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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
  • Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Use English editing service prior to publication.
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format (< 20Mb), use our template.

Author Guidelines

1 – Use our Template and write your paper in one of the following formats:
- Conference Abstract (250-300 words);
- Reviews - Short Notes ( ± 500 words);
- Essay - Working Papers ( ± 1000 words);
- Article - Full Papers ( ± 5000 words).

Authors can extend the paper length during review process.
The word count includes title, abstract, tables, notes and references.
Each paper can have from none to 15 images (or more if justificable).

​2 – Register or, if already registered log in .
​3 - Select "New Submission" and follow the instructions.

Original or revisited research results that has not been published elsewhere.
Use English editing service prior to submission (not included in the APC).

4 - The Blind Peer Review process starts (several review rounds are possible);
5 - Acepted papers APC payment or validation (mandatory)
6 - Paper is published online (ideally 5 weeks after submission)
7 - Layout and issue Launch (until the end of the edition year).

Publication, indexation and DOI
All the accepted papers will be fully free to download and Open Access, trough web platform integrated with the academic journals global open access system and DOI in all articles. The platform allows the fast indexation of all articles and authors in the most relevant scientific data bases. The publication will be also available in print, hard copy paper based format (on demand).

Article Processing Charge (APC)
Authors are advised to check with their departments and libraries if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. AP2 Journals Article Processing Charge rates are:

- 250 euros for institutions covering authors APC (eg, Universities, research centres, corporations) - Payment page
- 50 eur for independent researchers (no reference to institutional affiliation on the published paper) - Payment page

The payment must be processed after the  paper acceptance for publication.
The paper will not be processed and published without the respective payment.

Free for authors included in the institutions with agreements, (authors that are members of the scientific committees or other invited authors).

Universities and funding agencies allocate funds to cover article processing charges. We welcome flat rate or post payed agreements. For new agreements email info@ap2.pt referencing the institution department/ person.

Guidelines

Essential title page information
• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using either British or American spelling, but be consistent, and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Contributors
All authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described.

Copyright
This journal will be Open access. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will acknowledge automatic full availability of the content. No part of the content may be reproduced for commercial purposes in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without written permission from the editors.

Language
Please write your text in British or American spelling. One spelling must be used consistently throughout the text.

Structure
Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).

Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article.

Image Formats
TIFF or JPEG: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 200 dpi.

Reference Style

Text: All citations in the text should refer to:
1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication. Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically).
Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically. Examples: "as demonstrated (Allan, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995). Kramer et al. (2000) have recently shown ...."
Journal titles should be spelled out in full. Personal communications should be cited as such in the text and should not be included in the reference list. Please note the following examples:

Reference to a journal article
Anselin, L., Varga, A., Acs, Z., 1997. Local geographic spillovers between university and high technology innovations, Journal of Urban Economics 42, 442-448.

Reference to a book
Marlow-Ferguson, R., Lopez, C., 2001. World Education Encyclopedia: A Survey of Educational Systems Worldwide, second ed. Thomson Gale, Detroit, MI.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book
Eberts, R.W., McMillen, D.P., 1999. Agglomeration economies and urban public infrastructure, in: Cheshire, P., Mills, E. (Eds.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, vol. 3, in: Applied Urban Economics, Elsevier, New York, pp.1455-1495.

Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (Author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given.

 

Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks
All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a the Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-Review
Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to on or two members of the Editorial team / scientific committee for peer-review. A double-blind review is applied, where authors' identities are not known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

Editorial Decision and Revision
All the articles, reviews and communications go through the peer-review process. The editor will communicate the decision of the member of the scientitic committee, which will be one of the following:

  • Accept after Minor Revisions:
    The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given five days for minor revisions.
  • Reconsider after Major Revisions:
    The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
  • Reject and Encourage Resubmission:
    If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

Production and Publication
Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on journals.ap2.pt.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
Our Journals have COPE’s Core Practices for scholarly publishing as reference. It is expected that authors, reviewers and editors will follow these guidelines on ethical conduct.
For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the journal editor(s), the peer reviewer and the publisher) it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. 

EDITOR RESPONSIBILITIES
ACCOUNTABILITY
The editor of a peer-reviewed journal is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published, and, moreover, is accountable for everything published in the journal. In making publishing decisions, the editor shall be guided by the journal’s Scientific Committee. If a submitted manuscript contains information that could potentially be ethically problematic, or if the work upon which a submitted manuscript is based is deemed to involve practices of potential ethical concern, the editor may refer the submission to the journal’s ethics coordinator for additional review. The editor may confer with members of the Scientific Committee when making publication decisions. The editor shall maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

FAIRNESS
The editor shall evaluate submissions to the journal solely on the basis of the intellectual content of manuscripts without regard to e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).

