The  REF  Review

Submission Guidelines

The REF Review accepts manuscripts in English, French, and Arabic. Authors writing in French or Arabic must provide an English abstract. All manuscripts must be thoroughly proofread before submission. Authors whose first language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript reviewed by a fluent English speaker prior to submission. The journal does not offer language editing services.

Manuscripts must be submitted as Microsoft Word (.docx) files using the journal's official author template. Portable Document Format (PDF) files are not accepted at the submission stage. Supplementary materials including datasets, appendices, and supporting figures may be submitted as separate files.

The REF Review uses APA 7th Edition for all manuscript types without exception. In-text citations and reference lists must conform to APA 7th Edition throughout. Authors are solely responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all references. The use of reference management software such as Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote is strongly recommended.

All manuscripts must include a structured abstract of 200 to 300 words and a minimum of five keywords. The abstract must not contain citations. The abstract must state the purpose of the study, the methodology employed, the principal findings, and the conclusions or recommendations. Keywords should reflect the subject matter of the manuscript and align with established indexing terminology where possible.

Manuscripts should follow this order: Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Body sections with numbered headings, Conclusion, Declarations, References, Appendices where applicable. Author names, affiliations, and any identifying acknowledgements must appear only on the cover page and must be removed from the manuscript file submitted for blind review.

The REF Review does not impose a maximum number of authors. However, where a manuscript lists five or more authors, a brief author contributions statement must be included in the Declarations section specifying the role of each author in the research and preparation of the manuscript. Guest authorship and ghost authorship are not permitted and constitute a breach of the journal's publication ethics policy.

Authors must remove all identifying information from the manuscript file before submission. This includes author names, affiliations, funding body names where identifiable, acknowledgements, and self-referencing language in the text. Self-citations should be replaced with "Author (year)" in the anonymised file. A separate cover page containing the full title, all author names and affiliations, ORCID iDs, the corresponding author's contact details, word count, and manuscript type must be submitted alongside the anonymised manuscript file.

All manuscripts accepted for peer review are screened using Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate. The following thresholds apply:

The editorial team exercises judgment in interpreting similarity scores and distinguishes between properly attributed quotation and unattributed reproduction. Authors are encouraged to run their manuscript through a plagiarism checker prior to submission.

Manuscripts reporting research involving human participants, communities, or personal data must include a statement confirming that ethical approval was obtained from a relevant institutional review board, research ethics committee, or equivalent body prior to the research being conducted. The name of the approving body and the approval or reference number must be stated in the Declarations section of the manuscript. Research conducted without formal ethics review must include a written justification explaining why such review was not required or not available. The editorial team reserves the right to reject manuscripts where the ethical conduct of the research cannot be confirmed.

All manuscripts must include the following declarations at the end of the manuscript, before the reference list:

• Funding: All sources of funding for the research must be disclosed, including grant numbers and funding body names.
• Conflicts of Interest: All actual or potential conflicts of interest must be declared. If none exist, a statement to that effect is required.
• Ethics Approval and Informed Consent: The approving ethics body, reference number, and confirmation that informed consent was obtained from participants where applicable.
• Data Availability: A statement specifying where underlying data can be accessed, or explaining why data cannot be shared.
• Author Contributions: A brief statement of each author's role in the research and manuscript preparation. Required for manuscripts with five or more authors.
• Acknowledgements: Recognition of individuals, institutions, or communities who contributed to the research but do not qualify for authorship.
• AI Use Disclosure: Authors must state whether any artificial intelligence or AI-assisted tool was used in the preparation of the manuscript, specifying which tools were used and for what purpose. AI tools may not be listed as authors.

Manuscripts should be submitted by email to [email protected] with the subject line formatted as follows: Manuscript Submission — [Manuscript Type] — [Short Title]. Authors will receive an acknowledgement of receipt within five working days. The online submission portal will be activated on completion of the journal's editorial review period. Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to another journal.

Publication Ethics

Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported work, and who have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors meet these criteria and that no individual who qualifies for authorship has been excluded. Guest authorship and ghost authorship are not permitted and will result in rejection or retraction. Disputes regarding authorship will be handled in accordance with COPE authorship dispute guidelines.

