Submission of Manuscripts
All material to be considered for publication is to be submitted via the journal's ScholarOne online site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/envcon.
The following types of papers are considered by the Journal:
| Type | Purpose | Word limit | Required components (included in word count) | Figure and Table limit |
| Subject Review | Systematic review of existing literature on a relevant topic | 8000 | Abstract, Introduction including rationale and objective(s), Methods, review text, Discussion/synthesis, References | 6 display items (any combination of Tables and Figures) |
| Research Paper | Original research data and analysis to address substantial research question(s) | 6000 | Abstract, Introduction including rationale and objective(s), Methods, Results, Discussion, References | 6 display items (any combination of Tables and Figures) |
| Report | Original research data and analysis on a specific topic | 4000 | Abstract, Introduction including rationale and objective(s), Methods, Results, Discussion, References | 2 Figures, 2 Tables |
| Perspective | Well-sourced forward-looking essay of general relevance on a major project, event, policy, practice, development etc | 4000 | Abstract, Background including rationale and objective(s), Discussion/Arguments, Conclusion, References | 6 display items (any combination of Tables and Figures) |
| Comment | Well-sourced concise commentary on a specific past or current project, event, policy, practice, development etc | 2000 | First paragraph to explain rationale and objective(s)(serves as online Abstract), main text, References | 1 Figure, 1 Table |
Papers are pre-screened for compliance with these instructions, when acceptable they are referred to an Associate Editor, who then considers whether they are ready for review. Selected papers are sent out to referees, who agree to undertake the refereeing within a short period of time. Where papers are revised in response to review, the same reviewers may review the revision but this cannot be guaranteed. Environmental Conservation employs a single-blind peer review system.
Licence and Permissions
The policy of Environmental Conservation is that authors (or in some cases their employers) retain copyright and grant the Foundation for Environmental Conservation a licence to publish their work. In the case of gold open access articles this is a non-exclusive licence. Authors must complete and return an author publishing agreement form as soon as their article has been accepted for publication; the journal is unable to publish the article without this. Please download the appropriate publishing agreement here.
For open access articles, the form also sets out the Creative Commons licence under which the article is made available to end users: a fundamental principle of open access is that content should not simply be accessible but should also be freely re-usable. Articles will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY) by default. This means that the article is freely available to read, copy and redistribute, and can also be adapted (users can “remix, transform, and build upon” the work) for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, as long as proper attribution is given. Authors can, in the publishing agreement form, choose a different kind of Creative Commons license (including those prohibiting non-commercial and derivative use) if they prefer.
Preprints policy
A ‘preprint’ is an early version of an article prior to the version accepted for publication in a journal. We encourage authors to include details of preprint posting, including DOI or other persistent identifier, when submitting to ENC.
For full details, please see our preprints policy here.
Licence to publish
Before Cambridge can publish your manuscript, we need a signed licence to publish agreement. Under the agreement, certain rights are granted to the journal owner which allow publication of the article. The original ownership of the copyright in the article remains unchanged. For full details see the publishing agreement page.
Tracking your submission
Your paper will be acknowledged by email on receipt. A reference number will be allocated which you should use in all correspondence and for tracking an electronic submission on ScholarOne. All submissions approved for peer review are seen by at least two reviewers. The journal makes every effort to ensure that reviewers report swiftly.
As soon as the Editor has reached a decision on your paper you will be notified by e-mail. Appeals on any decisions made by the Editors must be made within a month of the decision. Authors of papers supported by reviews can expect normally to have their paper returned to them, with comments of both reviewers and Editor. The revised manuscript should be submitted as directed with an accompanying letter detailing how substantive points raised have been addressed.
After acceptance, the copy-editor and publisher deal with all matters relating to production. Proofs and offprint order forms will be sent to corresponding authors. If authors are to be away from their correspondence address during the ten weeks after acceptance, they must have arrangements in place for queries from the copyeditor to be addressed promptly, and the proofs to be carefully read and swiftly returned.
Please address any further queries concerning publication to: Professor N.V.C. Polunin, Editor, envcons@cambridge.org
ORCID
We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.
If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.