The International Journal of Peace and Conflict Research (IJPCR) welcomes original, rigorous, and clearly written scholarship within the journal’s scope. Authors should read these guidelines together with the journal’s related policies before submitting a manuscript.
Research Articles should make an original and clearly defined scholarly contribution. IJPCR welcomes empirical, theoretical, comparative, interdisciplinary, doctrinal, historical, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research.
Maximum length: 12,000 words.
Review Articles should critically evaluate and synthesise a clearly defined body of scholarship. They should identify important debates, theoretical or methodological developments, inconsistencies, patterns, or research gaps rather than merely summarising previous studies.
Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses are welcome where appropriate. There is no prescribed minimum number of references.
Maximum length: 10,000 words.
Short Communications should provide a concise but substantive contribution on a focused research question, emerging issue, case, methodological development, preliminary finding, or timely scholarly debate relevant to the journal.
Maximum length: 4,000 words.
Unless otherwise stated, word limits include the abstract, main text, footnotes or endnotes, and references. Tables, figures, figure captions, and supplementary material are excluded from the word count.
A brief cover letter should accompany the submission. It should:
The cover letter is for editorial use and is not sent to peer reviewers.
IJPCR uses a double-blind (double-anonymized) peer-review process. Identifying information must therefore be provided separately from the manuscript sent to reviewers.
The Title Page should include:
Authors may download the current Title Page template from the Templates & Forms page.
The manuscript sent for peer review must not contain author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, contact details, identifying headers or footers, or other information that directly reveals authorship.
Authors should also take reasonable care when referring to their own previous work so that authorship is not unnecessarily disclosed during review.
The title should be concise, specific, accurate, and informative. It should reflect the central subject or argument of the manuscript and avoid unnecessary abbreviations, vague wording, or claims broader than the article supports.
Each manuscript should include a self-contained, unstructured abstract of no more than 250 words.
The abstract should briefly communicate the purpose or research question, the approach or methodology where relevant, the principal findings or argument, and the main contribution or implications of the study.
Citations, references, footnotes, and unexplained abbreviations should not normally appear in the abstract.
Authors should provide 4–6 keywords that accurately represent the central themes, concepts, methods, cases, or geographical focus of the manuscript. Keywords should support indexing and discoverability and should not simply repeat the title.
The organisation of the manuscript should be appropriate to the research question, disciplinary approach, methodology, and type of contribution.
Research Articles will commonly include an introduction, engagement with relevant literature and/or theory, a methodology or analytical approach where applicable, analysis or findings, discussion, and conclusion. Authors may organise the manuscript differently where another structure is more appropriate to the research.
Regardless of structure, manuscripts should clearly identify the research question or central argument, engage critically with relevant scholarship, explain the basis of the analysis, and state the contribution of the study.
Empirical research should provide sufficient information about the research design, data or evidence, sampling or participant selection where applicable, data collection procedures, and analytical methods to allow readers to evaluate the research appropriately.
Where relevant, methodological reporting should provide sufficient transparency to support replication or reproducibility.
For theoretical, doctrinal, historical, interpretive, or other non-empirical research, authors should explain the analytical approach, selection of sources or materials, and basis of interpretation where appropriate.
Tables and figures should be included where they materially improve the presentation or interpretation of the research. IJPCR does not prescribe a minimum or maximum number of tables or figures.
Each table and figure should be numbered consecutively, referred to in the text, include a clear title or caption, and identify the source where necessary. Tables should be provided in an editable format wherever possible.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted figures, tables, photographs, maps, or other third-party material.
The conclusion should state the principal conclusions of the manuscript and clarify its scholarly contribution. Relevant theoretical, empirical, methodological, policy, or practical implications may be discussed where appropriate. Important limitations and priorities for future research should also be acknowledged where relevant.
IJPCR follows APA 7th edition.
Authors should ensure that:
There is no prescribed minimum number of references. References should be appropriate and sufficient for the research question and manuscript type.
Research involving human participants, interviews, surveys, focus groups, ethnographic observation, or other human-subject research must comply with applicable ethical and institutional requirements.
Where ethical approval was required, authors should identify the approving institution or ethics committee and provide relevant approval information. Where approval was not required or was formally waived, this should be stated where relevant.
Informed consent should be obtained and reported where applicable.
Authors must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, personal, or other interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation. Where no conflict exists, authors should provide an appropriate statement.
Authors must disclose all sources of financial support and provide the funder name and grant or award number where applicable. Where the research received no specific funding, this should be stated.
For research based on original data, authors should provide a Data Availability Statement where appropriate. Research data should be made available when this is ethically, legally, and practically possible.
Legitimate restrictions may apply to research involving confidential interviews, conflict-affected communities, vulnerable populations, security-sensitive information, or other circumstances in which disclosure could create legal, ethical, privacy, or safety risks.
All listed authors must have made a substantive contribution to the work and must approve the submitted version. For multi-authored manuscripts, the journal may request an author-contribution statement where appropriate.
Generative artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, integrity, citations, references, analysis, and conclusions of all material submitted to IJPCR.
Any substantive use of generative AI in manuscript preparation should be disclosed transparently in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics policy.
Before submitting a manuscript, authors should confirm that:
Submissions are open for Vol. 2 No. 1 (2027). We welcome original research articles, review articles, and short communications in peace studies, conflict resolution, international relations, and related areas of social science.
Next publication date: 31 January 2027.
