Open Access Policy

The International Journal of Public Policy and Management Studies (IJPPMS) is committed to the global dissemination of research on public policy, governance, public administration, and management through an open-access publishing model. All published articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, allowing researchers, policymakers, administrators, institutions, development professionals, practitioners, and the public to access, read, download, share, and use scholarly work without subscription barriers.

IJPPMS follows a Gold Open Access model. This means that the final published version of each accepted article is freely accessible through the journal website. The journal supports the wide dissemination of research in public policy, governance, administration, development studies, and management to encourage academic collaboration, policy learning, and institutional improvement.

Published articles are available without reader registration, subscription charges, or access fees.

Article Processing Charges

IJPPMS does not charge authors any article processing charges.

There are:

No submission fees
No peer-review fees
No article processing charges
No publication fees
No hidden charges
No access fees for readers

All accepted articles are published free of charge.

If IJPPMS introduces any author fees in the future, the fee policy will be clearly updated on the journal website before submission. Any future fees will be stated transparently and will not influence editorial decisions, peer review, or the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts.

Creative Commons License

All open-access articles published in the International Journal of Public Policy and Management Studies (IJPPMS) are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Under this license, users are free to:

Share, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial use

Users must follow these conditions:

Appropriate credit must be given to the original author(s) and source
A link to the Creative Commons license must be provided
Any changes made to the original work must be clearly indicated

The journal website should hyperlink the phrase Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) to the official Creative Commons license page.

Copyright Policy

Authors retain copyright of their published work. By publishing with IJPPMS, authors grant the journal the right to publish, distribute, and make the article available through the journal website and related scholarly platforms.

All published content is freely accessible immediately upon publication. Users may view, download, copy, distribute, reproduce, and adapt the material in any medium or format, provided that the original author(s), article title, journal name, source, and license are properly cited.

Authors are permitted to:

Share their published articles in institutional repositories
Upload published articles to academic networking platforms
Use published content for teaching, educational, and research purposes
Distribute and reuse articles in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 license, provided proper credit is given

This copyright policy supports open scholarly communication while protecting proper attribution of authorship and source.

Publication Ethics Statement

IJPPMS is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, and responsible scholarly communication. The journal supports ethical conduct by authors, editors, reviewers, and the editorial office.

All manuscripts submitted to IJPPMS must be original, properly referenced, ethically prepared, and not under consideration by another journal at the same time. The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, misrepresentation of policy evidence, or other forms of publication misconduct.

IJPPMS expects all parties involved in the publication process to act with honesty, transparency, confidentiality, fairness, and respect for academic, policy, and professional standards.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submitted work meets ethical, academic, methodological, and professional standards.

Authors must:

Submit original and unpublished work
Ensure that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere
Avoid plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, and falsification
Properly acknowledge all sources, data, methods, policy documents, institutional records, and prior work
Provide accurate authorship and contributor information
Disclose all conflicts of interest
Disclose all funding sources and financial support
Obtain ethical approval, permissions, or institutional clearance where required
Provide informed consent where applicable
Protect participant privacy, institutional confidentiality, and sensitive policy information where applicable
Report data, methods, findings, policy interpretations, and limitations accurately
Disclose the use of artificial intelligence tools where applicable
Cooperate with the editorial office during peer review and post-publication inquiries

Authors remain fully responsible for the integrity, accuracy, originality, and policy relevance of the submitted and published work.

Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for maintaining the quality, fairness, confidentiality, and integrity of the editorial process.

Editors must:

Evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit, originality, relevance, methodological quality, and journal scope
Ensure fair and unbiased editorial decisions
Maintain confidentiality of submitted manuscripts
Avoid and disclose conflicts of interest
Select qualified reviewers with relevant expertise
Address ethical concerns, complaints, and publication misconduct
Protect the integrity of the peer-review process
Ensure that editorial decisions are not influenced by commercial, personal, institutional, political, or ideological interests
Support corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern where necessary

Editorial decisions are based on manuscript quality, policy contribution, management relevance, ethical compliance, reviewer feedback, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers play an important role in supporting the quality and credibility of published research.

Reviewers must:

Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts and review materials
Provide objective, constructive, and respectful feedback
Evaluate manuscripts based on academic quality, originality, methodology, evidence, clarity, policy relevance, and scope fit
Declare any conflicts of interest before accepting a review invitation
Avoid using unpublished manuscript content for personal advantage
Inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, ethical issues, data concerns, or major methodological weaknesses
Complete reviews within the agreed timeline, where possible

Reviewers should not review manuscripts where personal, financial, academic, institutional, professional, or political conflicts may affect their judgment.

Research Integrity and Ethical Standards

Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, focus groups, institutional data, administrative records, policy documents, public sector data, organizational records, or sensitive governance information must comply with relevant institutional, national, and international ethical standards.

Authors must include the following information where applicable:

Name of the ethics approval committee, institutional review board, or relevant authority
Ethics approval reference number
Date of approval, where available
Informed consent statement
Consent for publication where identifiable participant information is included
Permissions for institutional, organizational, administrative, or restricted datasets, where applicable
Data protection and confidentiality safeguards where applicable
Explanation of anonymization or de-identification procedures, where applicable

Studies involving identifiable participants, public officials, organizations, institutions, communities, or sensitive policy information must protect privacy and confidentiality and comply with applicable legal permissions.

