Call for Papers – Minority Protection Journal

General Description of the Journal

Minority Protection is the academic Journal of the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. It is devoted to publishing articles dealing with contemporary issues of the traditional national minorities of Europe. While the Journal focuses on legal studies, it intends to maintain an interdisciplinary orientation, encouraging authors to submit papers in political science, sociology, history, and cultural studies. It aims to stimulate the scientific dialogue and the exchange between scholars engaged in issues regarding the autochthonous national communities of Europe.

The Journal has a double-blind peer review system and publishes at least two Issues annually in both Hungarian and English in print and online. The Journal is published open access and is available online on the homepage of the University (http://www.kre.hu/portal/index.php/kiadvanyok/folyoiratok/kisebbsegvedelem.html) for all students, scientists, experts, practitioners and researchers interested in this field.

The editorial board comprises university professors and policy practitioners affiliated with seven universities or institutions from five countries (Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine).

The editors highly encourage younger scholars to contact the editorial team and seek guidance in preparing a manuscript before submitting their contributions or to discuss a publication idea to see how well it would fit within the Journal.

Studies can be submitted at any time throughout the year. If you submit a work that does not fit within the current Issue, the editors will keep your article on file to consider its publication at a later stage. Please note that the editors may randomly choose to submit studies for anti-plagiarism checks or an AI content detector to scrutinize their originality.

Author(s) will be entitled to two copies of the printed Journal free of charge.

Papers for consideration should be sent via e-mail to: Ez az e-mail-cím a szpemrobotok elleni védelem alatt áll. Megtekintéséhez engedélyeznie kell a JavaScript használatát..

Peer-review Process

The Minority Protection Journal adheres to a double-blind peer-review policy to ensure fairness and objectivity in its publication process. Consequently, the authors' identities and affiliations are unknown to the reviewers, and the reviewer reports provided to the authors are anonymous.

Manuscripts submitted are reviewed by two (or, in necessary cases, three) independent experts. All reviewers use the same standardized form to evaluate the manuscript's analytical framework, methodology, logic, coherence, scientific added value, novelty, originality, clarity, grammar, and academic style. They provide separate remarks for the author and the editorial board, with the latter being confidential. Each review can have four possible outcomes:

1) Accept – if the paper is suitable for publication in its submitted form.

2) Minor revision is needed – if the paper is ready for publication after smaller revisions.

3) Major revision is needed – if the paper will benefit from substantial changes such as expanded data analysis, widening the literature review, or rewriting text sections.

4) Reject – if the paper is not suitable for publication in the Journal or if the revisions needed are too fundamental for the submission to continue being considered in its submitted form.

The editorial decision is based on these reviews and, if necessary, consultations with the Editorial Board members. The first round of the review process typically takes 2-4 weeks, while reviewing the revised text usually takes 1- 2 weeks.

After judging the merits of each manuscript, these can be rejected if they: Lack the proper structure needed for readers to fully understand the analysis; has no new science;  is devoid of up-to-date references; contains theories, concepts, or conclusions that are not thoroughly substantiated by the data, arguments, or presented information; does not offer sufficient information regarding the methodology or other parts of the research design; has poor language quality.

Text Format - General Rules (see detailed guide for authors in the journal template)

The submitted manuscripts should range from 25.000 to 45.000 characters with spaces (excluding abstract, appendices and references).

Each paper must include an abstract of 200 to 400 words, giving readers a brief and concise summary of your paper and a Bibliography about the sources referred to in the study. Further basic formatting criteria:

Papers must be submitted as a doc or docx file. The font for the main body of the text should be Book Antiqua 11 pt, with 2.5 cm margins and 1.15 cm line spacing.