About this journal
Aims and scope
Regional Studies is a leading international journal covering the development of theories and concepts, empirical analysis and policy debate in the field of regional studies. The journal publishes original research spanning the economic, social, political and environmental dimensions of urban and regional (subnational) change. The distinctive purpose of Regional Studies is to connect insights across intellectual disciplines in a systematic and grounded way to understand how and why regions and cities evolve. It publishes research that distils how economic and political processes and outcomes are contingent upon regional and local circumstances. The journal is a pluralist forum, which showcases diverse perspectives and analytical techniques.
Essential criteria for papers to be accepted for Regional Studies are that they make a substantive contribution to scholarly debates, are sub-national in focus, conceptually well-informed, empirically grounded and methodologically sound. Submissions are also expected to engage with wider debates that advance the field of regional studies and are of interest to readers of the journal.
Urban and Regional Horizons is a periodic section dedicated to agenda-setting work that stimulates new thinking and novel approaches to addressing the big intellectual questions, issues and challenges in regional studies.
Policy Debates is a periodic section that provides a forum for analysis and debate about important policy issues of international relevance in urban and regional development.
Special Issues draw together contributions around key themes in regional studies from established and emerging researchers in the field.
Book Reviews provide analysis and comment on key recent publications in regional studies.
Peer Review Statement
All research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymized refereeing by at least two referees.
Journal metrics
Usage
- 741K annual downloads/views
Citation metrics
- 4.4 (2023) Impact Factor
- Q1 Impact Factor Best Quartile
- 5.0 (2023) 5 year IF
- 9.3 (2023) CiteScore (Scopus)
- Q1 CiteScore Best Quartile
- 2.363 (2023) SNIP
- 1.815 (2023) SJR
Speed/acceptance
- 13 days avg. from submission to first decision
- 100 days avg. from submission to first post-review decision
- 38 days avg. from acceptance to online publication
- 10% acceptance rate
Understanding and using journal metrics
Journal metrics can be a useful tool for readers, as well as for authors who are deciding where to submit their next manuscript for publication. However, any one metric only tells a part of the story of a journal’s quality and impact. Each metric has its limitations which means that it should never be considered in isolation, and metrics should be used to support and not replace qualitative review.
We strongly recommend that you always use a number of metrics, alongside other qualitative factors such as a journal’s aims & scope, its readership, and a review of past content published in the journal. In addition, a single article should always be assessed on its own merits and never based on the metrics of the journal it was published in.
For more details, please read the Author Services guide to understanding journal metrics.
Journal metrics in brief
Usage and acceptance rate data above are for the last full calendar year and are updated annually in February. Speed data is updated every six months, based on the prior six months. Citation metrics are updated annually mid-year. Please note that some journals do not display all of the following metrics (find out why).
- Usage: the total number of times articles in the journal were viewed by users of Taylor & Francis Online in the previous calendar year, rounded to the nearest thousand.
Citation Metrics
- Impact Factor*: the average number of citations received by articles published in the journal within a two-year window. Only journals in the Clarivate Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) have an Impact Factor.
- Impact Factor Best Quartile*: the journal’s highest subject category ranking in the Journal Citation Reports. Q1 = 25% of journals with the highest Impact Factors.
- 5 Year Impact Factor*: the average number of citations received by articles in the journal within a five-year window.
- CiteScore (Scopus)†: the average number of citations received by articles in the journal over a four-year period.
- CiteScore Best Quartile†: the journal’s highest CiteScore ranking in a Scopus subject category. Q1 = 25% of journals with the highest CiteScores.
- SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): the number of citations per paper in the journal, divided by citation potential in the field.
- SJR (Scimago Journal Rank): Average number of (weighted) citations in one year, divided by the number of articles published in the journal in the previous three years.
Speed/acceptance
- From submission to first decision: the average (median) number of days for a manuscript submitted to the journal to receive a first decision. Based on manuscripts receiving a first decision in the last six months.
- From submission to first post-review decision: the average (median) number of days for a manuscript submitted to the journal to receive a first decision if it is sent out for peer review. Based on manuscripts receiving a post-review first decision in the last six months.
- From acceptance to online publication: the average (median) number of days from acceptance of a manuscript to online publication of the Version of Record. Based on articles published in the last six months.
