Submissions

This page is designed to help you ensure your submission is ready for and fits the scope of the journal.

Before submitting you should read over the guidelines here, then register an account (or login if you have an existing account)

About

Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development is an open access, peer reviewed journal. It exists to promote evidence-based scholarly research in the social sciences and public policy studies that make the affairs of the Great Silk Road countries an area of significant interest, scholarship and impact. Applied interdisciplinary and empirical papers are welcomed.

The journal is intended for the reader from the academic, policy and private sectors with an interest in research specifically applied in the context of Silk Road countries. We welcome thematic clusters of articles on a topic that have an analytical synergy interesting for wide audiences. Thematic clusters should organize articles describing a problem, issue or phenomenon, potentially linking varying fields and disciplines. The primary category for submissions is original research articles. Issues might also include commentaries (1500-3000 usually), interviews (1500), policy papers (3000) and book reviews (1000-1500).

All research articles undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymous double-blind refereeing by two referees. The journal intends to address readers, particularly young scholars, in Uzbekistan and the broader Silk Road region. It will keep its readership informed as to the latest trends and issues in economics, business and policy (e.g., demography, education, health, the environment, transport etc.).

Focus and Scope

Silk Road exists to promote evidence-based scholarly research in social sciences and public policy studies that make the affairs of the Great Silk Road countries an area of significant interest, scholarship and impact. Applied interdisciplinary and empirical papers are welcomed.

The journal is intended for the reader from the academic, policy and private sectors with an interest in research specifically applied in the context of Silk Road countries. We welcome thematic clusters of articles on a topic, that have an analytical synergy interesting for wide audiences. Thematic clusters are welcomed and should organize articles describing the problem, issue or phenomenon potentially linking varying fields and disciplines. The primary category for submissions is original peer-review research articles. Issues might include commentaries (1500-3000 usually), interview (1500), policy (3000) and book reviews (1000-1500).

All research articles will undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymous double-blind refereeing by two referees. The journal intends to address readers, particularly young scholars, in Uzbekistan and the broader Silk Road region. It will keep its readership informed as to the latest trends and issues in economics, business and policy(e.g., demography, education, health, etc).

Submission 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 submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
Any third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal.
All authors qualify as authors, as per the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal. Every effort has been made to ensure that the submission is ready for peer review according to the journal's review policy (following the instructions to ensure blind peer review).
Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
All patients included within case reports or other article types in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified have signed consent forms, or had had their guardian do so, giving permission to publish the submitted content under a CC-BY licence.
Research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, with the name of the committee and reference number of approval included within the submitted file. Otherwise, please, add a confirmation that ethics approval was not required.
The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID, as per the journal policy.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal hereby agree to the following terms:

You agree to grant to us (University of Westminster Press) the right both to reproduce and/or distribute your article (including the abstract) ourselves throughout the world in printed, electronic (Open Access) forms, or any other medium. You agree that we may publish your article in the journal named above.

You warrant that the article is your original work, has not previously been published, and is not currently under consideration by another journal. If it contains material which is someone else’s copyright, you warrant that you have obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner (please attach evidence of this) and that the material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text. You also warrant that the article does not, to the best of your knowledge, contain anything which is libellous, illegal, or infringes anyone’s copyright or other rights.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. If you would prefer to publish your work under an alternative Creative Commons License, please indicate this in the Comments for the Editor box below, providing reasons for your request.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of OpenAccess).

Peer Review

All submissions are initially assessed by an Editor, who decides whether or not the article is suitable for peer review. Submissions considered suitable for peer review are assigned to two or more independent experts, who assess the article for clarity, validity, and sound methodology.

Authors may be invited to recommend or ask for the exclusion of specific individuals from the peer review process. The journal does not guarantee to use these suggestions. All reviewers must be independent from the submission and will be asked to declare all competing interests.

The journal operates a double-blind peer review process, meaning that authors and reviewers remain anonymous for the review process. The review period is expected to take around four to eight weeks, although this can vary depending on reviewer availability. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

Based on the reviewer reports the editor will make a recommendation for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, who is supported by an expert, international Editorial Board.

The journal is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. Authors must retain copyright to such postings. Authors are encouraged to link any prior posting of their paper to the final published version within the journal, if it is editorially accepted.

Reviewers are asked to provide comment on the below topics and guidelines:

Content: Does the article fit within the scope of the journal? is the submission, original, relevant and rigorous? Is the author's depth of understanding of the issues researched adequate? Are the sources and references adequate? Has the existing knowledge base been explored and built upon? Are the chosen methodologies appropriate and have they and the evidential base been appropriately used? Does the conclusion reflect the argument in the main body text and bring something new to the debate?
Structure and argument: Does the abstract summarise the arguments in a succinct and accurate way? Is the manuscript logically structured and do the arguments flow coherently? Is there enough reference to methodology in the introduction and are the arguments fully evidence and substantiated? Does the introduction signpost the arguments in a logical way and does the conclusion adequately summarise them?
Figures/tables: Does the author's use of tables, charts, figures or maps illustrate the argument and support the evidential base? Is the quality of the formatting and presentation adequate?
Formatting: Does the author's use of tables, chart, figures or maps illustrate the argument and support the evidential base? Is the quality of the formatting and presentation adequate?
Language: Is the text well written and jargon free? Please comment on the quality of English and any need for grammatical improvement.

Competing Interests
To ensure transparency, all authors, reviewers and editors are required to declare any interests that could compromise, conflict or influence the validity of the publication.

In addition, authors are required to specify funding sources and detail requirements for ethical research in the submitted manuscript (see Author Guidelines).

In accordance with guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (where applicable), the Press handles different kinds of error. All articles have their proofs checked prior to publication by the author/editor, which should ensure that content errors are not present. Please contact your editorial manager if an article needs correcting.

Corrections and Retractions
Post-publication changes are not permitted to the publication, unless in exceptional circumstances. If an error is discovered in a published article then the publisher will assess whether a Correction paper or Retraction is required. Please contact the editor for the full Correction/Retraction policy.

Licences

The following licences are allowed:

CC BY 4.0
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Publication Fees

You should update this section to show any fees that your journal charges.

Publication Cycle

The journal is published online as a continuous volume and issue throughout the year. Articles are made available as soon as they are ready to ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in getting content publically available.

Special collections of articles are welcomed and will be published as part of the normal issue, but also within a separate collection page.

Sections

Section or article type	Public Submissions	Peer Reviewed	Indexed
Research