For Authors

Aims and scope

The Global Insights Research Network (GIRN) is an international, peer-reviewed academic journal published by Heritage & Partners LLP. Its mission is to observe and interpret the changes shaping the world today across the social sciences and humanities, and to bring together early-career and established researchers across disciplinary and national borders.

We publish original research articles, comparative and theoretical studies, and methodological contributions in fields including political science and geopolitics, economics and economic history, literary studies and comparative literature, linguistics and legal linguistics, education, media and cultural studies. Interdisciplinary work is especially welcome. The journal was founded as a forum for doctoral candidates and continues to give priority to promising early-career researchers, while welcoming contributions from established scholars.

The language of publication is English.

Open access and licence

GIRN is a fully open access journal. All articles are freely available online immediately upon publication, without subscription, registration or embargo, in both HTML abstract pages and full-text PDF.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to, adapt and build upon the full text of every article for any purpose, including commercial use, provided that the original authors and source are properly credited. Authors retain the copyright in their work.

Publication fees

GIRN does not charge authors any fees. There are no submission charges, article processing charges (APCs), page charges or colour charges. Publication costs are borne by the publisher.

Peer review

Every research article is subject to double-blind peer review: the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other throughout the process. Editorials and forewords are not peer reviewed.

Editorial screening. The editor-in-chief checks that the manuscript fits the journal's scope, follows the formatting requirements and passes a similarity check.
Review. The manuscript is sent to two independent reviewers selected by the editorial board for their subject-matter expertise. Reviewers assess originality, methodological soundness, argumentation, use of sources and clarity.
Decision. On the basis of the reviews, the editor-in-chief decides to accept, request minor or major revisions, or reject. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the reviewers.
Production. Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited and typeset. Authors approve the final proofs before publication.

Authors are informed of the decision by email, normally within eight weeks of submission. Members of the editorial board who submit to the journal are excluded from every stage of the handling of their own manuscript.

Publication ethics

GIRN follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Originality. Submissions must be the authors' own original work, not previously published and not under consideration elsewhere. Posting the manuscript as a preprint, on a preprint server, repository or networking site, counts as prior publication. All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism and text overlap.
Authorship. All listed authors must have contributed substantially to the work and approved the submitted version. Every author provides an ORCID identifier.
Sources and data. Sources must be cited accurately. Where research relies on data, authors should be prepared to make it available to the editors on request.
Conflicts of interest and funding. Authors, reviewers and editors disclose any financial or personal relationship that could be seen to influence their judgement. Authors state all sources of funding for the research in the manuscript.
Corrections and retractions. Errors identified after publication are corrected by a published correction notice. Articles found to be seriously flawed or unethical are retracted, with the retraction notice linked to the original.
Use of AI tools. Generative AI tools may not be listed as authors. Any substantive use of such tools in preparing a manuscript must be disclosed in the text.

Concerns about any published article can be raised with the editorial board at [email protected].

Appeals and complaints

Authors who believe an editorial decision was mistaken may appeal by email to [email protected] within 30 days of the decision, setting out their reasons and responding to the reviewers' comments. The editor-in-chief handles the appeal together with one other member of the editorial board who was not involved in the original decision. Their decision on the appeal is final.

Complaints about the journal's processes, editors or published content are handled in the same way and answered in writing. Complaints concerning the editor-in-chief are handled by another member of the editorial board.

How to submit

Manuscripts are submitted by email to [email protected]. Please include:

the manuscript as an editable file (DOCX, ODT or LaTeX source) with all identifying information removed for review;
a separate title page with the title, all authors' names, affiliations, postal addresses, email addresses and ORCID identifiers, and a short biographical note (about 100 words) for each author;
a statement that the work is original and not under consideration elsewhere.

Receipt is acknowledged within a few days. Questions about suitability before submission are welcome at the same address. Personal data you send us is handled as described in our privacy policy.

Manuscript preparation

Language: English. Manuscripts should be carefully proofread before submission; British or American spelling is acceptable if used consistently.
Structure: title; abstract of 150–250 words; 5–10 keywords; main text with numbered section headings; declarations; references; about the author.
Declarations: a short statement naming any funding for the research (grant, funder and number) or stating that it received no specific funding, and a statement of any competing interests or that there are none.
Length: research articles are typically 6,000–12,000 words including references, with a minimum of 3,000 words. Longer studies are considered by arrangement with the editor.
References: ISO 690 numeric style, with sources numbered in order of first citation and listed at the end. Include DOIs or stable URLs where they exist. Sources in languages other than English should be followed by an English translation of the title in square brackets.
Figures and tables: numbered, captioned and referred to in the text. Supply figures as separate high-resolution files where possible.
Notes: footnotes, used sparingly.

Publication schedule

GIRN published one issue in each of 2025 and 2026. From 2027 the journal appears twice a year. Issues are numbered consecutively and identified by number and year, for example GIRN 2/26. Accepted manuscripts are published in the next available issue.

Archiving and indexing

Every article has a permanent page on this site and a downloadable PDF. Article metadata is available through an OAI-PMH endpoint and embedded in each article page as Highwire Press and Dublin Core tags. Every article page offers ready-formatted citations in ISO 690, APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Vancouver styles, and BibTeX and RIS exports for reference managers.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Once the article has been accepted, authors may deposit the accepted manuscript or the published PDF in institutional or subject repositories, on personal or institutional websites, and on academic networking sites such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu, without embargo. Because a preprint counts as prior publication, the submitted manuscript should not be posted publicly while it is under consideration. We ask that the published version be used where possible and that it carry a link to the article page on girn.uk.

For authors