About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Regulatory Science (JRS) is an online open-access journal intended for scholars with an interest in regulatory science. The JRS publishes free of charge, peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, proposed standard evaluations and rapid communications to advance the discipline of regulatory science.  Authors who submit articles for publishing are not charged an submission and/or article processing fees.  In addition, readers and subscribers are not charged any fees for accessing the articles published by the JRS.

The JRS is devoted to the consideration of risk management tools, standards, and practices to improve the protection and compliance of regulated products. It is the mission of the JRS to facilitate an open dialogue among regulatory scientists from the global community.

The JRS follows a continuous publication model, which allows for quicker publication of manuscripts, benefitting both contributors and readers. Each year, beginning in January, articles will be published throughout the year, as soon as they go through the usual peer review and production process. At the end of the year, the issue will be closed, and the next year’s issue will begin again the following January.

JRS is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). DOAJ indexes and provides access to high quality, open-access, peer-reviewed journals. To be included in DOAJ, a journal must meet standards for open access, journal website information, ISSN, quality control process, licensing, and copyright.  

The scope of the JRS is comprehensive and includes the regulation of food and feed, the environment, drugs, transportation, communications, and other related fields. Topics addressed by the JRS include:

• Risk Analysis Process (Assessing, Managing and Communicating Risk)
• Hazard Analysis and Risk-based Preventive Controls
• Food contamination and adulteration;
• Monitoring and Surveillance of Food Contaminants
• Cost-benefit Analysis of Regulations
• Social and Political Impact of Regulations and Policies
• Implementation of Quality System within a regulatory infrastructure
• Implementation of ISO Standards and Accreditation
• Regulation, standardization, and codes practices;
• Product Safety
• Gap analysis, implementation, and evaluation of regulatory practices and improvement;
• Regulatory Science Education, training and outreach
• Current Events

Peer Review Process

The Journal of Regulatory Science is committed to transparency in the review process and aims to provide authors with fair and timely reviews. All submitted manuscripts undergo a single-blind peer review process prior to publication. In a single-blind review system, reviewers are kept anonymous from the authors. The typical period of time allowed for reviews is 4 weeks from the initial review request.

Once an article has been submitted to the JRS, it is first reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief to determine its suitability for publication in the JRS. The Journal Manager then assigns a minimum of two reviewers identified by the Editor-in-Chief as appropriate. Once a minimum of two reviews have been completed, the Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision of acceptance, revision, or rejection based on the reviewer’s comments. External referees may be consulted when necessary.

The key criteria for acceptance for publication are:

• Originality, novelty, and appropriateness within the scope of the JRS (see Focus and Scope section above);
• Broad interest to the regulatory science community;
• Scientific quality and evidence-supported conclusions; and
• Clarity, organization, and completeness.

Reviewers are asked to consider the originality of the submission, the article’s format and structure (as described in the JRS Author Guidelines), ethical concerns such as plagiarism or fraud, and criteria for recommendation as described in the Reviewer Guidelines.

Open Access Policy

All articles in the JRS are published open access, which enables the dissemination of research articles to the global community without restriction through the internet. Thus, all articles published under open access can be accessed by anyone with internet connection and are freely accessible to everyone immediately after publication.

Editorial Standards

JRS is committed to the highest standards for scholarly review and professional publishing and adhering to the established editorial principles and practices in their field.  The JRS adheres to a thorough peer review procedure under the guidance of the editor and professional editorial board.  The editor ensures that the complete editorial process is both transparent and confidential.  The editor is responsible for ensuring the completeness, and originality of every published article and are accountable for all the content published in JRS. All editorial decisions are made following rigorous, fair, and timely peer review. 

Research Malpractice

In instances where an editor finds that a significant error has been published for which a correction needs to be made, and in all cases where there is reason for concern about such matters as plagiarism, fabrication of research, duplicate publication, or failure to disclose conflicts of interest, the editor will review and resolve the matter in consultation with DUP. 

Reviewers are expected to check for plagiarism as a standard part of their peer review process. JRS will publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions when needed. JRS is committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly version of record. All concerns should be addressed to the editor at JRSorg@otsc.tamu.edu. 

Intellectual Property, Copyright & Licensing

 By submitting content to the Journal of Regulatory Science (JRS), authors agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the JRS the right of first publication. Authors retain patent, trademark, and other intellectual property rights (including research data) and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International — CC BY-NC 4.0 license agreement. The JRS is an open access journal and, as a result, articles are free to use with proper acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
3. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article.
4. The publication of the submission has been approved by all co-authors and responsible authorities at the institute or organization where the work has been carried out.
5. Copyright has not been breached in seeking publication of the submission.

Digital Archiving

The JRS uses the PKP Preservation Network free-of-charge to digitally preserve our journal content.  The LOCKSS program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content. The PKP PN ensures that journals that are not part of any other digital preservation service (such as CLOCKSS or Portico) can be preserved for long-term access. More information is available here: https://pkp.sfu.ca/pkp-pn/.

Publisher deposition of papers published open access

JRS automatically deposits your published content into the PKP Preservation Network.

Self-archiving of papers published open access

Authors publishing in the JRS are encouraged to deposit the final published PDF in their institutional repository or any suitable subject repository on publication and allow open access to their papers.

Submitted and accepted versions of the paper can be deposited in their institutional repository or any suitable subject repository

Sources of Support

• Public Knowledge Project

Journal History

The JRS was initially published as the International Journal of Regulatory Science. The International Journal for Regulatory Science published two issues in 2013 and 2014. In 2015, the journal was renamed the Journal of Regulatory Science.

In January 2019, the JRS adopted a continuous publication model, which allows for quicker publication of manuscripts, benefitting both contributors and readers. This publication model also includes the issuance of digital object identifiers, or DOIs. You can read more about the peer review process here. In December of the same year, the issue will be closed, and the next year’s issue will begin again the following January. View this year's continuous issue here or by visiting our archives.