Policy & Practice - A Development Education Review

 

 

Publication, Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review Publication, Ethics and Malpractice Statement

June 2025

1. Editorial Board

Policy and Practice has an International Editorial Board and national Editorial Group comprising leading practitioners, researchers and authors in the field of development education and global learning. The role of these Boards is to:

  • Peer review articles;
  • Agree the themes of future issues;
  • Support the promotion of the journal;
  • Work with the Editor in ensuring that articles represent the highest possible levels of academic rigor and research;
  • Extend the boundaries of development education by ensuring high levels of collaboration with related sectors of education.

The full names and affiliations of the Editorial Group and International Editorial Board are available on the journal web site.

The journal contact details are as follows:

Stephen McCloskey
Editor
Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review
9 University Street
Belfast BT7 1FY

Tel: (0044) 2890241879
Email: stephen@centreforglobaleducation.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/policyandpractice/?ref=br_rs

2. Aims and Scope

Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review is a bi-annual, peer reviewed, open access journal which aims to enhance capacity in the development education (DE) sector locally and internationally by sharing good practice, supporting research and strengthening debate in development education.  Over the past 20 years, 40 issues of the journal have been published on the journal’s web platform: www.developmenteducationreview.com.  Each issue of the journal is constructed around a theme chosen by an Editorial Group which also assists with the peer reviewing of articles.  The strategic aims of the journal are to:

  • Provide a space for practitioners to critically reflect on their practice;
  • Discuss the main challenges faced by development education practitioners;
  • Celebrate and promote good practice in development education;
  • Debate the policy environment in which development education is delivered;
  • Share new research in development education;
  • Strengthen links between development education and related adjectival educations such as human rights and sustainable development.

In 2024, the Policy and Practice web site received 199,402 unique visits and 347,542 visits in total from the global North and South. The number of visits was monitored using AWStats.

The journal content is disseminated by EBSCO which is a United States-based provider of research databases, e-journals, magazine subscriptions, e-books and discovery service to libraries of all kinds.  This has supported the dissemination of journal content to academic institutions across the world.  The journal has also been accepted by Scopus, an abstract and citation database launched in 2004 which covers nearly 36,377 titles from approximately 11,678 publishers.  The journal is also a publisher member of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which is ‘a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals’.  All of these journal directories enhance the promotion and dissemination of the journal and ensure its content supports teaching, learning and research.

Journal Citations

One of the qualitative methods used to evaluate the impact of the journal on research and practice involves monitoring the number of citations generated by Policy and Practice articles in other books and journals, and in articles published by Policy and Practice itself.  The citation database was last updated in April 2025 and showed that a total of 5,707 citations had been generated by Policy and Practice articles of which 5,239 were in external journals and 468 were found in other Policy and Practice articles. This total represented an increase of 433 on July 2024.  The citations have appeared in 788 journals and 402 books covering a range of academic disciplines and subject areas reflecting the multi-disciplinary nature of the journal’s content.  The research on citations also showed that Policy and Practice articles have been cited in 469 theses, dissertations and academic papers, which reflects the extent to which the journal is supporting new research in higher education.  Citations were also found in 131 non-governmental organization publications which suggests that Policy and Practice has managed to sustain a strong level of readership in the NGO sector as well as academia.  The Policy and Practice Citations Database is available here.

3. Authors and Authors responsibilities

Manuscripts (as WORD attachments) should be sent to journal editor Stephen McCloskey: stephen@centreforglobaleducation.com. The following type of articles are published in the journal:

  • articles are peer reviewed, between 3,500 and 6,000 words, and should have a strong critical analysis of their topic. 
  • article are 2,000 – 4,000 words in length and focus on aspects of practice. 
  • articles are 3,000-5,000 words and opinion pieces on urgent topics central to policy and / or practice in global education. 
  • review articles are 1,000-2,000 words in length and offer an opinion of a new book, film, teaching resource or online site on development issues.