- Acceptance rate: articles accepted for publication by the journal in the previous calendar year as percentage of all papers receiving a final decision.
For more details on the data above, please read the Author Services guide to understanding journal metrics.
*Copyright: Journal Citation Reports®, Clarivate Analytics
†Copyright: CiteScore™, Scopus
Editorial board
Editor in Chief
Jennifer Clark - Professor of City and Regional Planning, The Ohio State University, USA
Deputy Editors in Chief
Ben Derudder - Research Professor in City Science, KU Leuven, Belgium
John Harrison - Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Geography, Loughborough University, UK
Editors
David Bailey - Professor of Business Economics, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
Carlo Corradini - Professor of Regional Economics, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK
Riccardo Crescenzi - Professor of Economic Geography, London School of Economics, UK
Lisa De Propris - Professor of Regional Economic Development, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
Maribel Guerrero - Associate Professor of Public Policy and Management, Arizona State University, USA
Dieter Kogler - Associate Professor in Economic Geography, University College Dublin, Ireland
Philip Lawton - Assistant Professor, Geography, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin
Francesco Lissoni - Professor of Economics, GREThA , University of Bordeaux, France
Sergio Montero - Associate Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada
Frank van Oort - Professor of Urban and Regional Economics , Erasmus School of Economics , Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
Raquel Ortega-Argilés - Professor of Regional Economic Development, University of Manchester, UK
Laura Polverari - Associate Professor, Department of Political, Legal and International Studies, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Haifeng Qian - Associate Professor, School of Planning and Public Affairs, University of Iowa, USA
Jie Shen - Professor of Urban and Regional Development, School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, China
Elvira Uyarra - Professor in Innovation Policy and Strategy, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK
Book Review Editor
Laura Polverari - Associate Professor, Department of Political, Legal and International Studies, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Digital Media Editor
Philip Lawton - Assistant Professor, Geography, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin
Twitter: @RegionalStudies
Early Career Editor
Deniz Sevinc - Department of Management, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Policy Debates Editor
Philip Tomlinson - Professor of Industrial Strategy, University of Bath, UK
Urban and Regional Horizons Editor
John Harrison - Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Geography, Loughborough University, UK
Special Issues Editor
Ben Derudder - Research Professor in City Science, KU Leuven, Belgium
Editorial Office
Yellowback - Canterbury, UK
Copy Editor
Cristiano Ratti - Gidea Park, Essex, UK
International Editorial Advisory Board
David B.Audretsch - Institute for Development Strategies, Indiana University, USA
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen - Department of Geography, University at Buffalo, USA
Andrew Beer - UniSA Business, University of South Australia
Ron Boschma - Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Karen Chapple - Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto, Canada
Gordon Clark - Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, University of Oxford, UK
Robyn Dowling - School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Australia
Maryann Feldman - Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina, USA
Joan Fitzgerald - School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University, USA
Richard L. Florida - Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada
Ian Gordon - Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, UK
Gernot Grabher - Urban and Regional Economic Studies, HCU Hamburg, Germany
Mia Gray - Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, UK
Anne Green - Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
Robert Hassink - Department of Geography, Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany
Simona Iammarino - Department of Geography and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Michael Keating - Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, UK
Helen Lawton Smith - Department of Management, Birkbeck University of London, UK
Robin Leichenko - Department of Geography, Rutgers University, USA
Yingcheng Li - School of Architecture, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
Ron Martin - Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, UK
Joaquim Oliveira Martins- OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Citiesand University Paris-Dauphine, France
Philip McCann - Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK
Heike Mayer - Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Switzerland
Peter Nijkamp - Department of Regional Economics, Vrije University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jamie Peck - Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada
Andy Pike - Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University, UK
Jessie Poon - Department of Geography, University at Buffalo, USA
Andrés Rodríguez-Pose - Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, UK
Allen Scott - Department of Geography, University of California at Los Angeles, USA
Kim Swales - Strathclyde Business School,University of Strathclyde, UK
Michaela Trippl - Department of Geography and Regional Research,University of Vienna, Italy
Ivan Turok - Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa
Roger Vickerman - School of Economics, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
Henry Wai-chung Yeung - Department of Geography, the National University of Singapore
Rachel Weber - Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago, USA
Abstracting and indexing
Regional Studies is indexed in AEA; Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals; British Humanities Index; CAB Abstracts; CABI; Centre for Injury Prevention; CREJ Contents of Recent Economics Journals; Contents Pages in Management; Current Contents; De Gruyter; Economic Literature Index; ERSA;Geographical Abstracts Human Geography; International Bibliography of Book Reviews; International Labor Documentation; Journal of Economic Literature; Journal of Planning Literature; LLBA (Linguistic and Language Behaviour Abstracts); NHN; NLC; PAIS; Periodica Islamica; Policy & Politics; Population Index; ProQuest; RePEc; Sage Urban Studies Abstracts; Social and Behavioural Sciences; Social Policy; Planning and Development Abstracts; Social Science Citation Index; Social SCI-SEARCH; Sociological Abstracts; Survey of Regional Literature; University of Bremen; World Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology Abstracts; World Banking Abstracts; Yearly Index of Economic Articles.
