Journal Policies

Editorial oversight 

Editorial Board members are selected following a recruitment process led by the Managing Editor and the Director of the ILO Research Department, with additional input from the Editorial Board.  

The journal welcomes proposals for guest-edited thematic Special Issues, which fall within the aims and scope of the ILR (see the section “Special Issues” below for more information). 

The Managing Editor is an ILO Official, recruited by the ILO to serve an indefinite amount of time. They are responsible for overseeing the activities of the ILR, namely through: 

  • coordinating, planning and supervising all journal production, dissemination and distribution processes, including editing, copyediting, layout, translation, workflow and production process management; 
  • developing and coordinating effective dissemination and distribution methods and approaches; 
  • upholding the journal’s commitment to an editorial policy that combines accessibility and readability with rigorous, insightful analysis and the highest academic standards. 

The mandate of the ILR Editorial Board is to provide the Managing Editor of the journal with guidance and support on establishing the editorial line and planning the journal’s contents, while preserving and enhancing the journal’s reputation as a trusted source of high-quality analysis. 

The Editorial Board is chaired by the Director of the ILO Research Department and is composed of seven Editorial Board members, who are world-class academics and researchers, representative of the various regions of the world and the various disciplines related to work and employment studies. 

Members are appointed by the Chair, with the assistance of the Managing Editor. Their terms are reviewed every 3 years.  

Given the trilingual nature of the ILR, there should be a representation of all the three languages of the ILR among Board Members. 

The journal’s Managing Editor will also serve as an ex officio member of the Board and will be in charge, in consultation with the Director, of convening the meetings of the Board. 

Members of the Editorial Board are tasked with the following:  

  1. Advising on broad policies and priorities, thematic orientation and quality criteria for publication.  
  2. Working with the Managing Editor to select a panel of peer reviewers based on their expertise. 
  3. Conducting timely initial screenings of selected articles, in coordination with the Managing Editor to decide their suitability for peer review. 
  4. Recommending special issues to the Managing Editor, providing coordination, guest editing and calling for papers whenever needed. 
  5. Identifying, proposing and soliciting suitable articles and books for review. 
  6. Contributing to the promotion and dissemination of the journal. 

Guest editors are responsible for the Special Issue for which they submit a proposal. In their role they are in charge of: 

  • sending the ILR Managing Editor the final list of prospective article titles and author names, as well as overseeing and verifying the submission declaration and conflict of interest statements for each article; 
  • dealing with authors throughout the editorial process and providing guidance to ensure that their articles constitute a coherent set; 
  • ensuring that authors read and abide by the ILR guidelines on submitting manuscripts; 
  • overseeing the submission of the initial manuscripts to the journal platform for the ILR Managing Editor; 
  • writing an introduction to the issue (in addition to the introduction, they may submit a maximum of one article) which, beyond providing an inventory of the articles in the volume, brings an added value to the volume as a whole; 
  • proposing a list of reviewers (a minimum of two per article) to the ILR Managing Editor, who will decide the final list and handle the first communication with the reviewers according to the standard practices of double-anonymous review processes; 
  • communicating the reviews to authors and providing them with the necessary guidance throughout the revision process;  
  • regularly updating the ILR Managing Editor on the progress of the Special Issue; 
  • sending the ILR Managing Editor the articles that have been recommended for acceptance for final review and approval, and the suggested order of appearance; 
  • communicating publication decisions to authors and, in the case of accepted articles, informing them that the process will be followed up by the ILR Managing Editor and Editorial Team; 
  • providing the ILR Managing Editor with the full contact details of all the authors of accepted articles. 

The ILR applies an editorial policy that: 

  • is committed to a rigorous, insightful analysis and the highest scholarly standards; 
  • fosters diversity and equality of opportunity by strongly encouraging submissions in English, French and Spanish by authors at different career stages and from all world regions; 
  • welcomes manuscripts related to the world of work and employment from all disciplines and encourages the submission of those with an interdisciplinary approach; 
  • welcomes both theoretical and empirically-based studies, as well as comparative and international studies, and country-level studies that explore concepts, trends and institutions that are of interest to an international audience; 
  • promotes a style of writing that is accessible to both academics and policymakers and a multidisciplinary readership. 

The journal’s Editorial Board is composed of the Director of the Research Director, who acts as Chair, and seven members, who are world-class academics and researchers, representative of the various regions of the world and the various disciplines related to work and employment studies. Given the trilingual nature of the ILR, there is representation of all the three languages of the ILR among Board Members. Potential Board Members are approached by the Editorial Team while keeping disciplinary, regional and gender diversity in mind. 


Peer-review Process 

All manuscript submissions are first screened by the Managing Editor. If the article is deemed suitable, it is then screened by the Editorial Board members, who provide further feedback and can suggest potential reviewers. Two reviewers are then chosen by the Managing Editor and are sent the anonymized article so that they can provide their feedback through a double-anonymous peer-review process. 

