EDITORIAL POLICY_Code of best practices

Code of best practices

THE HISTORIA AGRARIA CODE OF BEST PRACTICES

To supplement the regulations passed by the board of the Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria (SEHA) and replace the more general code of best practices approved on June 30, 2009, and revised on September 12, 2014, the editorial board of the journal Historia Agraria has adopted the rules and principles detailed forthwith. This code should be used as a guideline for its members as regards to the management and review of all the manuscripts submitted to its consideration for publication and the book review section.

  1. The following principles are to govern the editorial board’s decisions:
    1. Professional criteria, objectivity, benefit for the institution, efficacy in work, and strict compliance with the agreed timeframes.
    2. Absolute confidentiality, especially regarding: (i) any matters discussed by the editorial board, both at meetings and elsewhere, or the disclosure of documents or emails; (ii) decisions made; and (iii) the positions adopted accordingly by each member.
    3. Independence and autonomy of criteria regarding possible pressures.
    4. Utmost transparency:
      1. The management, the editor of the book reviews and the members of the editorial board with a specific duty will inform the board of the decisions taken and the criteria applied;
      2. All members of the board will argue their positions in a clear and faithful manner, applying scientific and academic reasoning and/or that of editorial line.
  2. The members of the editorial board shall refrain, during their mandate or period of service, from submitting manuscripts for publication in Historia Agraria.
  3. The independence of criteria of the members of the editorial board should not be doubted when there is a personal acquaintance or even friendship with the authors of a submitted manuscript. Nevertheless, to avoid conflicts of interest, they are to refrain from taking part in the review process and also from comment and voting in the editorial board, when a manuscript is submitted by:
    1. Family members up to the third degree.
    2. Departmental colleagues (teaching staff, recipients of grants, PhD students).
    3. Students and researchers under their supervision.
    4. Members of projects and research groups involving the editorial board member.
    5. Relationships of friendship (and, as appropriate, of animosity) will only have the same effect when a member of the board considers it so, and declares it in relation to themselves or when management so decides.
  4. In the case of thematic dossiers, the articles will be processed as usual and the invited editors will collaborate with the editorial board, but in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest, they cannot act as internal or external reviewers.
  5. Book reviews will be assigned by the book review editor, after the editorial board has been informed. Under no circumstances unsolicited reviews submitted to the journal will be accepted, except for reviews of several books or bibliographical articles, which are to be considered articles in themselves and processed through the corresponding channel.
  6. The book review editor will seek to ensure that no conflicts of interests arise between the authors and the reviewers, in a similar vein with point 3.
  7. The members of the editorial board will do their utmost to ensure manuscripts undergo an objective, informed, open, critical, and plural review process.
    1. Whenever circumstances prevent that the review process follows the above criteria, it should be reported to the management, if the person identifying the problem deems it necessary, to the editorial board.
    2. The editorial board, for any reasonable doubt regarding personal friendship or animosity, excessive concentration of reviews in few experts, incompetence, or a lack of knowledge or methodological or theoretical uniformity, will choose other reviewers or call for additional reviews.
  8. Independently of the above, external reviewers will be explicitly requested to declare whether there are any reasons that prevent them from conducting a given review in an objective manner.
  9. This code is to be posted on the journal’s website.

Madrid, September 17, 2019