About the Journal

Aims and Scope

The Journal of BRICS Studies is an open-access, peer-reviewed non-disciplinary academic journal publishing outcomes of research on social, economic, political, scientific and epistemic issues related to the BRICS as well as the agency of the developing world. The journal is hosted by the Institute for Global African Affairs at the University of Johannesburg. It is dedicated to nurturing the emerging idea of BRICSology as an area of scientific and policy study seeking to understand issues shared by the five continents on which the BRICS are found, the so-called BRICS+ area of interest beyond the five BRICS countries. BRICS studies require critical, decolonial and intersectional discussion and analysis that disrupt the disciplinary lines of knowledge to make possible knowledge-otherwise. It welcomes submissions that seek to address conditions faced by ordinary people, their aspirations and their agency. The journal publishes peer-reviewed research articles, review articles/commentary, and emerging voices' essays. 

Submissions

The journal publishes two issues a year (July/December) and a special edition in between will be considered from time to time. Issues are available as open access.  The Journal invites manuscripts all through the year, submitted online through its website. Articles must be between 4000 and 7000 words long; review articles or commentary essays must be 2-4 000 words, and students' essays must be about 1000 to 2000 words,  prepared according to author guidelines. All are subject to double-blind peer review. 

Submit two versions of your paper (one must be anonymised. Both with the same file name with "anonymous" added at the end of one, to identify the anonymous one

Author fees

Committed to the principle that knowledge is a public good,  the journal does not impose article processing charges (APCs) on its contributors.

Open Access

The journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. It is therefore fully an open-access journal.

Copyright

Authors retain the copyright of their articles.

Archiving and Indexing 

The articles published are archived and indexed accordingly though CLOCKSS, LOCKSS and the PKP PN.

Peer Review Policy

All research articles are subjected to the double-blind peer review process.  The journal welcomes all those who are interested in being peer reviewers. Potential reviewers must send a note to the editor-in-chief.

 Authorship

Authors are those who have a substantive contribution to the article. The order which authors appear should be based on the relative scientific contributions of the individuals listed, regardless of their positions or status. A student must be listed as principal author in multiple-authored publications that substantially derive from the student’s research work.

Repository policy

This journal allows authors to deposit the published version of their work in an institutional or any other repository of their choice.

Funding

Authors must acknowledge their funding under a specific heading.

Conflict of interest

Authors are required to disclose in a statement any conflict of interest known. The journal will ensure that conflict of interests matters relating to authors, reviewers, editors and board members are declared and dealt with fairly. The editorial board will serve as an appeal body in cases of disputes over this.

Publishing ethics

The journal undertakes to maintain the highest regard for the academic integrity of submissions it publishes.

We respect the rights of our authors and act firmly in on any suspicion or evidence of plagiarism or misuse of published articles.

Editor’s Code of Conduct

The editors of this journal demonstrate an understanding of their important role in BRICS studies as a field of research. They do this by:

  1. Maintaining high academic quality and ethical standards in papers published in the journal;
  2. Ensuring the integrity of its peer review process;
  3. Supporting authors and reviewers;
  4. Avoiding unconstructive criticism in reviews and other exchanges with authors;
  5. Attend expeditiously to all complaints and alerts about potential or real breach of the journal ethical standards;
  6. Give considerations to all submissions fairly and justly on the merits of its content;
  7. Maintaining and improving the journal’s reputation;
  8. Maintain an effective relationship with the board, involving board members in review and decision-making process

Role of editorial committee

The committee is made of the editor-in-chief, editors and associate editors of the journal responsible for editorial management of the journal. Their duties therefore are editorial including soliciting or receiving submissions, quality checking them, assigning reviewers, overseeing the revision of the submissions and supervising the production process. The editor-in-chief leads this committee and assigns editors submissions to work and convenes discussions, where necessary, and ratifies editorial decisions in line with the journal editorial policies.

Duties of the Board

The advisory board is appointed by the journal owners. It represents a variety of areas of expertise in line with the scope and focus of the journal. Members of the Board come from various institutions and countries. No institution should not be represented by more than a quarter of members on the Board. Names of Board members, their affiliations and countries of work are published in the inner cover of the journal as well as in the journal website. Board members serve voluntarily for a three-year term subject to renewal. The Board conducts via email correspondence and it will hold its annual review meeting once a year in December, virtually. Its functions include:

  • Promoting the journal in their networks;
  • Providing advice related to the publication of high quality manuscripts;
  • Serving as a mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions.
  • Receiving an annual report from the Editor-in-Chief detailing the status of operations and including such statistics and other relevant information;
  • Make recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief based on the annual report;
  • Appoint the Editor-in-Chief;
  • Ratify new Associate Editor appointments by the Editor-In-Chief.

Online ISSN
2519-7460
Print ISSN
2519-7452