Marine Policy

Marine Policy is the leading journal of ocean policy studies. Submissions to Marine Policy must contribute to the formulation and understanding of marine policy, and must be of interest to a broad audience of academics, stakeholders and officials. Marine Policy offers researchers, analysts, stakeholders and policy-makers a unique combination of analyses in the principal social science disciplines relevant to the formulation of marine policy. Articles represent perspectives from fields such as marine affairs, marine economics and resource management, political science, marine science, human ecology, international law, geography, normative theory, anthropology and similar disciplines. Focal areas include, but are not limited to: international, regional and national marine policies; institutional arrangements for the management and regulation of marine activities; conflict resolution; marine pollution and environment; conservation and use of marine resources.

We are not a technical journal and will recommend that overly-technical papers are transferred to other more relevant journals. We will consider policy papers that do include a technical analysis, but only if this directly informs a policy analysis or discussion. We request that authors minimise the inclusion of formulas and model details needed to explain the methods and analysis in the main text. Detailed formulae and calculations should be included in an appendix or supplementary materials, and summarised in the main text.

Submissions to Marine Policy must include a cover letter that briefly describes the background for the paper and its significance for marine policy formulation and understanding. The cover letter should also note any related work that may be publicly available, such as a Doctoral or Masters thesis, institutional report, etc, so as to avoid any misunderstandings regarding plagiarism. The cover letter should also note any ethics processes and considerations if your study included field research, human research (i.e interviews, quantitative or qualitative surveys, ethnographic observations etc) or animal research.

The submission must include an abstract of approximately 250 words that is self-contained and readable on its own. The abstract should describe the key content areas, the purpose of the research, its relevance or importance for policy formulation and understanding, the methodology, and the main outcomes. Abstracts should also include the key terms that a potential researcher may use to search. Abstracts allow editors, reviewers and readers to assess whether the paper is relevant to their purpose, and are important to search engines.

Regular features of Marine Policy include research reports, conference reports and reports on current developments to keep readers up-to-date with the latest developments and research in ocean affairs.


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Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our Support Center