CONFIDENTIALITY
The editor and any editorial staff shall not discuss a submitted manuscript with anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers and potential reviewers, and in some instances the journal’s Scientific Committee members and the publisher, as appropriate. In order to ensure the integrity of the double-blind review process employed by the Journal, editors shall ensure that the author’s and reviewer’s identity and other personal information are kept from the respective other party.

DISCLOSURE, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AND OTHER ISSUES
The editor shall be guided by COPE’s Guidelines for Retracting Articles when considering retracting, issuing expressions of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published. Previously unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript shall not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the manuscript’s author(s). Privileged information or ideas obtained through the peer review process shall be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

The editor shall be committed to ensuring that advertising, reprinting or other sources of commercial revenue do not influence editorial decisions. The editor shall seek so ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process. Editors shall recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from e.g. competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. In such cases, editors shall refer the submitted manuscript to a member of the Scientific Committee for review.. Editors shall likewise require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests, and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

INVOLVEMENT AND COOPERATION IN INVESTIGATIONS
Editors shall guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct. Editors shall pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct. Editors shall take appropriate responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.



REVIEWER RESPONSIBILITIES
CONTRIBUTION TO EDITORIAL DECISIONS
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, should also aim to assist the author in improving the manuscript.

PROMPTNESS
Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript for any reason, or who knows that its timely review will be impossible, shall immediately notify the editor so alternative reviewers can be contacted.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document. Manuscripts must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editor. In such cases, communication about the manuscript must go through the editor.

STANDARDS OF OBJECTIVITY
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal (ad hominem) criticism of the author is inacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments. In order to ensure an objective and multifaceted review outcome, a manuscript may be reviewed by more than one reviewer at the same time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOURCES
Reviewers shall identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer shall also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.

ETHICAL CONCERNS
If a submitted manuscript contains information that could potentially be ethically problematic, or if the work upon which a submitted manuscript is based is deemed by the reviewer to involve practices of potential ethical concern, the reviewer shall inform the editor, who in turn may refer the submission to the journal’s ethics coordinator for additional review.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers shall recuse themselves from evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting e.g. from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submission.



AUTHOR RESPONSIBILITIES
REPORTING STANDARDS
Authors reporting results of original research shall present an accurate account of the research process as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data shall be represented accurately in the manuscript. A paper shall contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to critically assess findings and, whenever possible, replicate the research. Fraudulent or deliberately inaccurate statements and representations of research results constitute unethical behavior and shall be met with appropriate disciplinary measures, including potential exclusion from publishing.

ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM
The authors shall be responsible for writing and submitting entirely original works. In cases where authors have used the work of others, this must be made explicit through correct citations in the submitted manuscript.

MULTIPLE, REDUNDANT OR CONCURRENT PUBLICATION
An author shall not in general submit for publication the same manuscript to more than one journal or primary publication. Unless agreed upon with editors of all publication outlets involved, parallel submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal or publication outlet constitutes unethical publishing behavior and shall be met with appropriate disciplinary measures, including potential exclusion from publishing.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOURCES
The author shall always include in the submitted manuscript full and correct citations for any sources the research and resultant submission draws on. Additionally, authors should also acknowledge any significant indirect influences relevant to the submitted manuscript.


AUTHORSHIP OF A MANUSCRIPT
Authorship shall be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the submitted manuscript. All those who have made significant contributions to a submission should be listed as co-authors. If others have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section. The corresponding author shall ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) are included in the author list of the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

HAZARDS AND HUMAN OR ANIMAL SUBJECTS
If the work on which a submitted article is based involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any potential hazards inherent in their use, or if the research involves experiments with human or animal subjects, the author must make this clear when submitting the manuscript. The author must also at the same time submit any necessary proof of approval from an independent ethics committee. Even if the submitted work has passed a review by a local ethics committee, the journal editor may still refer the submission to the journal’s ethics coordinator for additional review.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
All authors shall explicitly disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation of data. All sources of financial support for the project must be explicitly disclosed.

FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS IN PUBLISHED WORKS
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editor(s) and cooperate to either retract the paper or to publish an appropriate erratum.

PUBLISHER’S CONFIRMATION
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editor(s), shall take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work.