About this journal
Aims and scope
Regional Studies, Regional Science is an open access journal about regional and urban issues in geography, economics, regional science, environmental studies, planning and governance. RSRS explores a wide range of topics from across the social sciences at a variety of spatial scales, which are generally subnational (such as metropolitan regions, planning regions, etc.) but can cross jurisdictional boundaries (such as cross-border regions and institutions). It does not typically publish contributions that focus exclusively on the global or national scales unless there are demonstrable implications for debates at sub-national regional scales.
The journal publishes a range of paper types including full length research articles, short papers and ‘regional graphics’. Further details and requirements for article types can be found in the Instructions for Authors. RSRS also has an Early Career Papers section offering a mentored route for early career academics.
If you have questions about the suitability of your manuscript, please contact the editors in advance of submitting.
The journal has a streamlined peer-review process and quick turnaround times from submission to acceptance. Regional Studies, Regional Science is an interdisciplinary open access journal from the Regional Studies Association, first published in 2014.
Please see our Instructions for Authors for full details of how to submit your paper.
All Regional Studies, Regional Science articles will be made freely and permanently available online through gold open access publication following payment of an Article Publication Charge (APC). Details of the APC charges can be found in the Instructions for Authors. For more information on open access, including benefits, options, fees and funding please visit our open access publishing pages.
The APC should be paid after acceptance of the article following peer review; corresponding authors will receive an invoice outlining payment terms. Further processing of the article will be deferred pending payment. Waivers and discounts on the APC are available to support researchers in developing and emerging regions unable to pay this charge. Please consult our author guidance here for more information.
'This is an excellent and widely cited journal of regional science and already recognized as one of the leading journals in this field. I found nothing to criticize and a great deal to admire, so welcome to Scopus.'- Scopus Reviewer on acceptance into Scopus, March 2016
Journal metrics
Usage
- 232K annual downloads/views
Citation metrics
- 1.7 (2023) Impact Factor
- Q2 Impact Factor Best Quartile
- 1.9 (2023) 5 year IF
- 3.0 (2023) CiteScore (Scopus)
- Q2 CiteScore Best Quartile
- 0.996 (2023) SNIP
- 0.533 (2023) SJR
Speed/acceptance
- 75 days avg. from submission to first decision
- 103 days avg. from submission to first post-review decision
- 27 days avg. from acceptance to online publication
- 45% 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
Stephen Hincks, University of Sheffield, UK
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Pedro Amaral, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
Editors
Mabel Sanchez Barrioluengo, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK
Adelheid Holl, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spain
Jen Nelles, Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Rhiannon Pugh, (Lead Section Editor, Early Career Papers Section), Centre for Innovation Research, Lund University, Sweden
Chandrima Mukhopadhyay, UN-Habitat India
Jesús Peiró-Palomino , University of Valencia, Spain
Danny Prabowo Soetanto , Lancaster University, UK
Digital Media and Regional Graphics Editor
Jacob Macdonald, University of Sheffield, UK
Managing Editor
Madeleine Hatfield, Yellowback, Canterbury, UK
Editorial Office
Jenny Case, Yellowback, Canterbury, UK
Twitter: @RSRS_OA
Associate Editors
Ransford Acheampong , University of Manchester, UK
JP Addie, Georgia State University, USA
Pedro Amaral, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
Hadi Arbabi, University of Sheffield, UK
David Beel, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Ignazio Cabras, Northumbria University, UK
Andre Carrascal Incera, University of Oviedo, Spain
Angela Connelly, University of Manchester, UK
Federico Curci, CUNEF, Spain
Sabine D'Costa, The University of Westminster, UK
Thomas de Graaf, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Iain Deas, University of Manchester, UK
Will Eadson, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Crispian Fuller, Cardiff University, UK
Carolina Guevara Rosero , Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Ecuador
Michael Glass, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Rafael González-Val, University of Zaragoza, Spain
Rachel Guillain, Université de Bourgogne, France
Mika Haapanen, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Philipp Horn, University of Sheffield, UK
Gert-Jan Hospers, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Richard Kingston, University of Manchester, UK
Fumi Kitagawa, University of Birmingham, UK
Martin Korpi, Ratio Institute, Sweden
Andrew Kythreotis, University of Lincoln, UK
Sabrina Lai, University of Cagliari, Italy
Julie Le Gallo, Université de Bourgogne- Franche-Comté, France
Neil Lee, LSE, UK
Cathy Yang Liu, Georgia State University, USA
Edurne Magro, University of Deusto, Spain
Ilaria Mariotti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Pedro Marques, INGENIO (CSIV-UPV) Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Pablo Mateos, CIESAS, Mexico
Matías Mayor Fernández, University of Oviedo, Spain
Paavo Monkkonen, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, USA
