Submissions
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.- The request hasn't been previously published, nor has it been submitted to another journal (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the editor).
-
The requested information has been included at the beginning of the article. In this order and always in accordance with the Author Guidelines:
- Title, in Spanish and English.
For each author:
- Name of the author (s).
- Institutional affiliation.
- ORCID (if you have it).
- Email address.
- Brief biographical note.
By article:
- Abstract. In Spanish and English
- Keywords. In Spanish and English
- Summary.
- The bibliographical references include their corresponding DOI number (when it's available).
- The text of the articles has been anonymized: author(s) should supress (under the label of*anonymized*) any quotes, acknowledgements, references and allusions that may allow to identify them directly or indirectly.
- Check that the signature has been standardised as described in the Normalización de la firma section of the Style Guide for journals of the National Institute of Public Administration: https://revistasonline.inap.es/index.php/index/guiaestilo/#norm_firm
- Check that the article follows the style guide for journals of the National Institute of Public Administration.: https://revistasonline.inap.es/index.php/index/guiaestilo
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
This Ethical Code was approved by the Publications Commission of the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública in January 2023 and revised in July 2024. It is publicly available on the journals' website (https://revistasonline.inap.es/index.php/index/codigo_etico).
PUBLICATION ETHICS
All parties involved in the publication of scholarly journal articles—authors, editors, and reviewers—are expected to adhere to established standards of ethical behavior.
This statement is based on the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE provides resources for editors, reviewers, and authors on professional publishing standards (see publicationethics.org). In addition to COPE, other organizations contribute to defining best practices in 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 maintaining high standards of academic peer review and professional editorial judgment. Journals published by the Institute operate under the editorial direction of independent editors, who are solely responsible for all decisions regarding the content of each issue and ensure the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the published articles. The Institute supports editors in managing their journals ethically and transparently while upholding the editorial principles established in their respective academic disciplines.
Additional information for authors is available under the "Guidelines for Authors" section of each journal's main menu.
EDITORIAL ETHICS
Journal editors are responsible for selecting which manuscripts will be accepted for publication. In coordination with their editorial boards, editors establish each journal’s policies and guidelines in compliance with applicable legal requirements regarding plagiarism, defamation, and copyright infringement. Editors may seek assistance from other editors or reviewers in making editorial decisions.
Editors assess each manuscript based solely on its scholarly content, without regard to the author's gender, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or political philosophy. During the review process, editors are expected to respect the integrity of the original work and must not alter the manuscript or incorporate unpublished material without the explicit consent of the author.
PEER REVIEWER ETHICS
Each journal uses a peer review process to assist editors in evaluating the quality and suitability of submitted manuscripts. Editors may share reviewers’ feedback with authors to help them improve their manuscripts.
Reviewers must adhere to the following criteria when accepting or declining a manuscript review request:
- Expertise: Reviewers should accept assignments only if they consider themselves knowledgeable and competent in the subject matter.
- Availability: Reviewers must ensure they can complete the review within the stipulated timeframe and follow the journal’s guidelines. If unable to meet the deadline, they should promptly notify the editorial office.
- Confidentiality: Reviewers must treat the manuscript as confidential and refrain from sharing it with third parties without prior editor approval. If a reviewer consults another expert, confidentiality must be preserved and pre-approved by the editor. Editors and editorial staff are the only authorized contacts regarding the review process.
Reviewers who feel unqualified or unable to provide a timely review must inform the editor promptly. Reviewers must remain impartial and avoid conflicts of interest with the manuscript's authors.
The journal follows a double-blind peer review model, in which neither authors nor reviewers are aware of each other’s identities. If a reviewer becomes aware of the author's identity, they must declare any potential conflict of interest and recuse themselves if necessary. Conflicts may include:
- Personal animosity toward the authors.
- Academic or personal proximity (e.g., same institution, department, research group, or co-authorship history).
- Any other professional or personal relationship that could bias judgment.
Reviewers must report any suspected conflict of interest to the editor.
All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Sharing or discussing the manuscript with others is prohibited unless expressly authorized by the editor, who may require equivalent confidentiality from the third party.
Reviews must be conducted objectively, without personal criticism of the author. Reviewers must clearly express their evaluations and support their conclusions with appropriate reasoning.
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. They must also inform the editor of any substantial similarities between the manuscript under review and other published work.
Peer review applies exclusively to original research articles. Other content—such as book reviews, editorials, or commentary—may not undergo peer review.
Further information on ethical review guidelines is available on the COPE website.