The journal employs a double-anonymous peer-review process to avoid potential sources of bias and maintain high scholarly standards. The double-anonymous peer-review process is used for all regular submitted research manuscripts. In the case of non-regular manuscripts, e.g. comment pieces on articles previously published in the ILR or less formal essays, the manuscript will be sent to one reviewer.  

Peer reviewers are selected based on Editorial Board members’ suggestions, or by the Managing Editor. Peer reviewers that decline to review may be asked whether they can suggest a suitable colleague with expertise in the relevant area. 

The ILR does not allow authors to suggest peer reviewers for their work and will not consider any suggestions offered by authors. 

The Editorial Team provides peer reviewers with an anonymized copy of the manuscript and any accompanying data files, along with a brief description of the criteria on which they should base their evaluation. 

Decisions on article acceptance following peer review are taken by the Managing Editor on the basis of the feedback from the reviewers. If accepted into the journal, the editing and translation of an article is overseen by the ILR Editorial Team. 

According to its double-anonymous peer-review policy, the ILR does not publish peer-review reports alongside articles, or the names of the peer reviewers who have reviewed the article. Anonymized peer-review data is held securely and privately in the journal’s publishing platform for the author to access whenever they choose to. 

Conflicts of interest 

Authors should disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest/competing interests. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an authors’ objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all co-authors. Information on how to declare a competing interest can be found here. 

Research funding sources 

Authors should list all funding sources in the acknowledgements section of their article. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. Funding should also be declared at the point of an article's submission through the journal's online platform. 

Publication ethics 

Authors should observe high standards with regard to publication ethics as outlined by the publisher's policy on ethics and malpractice, which aligns with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) best practice guidance. Any cases of ethical misconduct will be dealt with in accordance with these guidelines. 

Statistical reporting and human research participants 

The ILR editorial policy requires that discussions on statistical results are presented in a transparent and helpful way. This includes reporting standard errors, sample sizes and addressing the economic importance of variables in the context of confidence intervals rather than statistical significance. To improve the communication of empirical research findings, we strongly encourage authors to consult the following article:  

Miller, Jane E., and Yana van der Meulen Rodgers. 2008. “Economic Importance and Statistical Significance: Guidelines for Communicating Empirical Research”. Feminist Economics 14 (2): 117–149. 

The ILR encourages the use of information from human participants (e.g. ethnographic studies, interviews) to shed light on important issues and assumptions in work and employment. The privacy and safety of participants should be carefully considered regardless of the place of the scholarship. The responsibility for identifying and following the appropriate code of ethics lies with the authors. 

In order to aid authors in their project, we ask that all articles dealing with human participants include one of the following two statements at the end of the manuscript: 

  1. All personal information that would allow the identification of any person(s) described in the article has been removed; OR 
  2. I confirm that the person(s) identified in this contribution has(ve) given permission for personal information to be published in the ILR.  

Organization and governance 

The International Labour Review (ILR) is owned and administered by the International Labour Organization’s Research Department. The ILO is the only tripartite UN agency, and since 1919 it brings together governments, employers and workers of 187 Member States to set labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting decent work for all people. It is devoted to promoting social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights, pursuing its founding mission that social justice is essential to universal and lasting peace. Visit the ILO's website for more information about the Organization and its activities. 

The journal is led by a Managing Editor selected based on their research background and ties to academia, and an Editorial Board composed of seven members, who are world-class academics and researchers. 

 

Preprint Policy 

The ILR will consider articles previously published on preprint servers. In such cases, the author’s copyright of material, preprint or published article, must always be made clear. The author must declare the preprint’s availability on the submission of the article (in the ‘Notes to Editor’ section in the submissions process online) and be prepared to provide a copy to us, if requested. Please note that double-anonymous review anonymity cannot guaranteed with the existence of the author’s article/research hosted on a preprint server. The ILR may request that sufficient notable changes/revisions are made to the preprint version and that these are highlighted at the point of the article’s submission to the journal. Should the final article be published in the ILR, the journal team shall request for the preprint version of the article to be updated with the DOI of the published article and that a statement is attached to the preprint version to inform readers of the article’s final published form and location. 

 

Business practices 

Advertising 

This journal does not permit any advertising on the journal’s website and will never consider requests of any kind from other parties wishing to advertise in the journal or on its web pages. 

Direct marketing 

This journal does not engage in any direct marketing practices. 

The publisher, the Open Library of Humanities (OLH), employs a Marketing Officer who undertakes general marketing activities for the publisher including the promotion of its journals. The Marketing Officer does not, however, engage in direct marketing for any OLH journals and this does not affect the editorial decisions of OLH journals in any way. 

Other revenue 

The ILR’s long-term publishing and hosting costs are funded by OLH’s Library Partnership Subsidy Model. The journal is also funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO). 