Open access
Regional Studies is a hybrid open access journal that is part of our Open Select publishing program, giving you the option to publish open access. Publishing open access means that your article will be free to access online immediately on publication, increasing the visibility, readership, and impact of your research.
Why choose open access?
- Increase the discoverability and readership of your article
- Make an impact and reach new readers, not just those with easy access to a research library
- Freely share your work with anyone, anywhere
- Comply with funding mandates and meet the requirements of your institution, employer or funder
- Rigorous peer review for every open access article
Article Publishing Charges (APC)
If you choose to publish open access in this journal you may be asked to pay an Article Publishing Charge (APC). You may be able to publish your article at no cost to yourself or with a reduced APC if your institution or research funder has an open access agreement or membership with Taylor & Francis.
Use our APC finder to calculate your article publishing charge
News, offers and calls for papers
News and offers
Calls for papers
Association information
The Regional Studies Association (RSA) is a learned society concerned with urban and regional planning and development. It focuses on economic, environmental, and social policy studies in a regional context, and operates at the interface of academia and policy and practice.
Members of RSA are eligible to receive print copies and/or online access to each of the society’s subscription-based journals, and a reduced Article Publishing Charge to publish in the open access journal Regional Studies, Regional Science. Members also receive online access to a selection of other Taylor & Francis and Routledge journal titles. Discover more benefits of joining the RSA community.
The association publishes six journals:
Regional Studies
Spatial Economic Analysis
Territory, Politics, Governance
Area Development and Policy
Regional Studies, Regional Science (an open access journal)
Finance and Space
The association also publishes a series of Regional Studies Policy Impact Books and the Regions and Cities book series.
Discover all the Taylor & Francis Regional Studies Association publications.
For submission information read the Instruction for Authors.
To register as a peer reviewer for Regional Studies visit the submission site to create an account and discover Taylor & Francis Peer Reviewer Training Network.
34 issues per year
Associated with:
- Area Development and Policy (2016 - current)
- Spatial Economic Analysis (2006 - current)
- Regional Studies, Regional Science (2014 - current)
- Regional Studies Policy Impact Books (2019 - current)
- Territory, Politics, Governance (2013 - current)
Special Issues
Calls for papers
To see current special issue calls, click here.
Submitting a special issue
Regional Studies welcomes proposals for special issues that:
(1) fit with the journal’s aims and scope,
(2) significantly contribute to earlier and current debates and research in regional studies,
(3) guarantee sufficient coherence, complementarity and diversity across contributions.
Proposals are reviewed against these criteria by members of the editorial board and revisions may be requested before they are accepted. All special issues must be approved in advance and, even when accepted, the final published content remains subject to the peer review of the individual contributions. Guest editors are invited to include a sample of pre-selected papers to demonstrate the viability of the issue and/or host an open call to source papers as part of the journal's commitment to ensuring diversity and openness.
If you would like to propose a special issue for publication in the journal, please complete the information sheet and submit it according to the instructions.
The Regional Studies Association and our publisher Taylor & Francis make every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in our publications. However, The Regional Studies Association and our publisher Taylor & Francis, our agents (including the editor, any member of the editorial team or editorial board, and any guest editors), and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by The Regional Studies Association and our publisher Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. The Regional Studies Association and our publisher Taylor & Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to, or arising out of the use of the Content. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions .
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Go to submission site (link opens in a new window) Instructions for authors