require analogous commitment to confidentiality by the person with whom the manuscript is shared or discussed.

Manuscript reviews should be conducted objectively and without personal criticism of the author. Each reviewer should express his or her views clearly and provide supporting arguments.

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Reviewers should also bring to the editor's attention if they recognize a significant resemblance between the manuscript under review and any other published work.

The academic peer review process applies only to original research articles. All other scholarly content, such as book reviews, editorials or others, are not subject to the peer review process.

Additional information on the Ethical Guidelines for Peer-Reviewers is available on the COPE website.

AUTHORSHIP ETHICS

Authorship stated in the manuscript should be limited to those authors who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research or study. Each person who has made a significant contribution to the work should be listed as a co-author. If there are other persons who have participated significantly in the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as collaborators. The corresponding author should review and confirm that the co-authors are included in the paper, and that all co-authors have seen, approved and accepted the final version of the paper.

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other conflicts of interest that may be understood to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the research project should also be properly acknowledged.

Authors of articles reporting original research should provide an accurate description of the research/work performed and an objective discussion of its importance to the field. All supporting evidence and data should be accurately represented in the article. Each manuscript should also include references that allow others to reconstruct the argument. It is unacceptable to intentionally include inaccurate statements or fabricated data in the manuscript, which is considered unethical behavior.

Authors must ensure that their submitted work does not contain any content that could be considered as libelous or otherwise infringe on the copyrights of others. If authors have used the work and/or words of others, they must ensure that it is properly cited or quoted.

When requested by the editor, authors should provide evidence and raw data in relation to an article for editorial review and should be prepared to provide access to such evidence. They should also be prepared to retain such evidence and data for a reasonable time after publication.

Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously constitutes unethical publication behavior that is not accepted. The journal editor will make every effort to process and evaluate submissions in a timely manner. If an author decides to submit the manuscript to another journal, he/she should request the editor to remove his/her manuscript from the assessment/review process.

Authors should properly acknowledge the work of others and should cite all publications that have been influential in determining their scholarly understanding of the subject of their paper.

Authors must sign a Transfer of Rights Agreement  for their accepted manuscript to be published in the journal. Each journal has its own Transfer of Rights Agreement that will be provided to the author at the time of acceptance of their manuscript.

ETHICAL RESEARCH POLICIES FOR STUDIES INVOLVING HUMAN PARTICIPANTS

Research in social sciences and humanities often involves working with human participants and specific methodological tools (surveys, questionnaires, interviews, standardized tests, direct observation, ethnography, recordings, experiments with volunteers, and sometimes physical interventions). Therefore, the ethical implications of the chosen methodologies must be clarified.

The research must comply with:

• Ethical principles.
• Applicable international, community, and national legislation.

This implies ensuring respect for individuals and human dignity, the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of research, and the protection of the values, rights, and interests of research participants.

Additionally, the following must be obtained:

• The necessary ethical approvals (if required).
• The free and fully informed consent of the research participants.

A risk assessment must also be provided, explicitly indicating what types of harm (psychological, social, legal, economic, environmental, etc.) might occur, the likelihood of subjects actually incurring such harm, and the steps that will be taken to minimize them.

Research involving more than minimal risk typically includes:

• Potentially vulnerable groups and people unable to give informed consent.
• Personal or sensitive topics, which might induce psychological stress, anxiety, or humiliation.
• Deception.
• Risks to researcher safety.
• Seeking respondents through the internet/social media (e.g., using identifiable visual images or discussing sensitive issues).

Particular attention must be paid to vulnerable categories of individuals such as children, patients, people subject to discrimination, minorities, people unable to give consent, people of dissenting opinion, immigrant or minority communities, sex workers, etc.

If the research involves children or other individuals unable to make decisions for themselves, an active relationship with their legal guardians and/or carers must be maintained; you must not only seek their consent but also allow them to monitor the research.

Data must be kept securely, and publication (including internet publication) must not breach agreed confidentiality and anonymity.

