General Submissions Guidelines

Works published in IR will be guided by several criteria listed below. In general, they will reflect some holistic understandings of issues in individual and social life, change, and development. In a very wide sense, they will reflect some of the qualities and approaches associated with the Integral paradigm that has emerged through the work of pioneers such as Sri Aurobindo, Gregory Bateson, Jean Gebser, Ervin Laszlo, and Ken Wilber.

Previous issues of IR illustrate that there are many ways to reflect such understandings and qualities. Your participation in IR’s ongoing conversation about diverse approaches to new thought, research, and practice will contribute resources for addressing today’s complex challenges.

In this context, we describe key qualities that we are looking for in submissions.

·        They reflect or take into consideration multiple possible perspectives of understanding how humans perceive, organize, and experience reality. Along with this, they demonstrate some understanding of the evolutionary processes, layers, and patterns inherent in all life phenomena.

·        They demonstrate a sensibility for developmental and/or evolutionary dimensions throughout the lifespan of individuals, social units, organizations, and societies.

·        They are oriented toward facilitating translative as well as transformative development in various domains of life. Translative development refers to increasing capacity within a given set of competencies, views or attitudes. Transformative development refers to the evolution of a set of competencies, views or attitudes with a fundamentally greater capacity for handling complex situations.

IR invites authors to submit works they believe meet these broad criteria. IR is looking for submissions that embody this notion of integral, whether they explicitly use “integral discourse” or not. (“Integral discourse” is language that uses a prevalent integral theoretical framework originally presented by Gebser, Wilber and many others). To assess submissions, IR combines ARINA's Integral Evaluation Process tm,sm (also see Thomas Jordan's contribution in IR Issue 1's article "Integral Review and Its Editors") with its editorial skills to evaluate the quality of works and determine if they meet the above criteria.  

Authors and creators of other works submitted to IR need to give IR certain assurances. The act of submitting works is the creator's explicit statement to IR that the work has not been, or is not due to be, published elsewhere, either in print or via any internet or other electronic form. This is because IR publishes only original works. Authors are also required to obtain and provide to the editor all necessary permissions to reproduce any previously copyrighted work, including, for example, tables or photographs. This information is due upon editor's notification of final acceptance. Written permissions should be obtained in advance to avoid timing problems. Without those permissions, IR cannot publish the work.

IR accommodates blind and non-blind peer review, based on author preference. Thus, if an author wishes an article to undergo blind review, IR will use this approach. If an author does not request blind review, IR will use an open peer review process by members of the editorial committee and/or other professionals. IR will give authors support for revisions to manuscripts if necessary and desired.

Following these guidelines, and those provided on other pages of this website, will enable authors to undergo a smoother review and editorial process.

Questions? Comments?   Email the editors