AUTHORSHIP ETHICS
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study. All such contributors must be listed as co-authors. Others who have contributed meaningfully should be acknowledged as collaborators. The corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final manuscript and have agreed to its submission.
Authors must disclose any financial or other conflicts of interest that may influence the results or interpretation of the manuscript. All sources of financial support must be properly acknowledged.
Manuscripts reporting original research must provide an accurate account of the work performed, along with an objective discussion of its significance. All supporting data and evidence should be presented truthfully. References should allow others to replicate the study. Submitting deliberately misleading or fabricated data is unethical and unacceptable.
Authors must ensure their work does not include defamatory content or infringe on the intellectual property rights of others. Proper citation of others' work is required.
Authors must provide, upon editor request, the data and evidence underpinning the article and be prepared to make this information available for editorial review and retain it for a reasonable period following publication.
Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals is considered unethical. Authors wishing to withdraw a manuscript under review must formally request withdrawal from the editor.
Authors must appropriately acknowledge the work of others and cite all sources that influenced their research.
Upon acceptance, authors are required to sign a copyright transfer agreement specific to the journal, which will be provided at the time of acceptance.
ETHICAL RESEARCH POLICIES FOR STUDIES INVOLVING HUMAN PARTICIPANT
Research in the social sciences and humanities often involves human participants and specific methodological tools (e.g., surveys, interviews, standardized tests, ethnographic observation, recordings, volunteer experiments, and, occasionally, physical interventions). Therefore, the ethical implications of chosen methodologies must be clearly outlined.
Research must comply with:
- Ethical principles.
- Applicable international, European Union, and national legislation.
This includes ensuring respect for human dignity, equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of research, and the protection of participants’ values, rights, and interests.
Researchers must also obtain:
- All necessary ethical approvals (where applicable).
- Free and fully informed consent from research participants.
A risk assessment must be included, specifying potential types of harm (e.g., psychological, social, legal, economic, environmental), their likelihood, and the measures taken to mitigate them.
Research with more than minimal risk typically involves:
- Vulnerable populations or individuals unable to give informed consent.
- Sensitive or personal topics that may cause psychological stress or embarrassment.
- Deception.
- Risks to the safety of the researcher.
- Online recruitment (e.g., identifiable images or sensitive topics via social media).
Special consideration must be given to vulnerable groups, including children, patients, minorities, individuals facing discrimination, persons unable to give consent, dissenting voices, immigrants, and sex workers.
If children or others lacking decision-making capacity are involved, researchers must maintain active communication with their legal guardians or caregivers—not only obtaining consent but also allowing them to monitor the research.
Data must be stored securely, and publication—including online dissemination—must not violate agreed anonymity and confidentiality.
In rare cases, confidentiality agreements may be overridden, such as when they shield illegal behavior (e.g., drug trafficking or child abuse) discovered during research. In such instances, disclosure to relevant authorities must be carefully considered and, when feasible, communicated to participants or their guardians.
The technical aspects of data collection and storage must also be considered. Special attention should be given to electronic recording tools (e.g., digital recorders or cameras).
CORRECTIONS IN PUBLISHED WORKS
When an author identifies a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is their responsibility to notify the journal editor and cooperate in retracting or correcting the article.
If the editor determines that a correction is warranted—particularly in cases of plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication, or undeclared conflicts of interest—the editor will review the situation and decide on a resolution in consultation with the 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.
Privacy Statement
In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 27 April 2016, on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), personal data provided by users to the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública will be used exclusively for the maintenance of the data of the “Users of the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública journal platform”.
The data controller is Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública Management, c/ Atocha, 106, 28012, Madrid. Email: gerencia@inap.es. Phone: 91 273 9100.
The data protection officer: Support Unit, c/ Atocha, 106, 28012, Madrid. Email: dpd.inap@inap.es. Phone: 91 273 9100.
Personal data will be used exclusively for the maintenance of the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública journal platform indefinitely. There is no provision of data transfer or international transfers of personal data to third countries.
Rights of users:
You can exercise the rights of access, rectification, erasure, portability of your data, and the limitation or restriction of processing, as well as withdraw your consent, contacting with the responsible for the processing (General Application Presentation to Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública), or through the network of records assistance offices (https://administracion.gob.es).
You can file a claim with the Spanish Data Protection Agency, c/ Jorge Juan 6, 28001, Madrid (www.aepd.es).
Before filing a complaint with the Spanish Data Protection Agency, you can contact with the Data Protection Delegate of the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública (dpd.inap@inap.es).
All information on personal data protection and exercise of rights is available at https://sede.inap.gob.es/proteccion-de-datos-personales.