In rare cases, it may be necessary to override agreements on confidentiality and anonymity (e.g., if maintaining confidentiality facilitates illegal behavior such as drug dealing, child abuse, etc. that has come to light during the course of the research). In such circumstances, disclosure to the appropriate authorities must be carefully considered. Participants or their guardians must also be informed of your intentions and the reasons for disclosure, unless this makes disclosure impracticable.

The technical aspects of collecting and storing research data should also be considered. Data collection using electronic encoding tools (digital recorders or cameras) should receive special attention.

ERRORS IN PUBLISHED WORKS

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her own published work, it is his or her responsibility to promptly notify the journal editor and to cooperate with the editor in retracting or correcting his or her paper.

If the journal editor believes that a significant error has been published that should be corrected, and in cases where there is reason for concern about such matters as plagiarism, fabrication of research, duplicate publication, or failure to disclose conflicts of interest, the editor will review and decide on its resolution in consultation with Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública.

Originality Check

Authors are responsible for guaranteeing that the information contained in their work is original and has not been copied, invented, distorted or manipulated, as well as the consensus in the case of shared authorship.  Plagiarism in any form is considered unethical and will be grounds for initial rejection or immediate withdrawal of those published texts in which it is detected.

Texts received may be subjected to a similarity check using the Turnitin application in order to guarantee their originality.

Rejection on the grounds of originality will be communicated to the authors together with the Turnitin report. There is no maximum percentage of similarity, the editors will decide on possible rejections in the light of the analysis of the report.

Only those papers that are finally published will be deposited in the Turnitin database to allow other editors to analyse the originality of their texts under evaluation. Submission of an article to the journal implies acceptance of the deposit when it is published.

Funding and publication charges (APCs)

Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública journals are funded exclusively by the budget of the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública, which is part of the Ministerio de Hacienda y Función Pública of the Government of Spain.

Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública does not charge authors any fee for publishing or for processing articles.

Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública does not charge readers any fees for access to published content.

Recommendations for authors to improve the dissemination of articles

We recommend:

• Be extremely careful when drafting the titles of articles, abstracts, keywords and their respective versions in Spanish.
• Always sign articles addressed to the journal in the same way.
• Follow the guidelines for the elaboration of the reference list according to APA format.

On the other hand, the global growth of scientific publishing production requires an efficient dissemination effort to improve the visibility of articles that benefits both authors, improving their research  curriculum, and the positioning of the journals in which their work is published.

For that purpose, it is important to join efforts in the use of dissemination tools and especially those associated with new technologies, such as scientific and generalist social networks, databases, author profiles, standardised identifiers, etc.

Although the journal itself already indexes content in many  repositories, search engines, abstract and citation databases and manages article, author and reference identifiers, authors can follow some recommendations to increase dissemination once the article is published:

• Include the article in public research profiles of the author(s), such as ORCID or ResearcherID. Authors who do not yet have an ORCID identifier are encouraged to obtain it and complete their profile. The journal publishes it with the article and provides a direct link to information about its production beyond the biographical note of the articles.
• Do not duplicate the DOI identifier. The journal assigns each article a digital persistent object identifier (DOI). To avoid duplication in the counting of citations, damaging the calculation of impact, authors should use the one assigned by the journal in the reuse they make of it, avoiding generating a new one.
• Deposit the article in your institution's repository and/or in a thematic repository related to the subject of the article, for example SocArxiv or similar. In absence of an institutional and/or thematic repository, it can be deposited in Zenodo, the repository of the European Commission. This makes the article visible to many more researchers.
• Contact the corresponding unit of the university or research centre to disseminate the results of the research.
• The journal announces the publication on its profiles of scientific social networks such as Academia.edu and Mendeley, adding the authors when they have a profile on them. Authors can also disseminate it themselves in their ResearchGate and Linkedin profiles, including at least the reference, the abstract and DOI identifier.
• Distribute copies of the paper to the main cited authors, perhaps the results of the research can be interesting for their own work, and insert the reference of the article in the email signature to inform the recipients.
• Use general social networks (for academic purposes) to write posts that talk about the article. Select headlines and link to the article using the DOI. Include images, illustrations, and videos. Tag stakeholders and use hashtags.
• Talk about the article on the author's blogs, explaining the results and their significance. Address it to the general public. Make it visually attractive with complementary image and video material.