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About

Aims and scope

The Journal of International Humanitarian Action is an open access peer-reviewed journal for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and anyone moved to understand contemporary challenges, reflect critically on practices, and engage at humanitarian action’s leading edge.

We welcome original academic and/or practice-informed contributions not only from scholars of international humanitarian law or practitioners of global nonprofit management, but also from myriad other areas spanning the social sciences and humanities and beyond.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

  • humanitarian ethics
  • humanitarian protection
  • application of international humanitarian law (IHL)
  • humanitarian programming, monitoring, and evaluation
  • education and training of humanitarian aid workers
  • the Humanitarian-Development-Security Nexus
  • governance, organization, and evolution of humanitarian systems 
  • best practices and knowledge-sharing in humanitarian action
  • politics of humanitarian aid
  • humanitarian technology
  • psychosocial elements of humanitarian action

The journal regularly publishes special collections that can be proposed by guest editors and discuss in detail pressing questions of humanitarian action. Given the diversity of our readership, the editors seek submissions that transcend disciplinary and sectional divisions and promote rigorous and inclusive discourse around the challenges, problems, and practices of humanitarian action.
Journal of International Humanitarian Action is an online-only journal and its print ISSN (2364-3404 ) is ceased.

New Content ItemWe are proud to acknowledge that over 50% of the articles published in Journal of International Humanitarian Action in 2023 were related to one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Springer Nature supports the SDGs through a dedicated SDG Programme and is a signatory of the SDG Publishers Compact.

Benefits of publishing with SpringerOpen

High visibility

Journal of International Humanitarian Action's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. 

Speed of publication

Journal of International Humanitarian Action offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Journal of International Humanitarian Action and SpringerOpen.

Flexibility

Online publication in Journal of International Humanitarian Action gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Journal of International Humanitarian Action are included in article alerts and regular email updates. 
In addition, articles published in Journal of International Humanitarian Action may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Journal of International Humanitarian Action

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Journal of International Humanitarian Action retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work. For further information, see our guide to licensing, copyright and author rights.

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from SpringerOpen, please click here.

Open access

All articles published by the Journal of International Humanitarian Action are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here

As authors of articles published in the Journal of International Humanitarian Action you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the license terms

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, SpringerOpen can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. The Journal of International Humanitarian Action therefore levies an article-processing charge of £790.00/$1040.00/€900.00 for each article accepted for publication. 

If the corresponding author's institution participates in our open access membership program, some or all of the publication cost may be covered (more details available on the membership page). We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

Springer Open provides a free open access funding support service to help authors discover and apply for article processing charge funding. Visit our OA funding and policy support page to view our list of research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs, and to learn more about our email support service.

For some authors, APCs may be generously supported in their entirety or in part by the Network on Humanitarian Action (NOHA).

Indexing services

All articles published in ​the Journal of International Humanitarian Action are included in:

  • DOAJ  
  • EBSCO Discovery Service
  • Google Scholar
  • OCLC
  • Summon by ProQuest

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by SpringerOpen on SpringerLink.

We are working closely with relevant indexing services, including Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), to ensure that articles published in the Journal of International Humanitarian Action will be available in their databases when appropriate.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Journal of International Humanitarian Action operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers do not know the names or affiliations of the authors and the reviewer reports provided to the authors are anonymous.
Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two to three experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. Reviewers will also be asked to indicate how interesting and significant the research is. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Journal of International Humanitarian Action should adhere to SpringerOpen's editorial policies.

Once your article is accepted, it will be processed by production and published shortly afterwards. In some cases, articles may be held for a short period of time prior to publication. If you have any concerns or particular requirements please contact the Journal.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles Journal of International Humanitarian Action

Articles in Journal of International Humanitarian Action should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. J Int Humanitarian Action [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. J Int Humanitarian Action 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

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Annual Journal Metrics

  • Speed 2023
    Submission to first editorial decision (median days): 25
    Submission to acceptance (median days): 203

    Usage 2023
    Downloads: 330,130
    Altmetric mentions: 129

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