Articles should be original. Should any material overlap with articles which the author has published elsewhere in another publication or in another language other than English, this should be made clear when the article is submitted. Authors are required to submit a 300-word abstract outline of a proposed article with a working title in advance of submitting the article. The Editor will commission the article on the basis that the proposal is consistent with the aims and content of the journal.

Authors should note the following:

  • No fees or charges are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing materials in the journal.
  • The journal is open access so no charges are levied on readers for accessing the journal web site.
  • Authors and web site users can reproduce material in other publications with the permission of the editor and a full citation quoted of the original source.
  • Focus authors are obliged to participate in a peer review process.
  • All authors should have significantly contributed to the research.
  • All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
  • All authors are obliged to provide a list of references and acknowledge financial support.
  • Permissions to reproduce graphics, photographs, tables and data not the work of the authors.

4. Peer-Review Statement

There are four types of article submitted to Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review: Focus, Perspectives, Viewpoint and Reviews.  Focus articles are thematic which means that they must focus on the theme selected for each issue of the journal.  Only Focus articles are peer reviewed while other articles are edited in-house by the Editor and Assistant Editor.  Perspectives articles are focused on development education practice and Viewpoint articles are opinion pieces.  Review articles offer an opinion on new books, and resources produced on development education and international development.

Peer Review Guidance

The primary purpose of peer review is providing the Editor with the information needed to reach a fair, evidence-based decision that adheres to the journal’s editorial criteria.  Review reports should also help authors revise their article so that it may be accepted for publication. Reports accompanied by a recommendation to reject the paper should explain the major weaknesses of the research; this will help the authors prepare their manuscript for submission to a different journal. Confidential comments to the Editor are welcome, but they must not contradict the main points in the report for the author.  Peer reviewers should assess articles exclusively against the journal’s criteria for publication. 

The following conventions should be respected:

  • Reviews should be conducted objectively.
  • Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate, as are defamatory/libelous remarks. 
  • Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and references. 
  • Reviewers should declare any potential competing interests.
  • Reviewers should decline to review manuscripts with which they believe they have a competing interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the article.
  • Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of material supplied to them and not discuss unpublished manuscripts with colleagues or use the information in their own work.
  • Any reviewer who wants to pass a peer review invitation onto a colleague must contact the journal in the first instance.

Peer Review Process

All submissions to Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review are first reviewed by the Editor for completeness and compliance with the house editing style.  If the article is found to be not complete or compliant with the house style, it will be returned to the author with recommended amendments.  Only when submissions have been amended and in accordance with article guidelines, will articles be forwarded for peer review. The Policy and Practice Editorial Board carry out peer reviews but it is necessary on occasion to seek reviewers outside the Board in cases where members are not available or not familiar with the theme.  The Editor is obliged to identify reviewers with the commensurate knowledge and publishing experience on the theme. The Policy and Practice Editor aims to obtain a minimum of two peer reviewers for manuscripts but recognises that in some exceptional circumstances, particularly in regard to niche and emerging topics, it may not be possible to obtain two independent peer reviewers. In such cases, the Editor may decide to publish based on one peer review report. When making a decision based on one report, the Editor is expected to only do so if the peer review report provides a clear assessment of the manuscript’s content, layout, clarity of writing and structure.  In regard to research articles, reviewers should consider the appropriateness of methods used, whether the results are accurate, and whether the conclusions are supported by the results.

Should a peer reviewer have any competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the journal’s Editorial Board will be assigned to undertake the peer review. Two reviewers are assigned to each article and are sent a copy of the manuscript without the author’s name and biography together with a Policy and Practice peer review form.  Reviewers are normally accorded a period of 3-4 weeks to complete the review.  The Editor of Policy and Practice will consider the peer-reviewed reports when making a decision, but is not bound by the opinions or recommendations therein. Moreover, if the reviews offer contradictory opinions on the manuscript, the Editor will decide on how to proceed.  A concern raised by a single peer reviewer or the Editor themself may result in the manuscript being rejected. Authors receive peer review reports with the editorial decision on their manuscript.  There are four recommendations available to reviewers set out below:

  • the article should be accepted
  • the article should be accepted but with minor changes to be made
  • a major rewrite is needed (with details on what changes are needed)
  • The article should be rejected

Should a manuscript require minor or major amendments, it will be returned to the author for a period of time commensurate to the work required.  The amended article will be reviewed by the Editor and the peer reviewers who first reviewed the manuscript.  If they are in agreement that the author has implemented the changes recommended in the review reports, the article will be signed off for publication.  However, the article will be returned to the author a second time should any amendments remain outstanding from the peer review.

