Editorial policies

Preprints

REC accepts submissions of manuscripts based on work presented at a scientific event, master's dissertation, doctoral thesis, Discussion Paper, Working Paper, preprint or similar.

When submitting a manuscript based on a thesis, dissertation, preprint, TD or WP, authors must include a footnote or comment to the editor (in the submission form) informing the title and location of the previously disseminated work.

Peer Review Process

The mere submission of a manuscript to REC does not imply its publication. All submissions are subject to pre-evaluation desk review by the editors and, if pre-accepted during desk review, subjected to double-blind peer review.

The desk review is carried out by members of the editorial board, which includes the Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editors, and the Editorial Manager. At this stage, the editorial board verifies the submission's fit within the journal's editorial scope and its adherence to the journal's basic criteria of form, quality, and originality, including a preliminary evaluation of text readability and plagiarism checking using specific software.

Submissions rejected during desk review will be automatically archived. Submissions accepted during desk review will be subjected to double-blind peer review. All editorial decisions will be communicated by means of the Scielo Submission system.

REC operates a double-blind peer review system, where experts from several Brazilian and foreign institutions, selected for their expertise and knowledge in the subject and/or methodology of the manuscript, are engaged as ad hoc reviewers to evaluate the following aspects of each manuscript:

  • adequacy of pre-textual elements (title, keywords, abstract)
  • relevance of the subject
  • originality of the contribution
  • usefulness of figures
  • text organization and readability
  • adequacy of the literature review (thematic/methodological coverage, level of currentness of the works, depth of the review, quality of organization)
  • methodology adopted (adequacy to the subject and objectives, description and specification, application)
  • empirical data used, if applicable (adequacy to the objectives and methodology, degree of data updating, geographic coverage, tabulations)

Although REC adopts the blind peer-review model as standard, authors and reviewers are granted the option, by mutual agreement, to disclose their identities to each other during the evaluation process and, if the submission is accepted, to request the publication of the referee reports together with the approved manuscript.

Based on peer review, three types of editorial decisions can be made: (a) submission rejected; (b) submission accepted with the need for revisions/improvements; or (c) submission accepted without the need for revisions/improvements. Editorial decisions at this stage are communicated exclusively via the Scielo Submission system.

In the period 2023-2024, the average time between submission and acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by reviewers was 195 days.

Open Data

Sharing data, codes, and other research materials underlying the submitted manuscript is optional for authors after the publication of accepted manuscripts. However, it is mandatory to provide access to these materials during the peer review process if requested by editors and reviewers to complete the submission evaluation process.

If authors choose to share data and other research materials, it is recommended that they read and consult the guides and lists below:

Fees

REC is a diamond open-access journal and does not charge any submission, processing, or publication fees.

Ethics and Misconduct, Correction and Retraction Policy

REC follows the principles of good practices and research ethics adopted by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, linked to the National Research Ethics Commission (CONEP) system, to which the institution subscribes, in addition to observing the guidelines of the guide to good practices for strengthening ethics in scientific publications of Scielo and the Publication Ethics Committee (COPE) guidelines.

Authors are entitled to contest the editorial decision in a letter addressed to the editor-in-chief, presenting reasons and justifications. The editor-in-chief reserves the right to accept or reject the rationale given to reconsider the editorial decision.

The publication of errata, retractions, and addenda to previously published manuscripts will follow the principles defined in the respective Scielo guidelines:

Policy on Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial in nature. Conflicts of interest may occur when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that may influence the preparation or evaluation of manuscripts.

When submitting a manuscript, authors are responsible for acknowledging and disclosing any financial or other conflicts that may have influenced the work. Should there be a conflict of interest, authors must disclose it in a signed document attached to the submission platform.

For further details, refer to the document Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest.

Adoption of similarity software

REC checks all submissions for plagiarism and similarity using digital tools (Copyspider and Grammarly). The check occurs at the pre-evaluation stage (desk review) and is carried out by members of the editorial board.

Adoption of software using Artificial Intelligence resources

In the preparation of manuscripts, technical tools and resources based on artificial intelligence may be used to assist in the processing and synthesis of quantitative or qualitative data, text improvement, spelling and grammar correction, and the management and standardization of citations and bibliographic references. Their use in the generation of autonomous authorial content is prohibited. The authors are always responsible for the authorial content of the submitted manuscripts.

As in the case of any other software tools used in the preparation of the works, authors must declare the use of AI tools and resources in the methodology section of the manuscript or together with the description of the methodological procedures.

For more information on the subject, refer to the Guide to the Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools and Resources in Research Communication on SciELO and the COPE guidelines on the subject.

Gender and Sex Issues

The editorial team of the Journal of Contemporary Economics and the authors who publish in the journal must follow the guidelines on Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER), which guide the reporting of information on sex and gender in the design of the study, the analysis of data, and the interpretation of findings. In addition, REC observes the gender equity policy in the formation of its editorial board.

Ethics Committee

Where applicable, authors must attach to the submission a statement of approval from the ethics committee of the institution responsible for approving the research.

Copyright

Those who publish in the Journal of Contemporary Economics agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of its authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Authors are authorized to enter into separate, additional agreements for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the manuscript published in REC, such as depositing the work in an institutional repository or publishing it as a chapter in a book, provided that the authorship and initial publication in this journal are acknowledged.

3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to distribute their work online, including depositing the document in an institutional repository or posting it on their personal website, especially after submission acceptance, as this can generate productive exchanges and increase the impact and citation of the published work.

Intellectual Property and Terms of Use

Website Responsibility

Responsibility for the content of REC’s website and the published manuscripts lies with the authors and editors, according to agreements established between the parties. The SciELO Program assumes no legal responsibility related to the content published by the journals. Any requests received will be forwarded to REC’s editor-in-chief.

Authors’ Responsibility

Following the Open Access movement recommendations, the Journal of Contemporary Economics contents are licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License - CC BY.

Authors of articles published by REC retain the copyright of their works, licensing them under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY license, which allows any user to (i) share — copy, download, print, or redistribute the material in any medium or format; and (ii) adapt — remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercial. Thus, articles published in REC can be reused and distributed without restriction if the original work is correctly cited.

According to the following terms, it is mandatory to attribute appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made to the licensed content. One cannot apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing something that the license allows. REC encourages authors to self-archive their accepted manuscripts by publishing them on personal blogs, institutional repositories, and personal or institutional social media, as long as the original document published in the journal is duly referenced.

Sponsors and Promotion Agencies

The Journal of Contemporary Economics is financially supported by the Institute of Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IE-UFRJ) and partners.

In 2025, the journal will receive funding from CNPq, obtained through the Editorial Program.