Journal Policies

1. Editorial Policy

JPD publishes peer-reviewed scholarly research in the fields of urban and regional planning, sustainable development, environmental planning, urban design, housing, built environment studies, spatial analysis, geoinformatics, planning technologies, urban systems, and socio-spatial development.

The journal accepts only Original Research Articles and Review Articles. Manuscripts must provide a clear scholarly contribution to urban and regional planning knowledge, methodology, policy, or practice. Descriptive reports, consultancy documents, opinion papers, project summaries, purely technical demonstrations, or manuscripts outside the journal’s scope are not considered for peer review.

2. Peer Review Policy

All manuscripts submitted to JPD undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope, ethical requirements, formatting rules, and minimum academic standards are sent for peer review.

JPD applies a double-blind peer review process. The identities of authors and reviewers are kept confidential during the review process. Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise. The final editorial decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or assigned editor based on reviewers’ reports, editorial assessment, journal policy, and the manuscript’s overall quality.

For details, please see the Peer Review Policy.

3. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy

JPD follows recognized principles of publication ethics and research integrity. Authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members are expected to act honestly, transparently, and responsibly throughout the publication process.

The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate submission, redundant publication, data fabrication, data falsification, inappropriate authorship, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, abuse of editorial position, unethical research practices, or any other form of academic misconduct.

For details, please see the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

4. Plagiarism and Similarity Policy

All submitted manuscripts are screened for similarity using plagiarism detection software, including Turnitin or any other similarity-checking tool adopted by the journal or the University of Baghdad. The similarity report is used as an editorial assessment tool and does not automatically determine acceptance or rejection.

Manuscripts may be returned to authors or rejected if they contain plagiarism, self-plagiarism, improper paraphrasing, uncited copied material, duplicated figures or tables, duplicate publication, or unethical reuse of previously published work.

For details, please see the Plagiarism and Similarity Policy.

5. Authorship and Contributorship Policy

All listed authors must have made a significant scholarly contribution to the manuscript. All authors must approve the submitted version and agree to be accountable for the integrity of the work. Guest authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship, and inappropriate omission of contributors are not acceptable.

Any change in authorship after submission must be justified, approved by all authors, and accepted by the editorial office.

6. Conflict of Interest Policy

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial, institutional, personal, academic, editorial, supervisory, or professional relationships that may influence, or appear to influence, the research, review, editorial decision, or publication process.

If no conflict of interest exists, authors should clearly state this in the manuscript.

7. Submissions by Editors, Editorial Board Members, and Journal Staff

JPD allows submissions from the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, and journal staff, provided that such submissions are handled under strict conflict-of-interest safeguards and full editorial independence, in accordance with the COPE Core Practices on editorial independence and the COPE guidance “Editor as author.”

When a manuscript is submitted by any person involved in the journal’s editorial or administrative process, that person must be completely excluded from all stages of editorial handling, reviewer selection, peer review management, editorial discussion, and final decision-making for that manuscript.

Such manuscripts are assigned to an independent handling editor who has no conflict of interest with the author(s), including recent co-authorship within the last five years, institutional dependency, supervisory relationship, financial interest, close personal relationship, or direct academic competition. If the Editor-in-Chief is an author, the manuscript shall be handled by the Managing Editor, an Associate Editor, an independent Editorial Board member, or, where necessary, an external guest editor from another institution.

To protect the integrity of the double-blind process, the submitting editor or Editorial Board member shall have no access, through the journal’s online editorial system (OJS) or by any other means, to the identities of the assigned reviewers, the reviewer reports, the editorial correspondence, or the decision file relating to their own manuscript at any stage prior to publication.

Manuscripts submitted by editors or Editorial Board members are subject to the same editorial screening, similarity checking, ethical requirements, peer review standards, revision procedures, and acceptance criteria applied to all other submissions. No preferential treatment, accelerated review, reduced scholarly requirements, or automatic acceptance is permitted.

At least two independent external reviewers shall evaluate such manuscripts. For submissions authored by the Editor-in-Chief or Managing Editor, the journal shall invite an additional independent reviewer or appoint an external handling editor from another institution to strengthen impartiality and transparency.

To preserve editorial balance and in line with international indexing standards, including the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the proportion of published research papers in any single issue in which at least one author is an editor, an Editorial Board member, or a reviewer of the journal shall not exceed 25%. The editorial office monitors and records this proportion for every published issue.

The submitting editor, Editorial Board member, reviewer, or journal staff member must disclose their role in the journal in the manuscript’s conflict-of-interest statement. Every published article authored or co-authored by an editor, Editorial Board member, reviewer, or journal staff member must include an explicit Editorial Independence Statement confirming the author’s role in the journal and stating that the author was not involved in editorial handling, reviewer selection, peer review, or final decision-making.

This policy should be read together with the journal’s Peer Review Policy and Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

8. Funding Disclosure Policy

Authors must disclose all sources of funding, including grant numbers and funding agencies where applicable. The role of the funding body in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decision must be stated where relevant.

If the research received no external funding, authors should clearly state this in the manuscript.

9. Data Availability Policy

Authors should provide a data availability statement where applicable. If data are publicly available, the repository name, link, and accession number should be provided. If data are available upon reasonable request, this should be stated. If data cannot be shared, the reason must be clearly explained.

For review articles or theoretical manuscripts that do not generate or analyze new datasets, authors may state that no new datasets were generated or analyzed.

10. Ethics Approval Policy

Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, stakeholder engagement, institutional data, or personal information must comply with relevant institutional and national ethical standards.

Where ethical approval is required, authors must provide the name of the approving authority and the approval code. If ethical approval is not required, authors should state this clearly.

11. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools

Authors must disclose any use of generative artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, including language editing, translation, coding assistance, data processing, or content generation.

Artificial intelligence tools must not be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, interpretation, citations, and ethical compliance of the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or review materials to public or unsecured artificial intelligence tools or third-party platforms.

12. Copyright and Licensing Policy

JPD publishes articles under an open access policy. Published articles are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright ownership of their published articles.

For details, please see the Copyright and Licensing page.

13. Article Processing Charges and Publication Fees

Article processing or publication fees, where applicable, are handled according to the journal’s published fee policy. Publication fees are requested only after final acceptance. Payment of fees does not influence editorial decisions, reviewer recommendations, or acceptance outcomes.

For details, please see the Article Processing Charges (APC) and Publication Fees page.

14. Corrections, Retractions, and Withdrawal Policy

JPD is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. Corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or withdrawals may be issued when necessary to address errors, ethical concerns, duplicate publication, plagiarism, unreliable findings, or other publication integrity issues.

Post-publication actions are handled by the editorial office according to the seriousness of the case, the available evidence, and relevant publication ethics standards.

15. Complaints and Appeals Policy

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal if they believe that an editorial decision was based on a procedural error, factual misunderstanding, or overlooked evidence. Appeals must provide clear academic justification and may not be used only to express disagreement with reviewers’ comments.

Complaints related to editorial conduct, review delay, ethical concerns, or publication procedures are handled by the editorial office in a fair and documented manner.

16. Archiving and Digital Preservation Policy

JPD seeks to ensure long-term access to its published content through its journal platform, institutional digital repository, and relevant indexing or archiving systems. The journal maintains online access to published articles and issue archives.

Published content may also be available through the University of Baghdad Digital Repository, where applicable.

17. Privacy Statement

Names, email addresses, affiliations, and other personal data entered in the journal website are used only for the stated purposes of the journal and are not made available for unrelated purposes.

For details, please see the Privacy Statement.

Related Policies and Guidelines