All manuscripts are screened using Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate. Manuscripts must be original and must not have been published elsewhere in any language, in whole or in substantial part. Self-plagiarism, including the reuse of the author's own previously published text, data, figures, or tables without appropriate attribution, is treated as a breach of publication ethics and will result in rejection or retraction. Properly attributed quotation is distinguished from unattributed reproduction in all similarity assessments.

Manuscripts submitted to The REF Review must not be under simultaneous consideration at any other publication. Authors who submit the same manuscript to multiple journals concurrently will have their submission rejected and may be reported to their institution. Manuscripts that have been posted as preprints prior to submission must disclose this in the cover letter; preprint posting does not in itself disqualify a manuscript from consideration, provided full disclosure is made.

The manipulation, fabrication, selective reporting, or misrepresentation of data, images, or results constitutes a serious breach of research integrity. Where such conduct is identified prior to publication the manuscript will be rejected. Where it is identified after publication the article will be retracted and the matter reported to the author's institution and, where applicable, to relevant professional bodies, in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines.

All research involving human participants, communities, or personal data must have been conducted in accordance with the ethical principles established in the Declaration of Helsinki and must have received approval from a relevant institutional review board, research ethics committee, or equivalent body prior to the research being conducted. Authors must state the name of the approving body and the approval reference number in their manuscript. Research conducted without formal ethics review requires a written justification. The editorial team reserves the right to reject or retract manuscripts where ethical conduct of the research cannot be confirmed.

All authors, reviewers, and editors must declare any financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationship that could be perceived as influencing the work or its evaluation. Manuscripts authored by members of the editorial board, UNESCO REF programme leadership, or close associates of the editor are handled by independent editors under a fully blinded, conflict-managed workflow. Reviewers who identify a conflict of interest after accepting a review assignment must notify the editor immediately and withdraw from the review.

Authors must disclose the use of any artificial intelligence or AI-assisted tool in the preparation of the manuscript, including writing assistance, data analysis, literature review, image generation, or translation. The disclosure must state which tools were used and for what specific purpose. AI tools may not be listed as authors under any circumstances. The accuracy, integrity, and originality of content generated with AI assistance remains the sole responsibility of the human authors, who are fully accountable for the entire manuscript.

The REF Review publishes corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions in full accordance with COPE guidelines. All such notices remain permanently linked to the original article in the version of record and are clearly labelled. Authors who identify errors in their published work are required to contact the editorial office at [email protected] as soon as possible. The editorial team will investigate all credible allegations of misconduct promptly, impartially, and in confidence.

Authors who wish to appeal an editorial decision must submit a written appeal to [email protected] within 30 days of the decision, clearly stating the specific grounds for appeal and providing supporting evidence where applicable. Appeals are reviewed by a senior editor or editorial board member who was not involved in the original decision. The outcome of the appeal is final.

Any person who believes they have witnessed or experienced publication misconduct in relation to The REF Review is encouraged to contact the editorial office in confidence at [email protected]. All reports are treated seriously, investigated in accordance with COPE guidance, and handled with full confidentiality to the extent permitted by the investigation.

Author Template

All authors must prepare manuscripts using the official REF Review Author Template. The template is a pre-formatted Microsoft Word (.docx) document. Authors must write directly into the template rather than pasting content from an external document, to preserve formatting integrity. Manuscripts not prepared using the template may be returned to authors before editorial processing begins.

Authors who wish to begin preparing a manuscript in advance of the template being published may request a draft copy by emailing [email protected] with the subject line: Author Template Request.

The template includes a separate cover page which must be submitted as a distinct file alongside the anonymised manuscript. The cover page must contain: the full title of the manuscript, all author names in the order they are to appear in publication, each author's institutional affiliation and country, ORCID iDs for all authors where available, the corresponding author's full name email address and postal address, the manuscript type, the total word count excluding references, and the submission date.