The streams of additional revenue that this journal receives do not affect the editorial decisions of the journal in any way. 


Special Issues 

ILR invites annually proposals for Special Issues that make a contribution to research in a specific area that falls within the aims and scope of the journal. Special issues are ideally placed to review critically a well-defined topic, address previously neglected aspects of that topic, propose and develop new conceptual and methodological approaches, discuss different perspectives and provide a basis for new lines of research.

ILR encourages special issues of research papers using a variety of methods and approaches that have a broad, international appeal both for authors and readers. The journal expects all special issues to include a diversity of voices and perspectives.

The selection of special issues will be made by the Managing Editor and the Editorial Board, based on the criteria outlined below. During the evaluation process, the Editorial Team may ask experts in the domain of the special issue topic to evaluate the proposal.

To submit a proposal, guest editors should fill in a Special Issue proposal form, which includes the following information: 

  1. Title. 
  2. Guest editor(s) and CVs. The individual paper authors’ names and CVs should be provided as well, where applicable (e.g. if the proposal contains commissioned articles or is the outcome of a conference).
  3. Background and outline, including the context, rationale and objectives of the proposal and the abstracts of the articles. Where applicable, the abstracts of the articles should include information on the publicly-available data being used and a description of the methodology and the number of respondents for surveys and interviews conducted by the authors.
  4. Table of contents. 
  5. Time frame.
    1. Expected manuscripts to be submitted by: 
    2. Accepted articles to be submitted to the ILR Managing Editor for approval by: 
  6. Promotion plan explaining how the Special Issue will be advertised

Special Issue proposals may be rejected, accepted, or additional information or revisions may be requested before a decision is taken. Requests for revision may concern the proposed selection of articles. Individual articles may be rejected during the review process and, where deemed necessary, additional articles may be suggested for inclusion in the Special Issue.

If the proposal is accepted, the Special Issue’s editor(s) will be onboarded to the journal by the ILR Editorial Team and the collection may begin the publishing process according to the agreed timeframes. Each article (including the introduction) will be reviewed by the ILR Editorial Board and Managing Editor with the support of the Special Issue editors and will undergo double-anonymous peer review. 

Guest editors are responsible for dealing with authors throughout the editorial process and providing guidance to ensure that their articles constitute a coherent set. The editorial process as a whole will be overseen and followed up by the ILR Managing Editor and Editorial Team. 

The ILR Managing Editor decides, following consultation with the Special Issue editors, the final list of peer reviewers and handles the initial communication with the reviewers according to the standard practice of the journal's double-anonymous review process. The Special Issue editors, in consultation with the Managing Editor, screen the articles that have been recommended for final review and approval. 

The ILR is committed to ensuring that its Special Issues are safeguarded against malpractice such as citation cartels (groups of researchers agreeing to cite one another’s work), undisclosed competing interests, peer-review fraud and identity theft, in line with the best practice guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The ILR regularly reviews its own Special Issue processes to ensure that it is compliant. The journal subjects all Special Issues proposals to rigorous scrutiny: the ILR Editorial Team checks the proposing editor(s), their affiliation(s), and academic record alongside the scholarly content of their proposed issue before making a final judgement on whether to proceed with the issue. 

The ILR uses a “draft decision” system to screen all submitted research articles before they are revised, rejected or accepted into the journal. This screening process allows the ILR Editorial Team to scrutinize the content, quality and reliability of the peer-review reports and, where further investigation is required, the credentials of the reviewers who have supplied them before any draft editorial decision is accepted as final. The ILR Editorial Team also provides ongoing editorial scrutiny of the submission and review processes to monitor and detect any activity that might be considered malpractice. 

If a draft decision is made on the basis of inadequate peer-review reports, or if activity is detected within the peer reviewing process that amounts to malpractice by individual reviewers, the ILR Editorial Team will immediately contact the editors of the Special Issue and request that alternative peer reviewers be sourced and that the problematic report be disregarded. If any reviewer has undisclosed competing interests that can be clearly evidenced, the ILR Editorial Team will again ask the Special Issue Editor(s) to source another peer reviewer for the article and to ensure that the problematic report is disregarded. 

If the ILR Editorial Team believes that malpractice in the review process of a Special Issue constitutes a wider abuse of the publishing process, such as a citation cartel or widespread citation manipulation, the team will assume control of the Special Issue from its editors, close it to any new submissions and contact the submitting authors involved. The ILR Editorial Team will then source new peer reviewers, where necessary, and will solely oversee the review process and publication of articles remaining in the journal’s workflow. Should the issue contain fewer than three accepted articles, the Editorial Team may formally remove the Special Issue from the journal, whereupon any of its accepted articles will be allocated to the ILR’s Issue and Volume at the time of publication only. 

Any ILR Special Issue articles that are found to have been published with malpractice evident at the peer-review stage will be subject to the publisher’s ethics policy for corrections, retractions and removals.