Nuno Pinto, University of Manchester, UK
Jenny Preece, University of Sheffield, UK
Francesco Prota, University of Bari, Italy
Haifeng Qian, University of Iowa, USA
Raul Ramos, University of Barcelona, Spain
Darja Reuschke, University of Birmingham, UK
Mabel Sanchez-Barrioluengo, University of Manchester, UK
Andreas Schulze Bäing , University of Manchester, UK
Franziska Sielker, University of Cambridge, UK
Marte Solheim, University of Stavanger, Norway
Zac Spicer, York University, Canada
Marijana Sumpor, Euro Ekspertiza, Zagreb, Croatia
Lotte Thomsen, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Mingshu Wang, University of Glasgow, UK
Iris Wanzenböck, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Brian Webb, Cardiff University, UK
Amanda Weinstein, University of Akron, USA
International Editorial Advisory Board
John Agnew, UCLA, USA
Luc Anselin, University of Chicago, USA
John Bachtler, University of Strathclyde, UK
David Bailey, University of Birmingham, UK
Mike Batty, UCL, UK
Andrew Beer, University of Adelaide, Australia
Christian Berndt, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Ron Boschma, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Sébastien Breau, McGill University, Canada
Gillian Bristow, Cardiff University, UK
Tim Bunnell, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Canfei He, Peking University, China
Graham Clarke, University of Leeds, UK
Olivier Crevoisier, Neuchatel University, Switzerland
Kieran Donaghy, Cornell University, USA
Alessandra Faggian, Gran Sasso Science Institute, L'Aquila, Italy
Maryann Feldman, University of North Carolina, USA
Manfred Fischer, WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business), Austria
Stewart Fotheringham, Arizona State University, USA
Amy Glasmeier, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Grzegorz Gorzelak, University of Warsaw, Poland
Gernot Grabher, HafenCity University, Germany
Chaolin Gu, Tsinghua University, China
Mark Hart, Aston University, UK
Robert Hassink, University of Kiel, Germany
Jinn-Yuh Hsu, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Martin Jones, Staffordshire University, UK
Roger Keil, University of Toronto, Canada
Harry Kelejian, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Mei-Po Kwan, Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Arnoud Lagendijk, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Chris Leishman , University of South Australia
Weidong Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Philip McCann, University of Manchester, UK
Philip Morrison, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand
Sam Ock Park, Seoul National University, South Korea
Phillip O'Neill, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Mark Partridge, Ohio State University, USA
Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia, Canada
Andy Pike, Newcastle University, UK
Sergio Rey, University of California, Riverside, USA
David Rigby, UCLA, USA
Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, LSE, UK
Markku Sotarauta, University of Tampere, Finland
Michael Steiner, University of Graz, Austria
Kim Swales, Strathclyde University, UK
Mark Tewdwr-Jones, University College London, UK
Houkai Wei, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China
Sir Alan Wilson, University College London, UK
Bob Wilson, University of Texas, USA
Cecilia Wong, University of Manchester, UK
Henry Yeung , National University of Singapore, Singapore
Abstracting and indexing
Listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals
Rated ‘A’ in the Australian Business Deans Council Journal Quality List
Indexed in Scopus, ERSA, RePEc, EBSCO (TOC Premier), and Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index
Open access
Regional Studies, Regional Science is an open access journal and only publishes open access articles. 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)
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. Discounts and waivers may also be available for researchers in selected countries when publishing in open access journals.
Use our APC finder to calculate your article publishing charge
News, offers and calls for papers
News and offers
Calls for papers
- View ALL Regional Studies Association journals' current Calls for Papers HERE
- Paper Proposals are invited to the Early Career Researcher paper section. Submit Now!
- Subnational and regional housing systems after the pandemic: understanding the post Covid implications of property investment and housing
- Special Issue: The past, present and future of metropolitan regions
- Developing the Next Generations of Urban and Regional Experts
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 Booksand 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, Regional Science visit the submission site to create an account and discover Taylor & Francis Peer Reviewer Training Network.
1 issue per year
Associated with:
- Spatial Economic Analysis (2006 - current)
- Area Development and Policy (2016 - current)
- Territory, Politics, Governance (2013 - current)
- Regional Studies Policy Impact Books (2019 - current)
- Regional Studies (1967 - current)
Calls for papers
To see current special issue calls, click here.
Submitting a special issue
The journal welcomes proposals for special issues that fit with the journal's aims and scope. Proposals are reviewed by the editors and revisions may be suggested 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.
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.
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, 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 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. 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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