The template includes a pre-formatted Declarations section with the following labelled fields: Funding, Conflicts of Interest, Ethics Approval and Informed Consent, Data Availability Statement, Author Contributions, Acknowledgements, and AI Use Disclosure. All fields must be completed. Where a field does not apply, authors must state this explicitly rather than leaving the field blank.

All figures must be submitted at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Figures embedded in the Word template must also be submitted as separate high-resolution image files in TIFF or EPS format. Tables must be created using the Word table function and must not be submitted as images. All figures and tables must be cited in the text in numerical order.

Peer Review Policy

The REF Review operates a double-blind peer review process. Neither authors nor reviewers are disclosed to each other at any stage of the review process. All identifying information is removed from manuscripts before they are assigned to reviewers. The identity of reviewers is not disclosed to authors at any point, including after a decision is communicated.

All manuscripts undergo an initial editorial screening by the managing editor before being assigned to peer review. Manuscripts that fall outside the journal's stated scope, do not meet the formatting requirements set out in the submission guidelines, fail to comply with the journal's ethical standards, or are of insufficient scholarly quality to merit external review will be returned to authors at this stage. Authors will be notified of a desk rejection within 15 working days of submission acknowledgement, with a brief explanation of the grounds for the decision.

Every manuscript that passes initial editorial screening is assessed by a minimum of two independent reviewers with relevant subject expertise. In cases of significant disagreement between the two reviewers, or where the editorial team considers additional expert input necessary, a third reviewer will be appointed at the editor's discretion. The editorial team does not share reviewer identities with each other during the review process.

Reviewers are selected on the basis of subject expertise, geographic diversity, institutional independence from the submitting authors, and the absence of conflicts of interest. Reviewers are sourced from the journal's reviewer database, editorial board nominations, and the reference lists of submitted manuscripts. Authors may suggest up to three potential reviewers and may identify up to two reviewers they wish to be excluded, with reasons provided. The editor is not bound by author suggestions and may or may not approach suggested reviewers.

Authors can expect to receive a first decision within 60 to 90 days of submission acknowledgement. Reviewers are requested to complete their assessments within 30 days of accepting the assignment. The REF Review is committed to keeping authors informed of the status of their manuscript and will provide updates if delays occur. Average review turnaround times and desk rejection rates will be published on this page following the close of Volume 1, Issue 1.

Reviewers are required to assess manuscripts objectively, constructively, and within the agreed timeframe. Reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest upon receiving the review invitation and must withdraw if such a conflict exists. Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality regarding the content and existence of manuscripts under review at all times. Reviewers must not use unpublished material from manuscripts under review in their own work without the explicit written consent of the authors.

Manuscripts submitted to The REF Review are strictly confidential documents. Reviewers must not share manuscripts with colleagues, discuss their content with third parties, or retain copies after the review process is complete, unless the editor provides explicit written permission. Breach of reviewer confidentiality is treated as a serious matter and may be reported to the reviewer's institution.

Following peer review, authors will receive one of the following decisions accompanied by full reviewer comments:

Revised manuscripts must be returned with a detailed response to reviewers addressing each point raised. The editor reserves the right to return revised manuscripts to the original reviewers or to make a decision based on the revision without further external review.

The REF Review recognises the essential contribution of peer reviewers to the integrity of scholarly publishing. An annual list of reviewers who have contributed to the journal during the preceding volume will be published on this page, with the consent of each reviewer. The journal is actively exploring integration with Publons and ORCID to provide formal, verifiable reviewer recognition that reviewers may add to their academic records.

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection must submit a written appeal to [email protected] within 30 days of the decision, setting out the specific grounds for disagreement with the reviewers' assessment and providing supporting evidence where applicable. Appeals are reviewed by a senior editor or editorial board member who was not involved in the original decision. The outcome of the appeal is final.

Open Data Policy

The REF Review is committed to transparency, reproducibility, and the responsible management of research data. This policy applies to all manuscript types published in the journal and is consistent with the requirements of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the expectations of Crossref, ORCID, and major academic indexing databases.