Plagiarism Policy

All submissions to IJPPMS may be screened using plagiarism detection or similarity-checking software. Similarity reports are reviewed by the editorial team and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions.

Manuscripts may be rejected, returned for revision, corrected, retracted, or investigated if they include:

Plagiarism
Duplicate publication
Text recycling without proper citation
Fabricated or falsified data
Misrepresentation of policy evidence or institutional data
Misleading references
Citation manipulation
Undisclosed use of third-party content
Unauthorized use of confidential reports, policy documents, or organizational data
Other unethical publishing practices

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all sources are properly cited and that the submitted work is original and ethically prepared.

AI Usage Policy

Authors must disclose the use of artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, language editing, data analysis, policy modeling, qualitative coding support, literature organization, content generation, or any other part of the research or writing process.

AI tools:

Cannot be listed as authors
Cannot replace human intellectual interpretation, policy judgment, management analysis, or critical reasoning
Must be used responsibly and transparently
Must not be used to fabricate data, citations, policy evidence, findings, interview responses, or reviewer suggestions
Must not be used in a way that violates privacy, confidentiality, copyright, data protection, or research ethics

Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content, including any material prepared or assisted by AI tools. The use of AI tools must be disclosed in the manuscript where relevant.

Preprints Policy

IJPPMS may consider manuscripts that have previously been posted on recognized preprint servers, provided that full disclosure is made during submission and the manuscript has not been formally published in a peer-reviewed journal elsewhere.

Because preprints are non-peer-reviewed versions, publicly releasing them does not normally constitute prior journal publication and will not prejudice the journal’s formal editorial or peer-review process.

Authors must provide details of the preprint, including the preprint title, server name, DOI or link, and posting date where applicable.

Posting a manuscript as a preprint does not guarantee acceptance by IJPPMS. Submitted manuscripts will undergo the journal’s standard editorial screening and peer-review process.

If the manuscript is accepted and published, authors should update the preprint record with a link to the final published article.

Funding Disclosure

IJPPMS promotes transparency in research funding. Authors must disclose all sources of financial support, grants, institutional funding, sponsorship, consultancy support, governmental support, non-governmental organization support, or other assistance related to the submitted work.

Funding sources should be clearly stated in the acknowledgment or funding section of the manuscript.

If no funding was received, authors should include the following statement:

“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

Authors must also disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest that may be related to the research, interpretation, writing, policy analysis, management recommendations, or publication of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest that could influence, or appear to influence, the research, review, or editorial decision-making process.

Conflicts of interest may include:

Financial relationships
Employment or consultancy relationships
Institutional affiliations
Governmental or organizational relationships
Personal relationships
Academic competition
Political or ideological interests directly related to the manuscript
Funding or sponsorship interests
Policy advisory roles or management consultancy relationships
Intellectual property or commercial interests connected to the manuscript topic

Editors and reviewers with a conflict of interest should not handle or review the manuscript. Authors must include a conflict of interest statement in the manuscript.

If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state:

“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Archiving and Repositories

IJPPMS is committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of published content. The journal maintains digital backups of published articles and will clearly list any active archiving services, repositories, preservation systems, or indexing platforms on the journal website once they are formally implemented.

Authors may deposit accepted or published versions of their articles in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal websites, or academic networking platforms, provided that the original article, journal name, source, and license are properly cited.

IJPPMS will not claim inclusion in any repository, archive, or indexing database unless such inclusion has been officially confirmed.

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

IJPPMS is committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly record. The journal may issue corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern when necessary.

A correction may be issued when a published article contains an error that does not invalidate the overall findings.

A retraction may be issued in cases involving unreliable findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated data, falsified data, unethical research, serious authorship issues, misrepresentation of policy evidence, unauthorized use of confidential data, or other major publication misconduct.

An expression of concern may be issued when serious concerns are raised but an investigation is ongoing or inconclusive.

Correction, retraction, and expression of concern notices will remain linked to the original article where applicable.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors may submit an appeal if they believe that an editorial decision was based on a misunderstanding, procedural error, conflict of interest, or incorrect interpretation of the manuscript.

Appeals must include a clear explanation and supporting evidence. Appeals will be reviewed by the editor or by another appropriate editorial representative, where possible. The appeal process does not guarantee a change in editorial decision.

Complaints related to editorial conduct, peer review, publication ethics, published content, or journal processes may be submitted to the editorial office. IJPPMS will handle complaints and appeals fairly, confidentially, and in accordance with publication ethics principles.

Data Availability and Reproducibility

Authors should present research methods, data sources, materials, analytical procedures, policy frameworks, and findings clearly enough to allow evaluation and, where possible, reproducibility.

Where applicable, authors may be asked to provide:

Raw or processed datasets
Survey instruments
Interview protocols
Coding frameworks
Statistical outputs
Policy documents or document lists
Methodological appendices
Data availability statements
Ethical approval documents
Permissions for restricted or institutional data
Additional methodological details

Authors should not fabricate, manipulate, or selectively report data, evidence, interview material, policy records, or institutional information. Any restrictions on data availability due to confidentiality, legal, ethical, institutional, or privacy reasons should be clearly explained in the manuscript.

Subscription and Reader Access

IJPPMS follows an open-access publishing model. Readers can access all published articles on the journal website free of subscription charges or access fees.

The journal does not require readers to pay for access to published articles.

If print copies, special issues, institutional services, or additional publication formats are introduced in the future, details will be clearly provided on the journal website.