Despite rapid progress, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have considerable limitations: they can lack up-to-date knowledge and may produce nonsensical, biased or false information. Manuscripts may also include sensitive or proprietary information that should not be shared outside the peer review process. For these reasons we ask that, if any part of the evaluation of the manuscript was supported by an AI tool, we ask peer reviewers to declare the use of such tools transparently in the peer review report.

Peer reviewer misconduct

Providing false or misleading information—for example, identity theft and suggesting fake peer-reviewers—will result in rejection of the manuscript.

5. Publication ethics

The Centre for Global Education reserves the right to take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of articles in Policy and Practice where professional misconduct has occurred. Under no circumstances will Policy and Practice or its Editor encourage professional misconduct or knowingly allow misconduct to take place. In the event that the Centre for Global Education or the Editor of Policy and Practice are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct, they shall investigate these allegations immediately and take action if necessary. As Policy and Practice is published online and because the Centre for Global Education holds copyright on all articles published on the site, the journal can retract or amend articles when necessary. These steps will be taken should it identify cases of professional misconduct. The Centre for Global Education as the publisher of Policy and Practice stands ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary.

6. Privacy notice

Policy and Practice is committed to protecting the privacy of authors and readers in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information of individuals within the European Union. The Centre for Global Education’s privacy notice is set out here.  For any queries regarding this privacy notice please contact: info@centreforglobaleduction.com.

7. Copyright and Access Statement

The Centre for Global Education wants as many people as possible to have the opportunity to read our content. That is why we publish our content under Creative Commons licensing. Non-profit organisations and platforms are free to republish any single item we have published under a Creative Commons licence without payment. You must, however, give credit to Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review by displaying or printing “This article was originally published in Policy and Practice: A Development Education and has been reproduced with the kind permission of the Centre for Global Education”. Please always send a link for your republished article to stephen@centreforglobaleducation.com.

If your organisation or platform is set up to make a profit, please contact us at info@centreforglobaleducation.com before republishing any of our content. We will then negotiate a fee, which will take into account the size of the audience that your republication will reach. Policy and Practice does not apply fees to authors at any stage of the editing process.  If your organisation, NGO, professional website, or media organisation wants to use content regularly – even if you are not for profit – please contact us to discuss your request. Our general rule is that if you want to republish more than two pieces per month on a regular basis we ask that you contact us.  Please note that no images on Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review may be copied or reproduced in any form without prior permission.

8. Archiving

The entire Policy and Practice archive is available on the journal web site here. The archive is backed up on the Centre for Global Education’s Dropbox account. The Dropbox account is regularly updated with new content.  Should the journal no longer be funded then the Centre for Global Education will continue to renew hosting to the Policy and Practice web site.  Centre for Global Education has copyright of all articles and has direct management of web site content in-house. 

9. Ownership and management

Information about the management of Policy and Practice is clearly indicated in the ‘About’ section here.  Contact details for the Centre for Global Education are available at the foot of the homepage here. Funders of the journal are also accredited.

10. Ethical Standards

The Policy and Practice homepage states that “Centre for Global Education has taken care to ensure that Policy and Practice has been published to high ethical and professional standards”.

11. Publishing schedule

The Policy and Practice homepage states that the journal is published bi-annually in the Spring and Autumn.

12. Name of journal

The Journal name, Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review, is unique and is not one that is easily confused with another journal in the development education or other sectors in a way that might mislead potential authors and readers.