All authors must include a Data Availability Statement in the Declarations section of their manuscript. The statement must indicate one of the following positions:

• Openly available: Data are available in a named public repository with a persistent identifier such as a DOI. The repository name and DOI or URL must be provided.
• Available on request: Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. A contact address must be provided.
• Restricted: Data sharing is restricted due to ethical, legal, privacy, or contractual constraints. The nature of the restriction must be clearly explained.
• Not applicable: No primary data were generated by the study. This applies to commentary, systematic literature reviews, purely theoretical work, and similar manuscript types.

Authors are encouraged to deposit research data in publicly accessible, persistent repositories before or at the time of submission and to include the repository DOI in their manuscript. The following repositories are recommended: Zenodo, Figshare, Harvard Dataverse, and discipline-specific repositories appropriate to the subject area of the manuscript. Data deposited in institutional repositories with open access settings are also acceptable, provided a persistent identifier is available.

The REF Review recognises that research in development studies, education, governance, agriculture, and the broader UN development ecosystem frequently involves qualitative data, community-level data, or data collected under conditions of ethical sensitivity involving vulnerable populations. Authors are not required to make such data publicly available where doing so would breach participant confidentiality, informed consent agreements, or applicable national or international data protection legislation. In such cases, authors must provide a clear and complete explanation in their Data Availability Statement and, where possible, make anonymised or aggregated versions of the data available.

Where data underlying the findings of a published article are deposited in a repository, the journal will include a permanent link to the dataset in the published article record. This enables datasets to be cited as independent scholarly outputs and facilitates independent verification of published findings, both of which are requirements for DOAJ listing and Scopus and Web of Science indexing applications.

Authors must retain original research data, including raw data, processing scripts, analysis code, and supporting documentation, for a minimum of five years following publication. Authors must make data available to the editorial team upon request in cases where concerns about the integrity of published findings are raised. Failure to provide data upon request in such circumstances may result in an expression of concern or retraction.

Authors who use software, code, or statistical analysis scripts to generate the findings reported in their manuscript are encouraged to make these materials openly available alongside their data. Code may be deposited in repositories such as GitHub, Zenodo, or the Open Science Framework, with a persistent link included in the Data Availability Statement.

Copyright Policy

Authors retain full copyright in their work. By submitting a manuscript to The REF Review, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to publish, reproduce, distribute, and archive the work in all formats and media, including print, digital, and any formats developed in the future. This licence does not diminish the author's own rights to use, reproduce, or republish their work in any form, including in subsequent publications, institutional repositories, personal websites, teaching materials, or any other context, provided that appropriate credit is given to The REF Review as the original place of publication.

Under the CC BY 4.0 licence, readers, institutions, and third parties are free to copy, distribute, transmit, adapt, and build upon published material for any purpose, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors and to The REF Review as the source of publication, a link to the CC BY 4.0 licence is provided, and any changes made to the original work are indicated. The full terms of the licence are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any third-party material included in their manuscript, including figures, tables, photographs, and extended quotations, that is not covered by the CC BY licence or that requires separate clearance. Evidence of permission must be provided to the editorial office before publication. The journal is not liable for any breach of third-party intellectual property rights arising from material included in submitted manuscripts.

The REF Review operates a fully open self-archiving policy. Authors may deposit the accepted manuscript, the published PDF, or any version of their work in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal websites, or preprint servers at any time before, during, or after publication, without embargo. Authors are encouraged to link to the version of record on the journal's website wherever they self-archive their work. The journal's ISSN (3156-4119) and the full journal title should be cited in all self-archived versions.

The REF Review is published on a diamond open-access basis. There are no article processing charges (APCs) for authors and no subscription or access fees for readers. All published content is immediately and permanently free to access for all readers worldwide. This model is made possible by the institutional support of the Read and Earn Federation for UNESCO (UNESCO REF) and is consistent with the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative and the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021).

The CC BY 4.0 licence and the journal's open-access model are compatible with the open-access mandates of major international research funders, including those of the United Nations system, the African Union, the European Research Council, and national research councils across Africa, Europe, and the Global South. Authors who are required by their funding body to publish under a specific licence or to deposit their work in a specific repository are encouraged to notify the editorial office at the time of submission.