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Instructions for authors

FACTS Reports is an international, peer-reviewed journal devoted to promoting field-based activities fighting against poverty. It is a forum that publishes manuscripts and opinion pieces in the areas of economics and development, health, education, agriculture, and the environment. FACTS Reports is a free access journal for both readers and authors. Articles are submitted to peer review with a requirement that peers work in the field themselves. The main criterion for publication is that the articles describe actions that are innovative and useful and can be reproduced. This process ensures critical input from experts and allows for cooperation and competition among authors.

Aims

The main aim of FACTS Reports is to assist field actors, international organizations and national agencies in their various missions -- among others, in their goal to communicate, exchange and disseminate good practices and lessons learned from the implementation of their programs. Many field actors implement projects in developing countries to address issues related to economics, health, the environment, agriculture, education, and development in general. There are many opportunities to learn from the outcomes of these projects.

The journal is a unique international venue for disseminating results from field actions and is, moreover, the first initiative of this type in the world. It provides key international development players a neutral and independent platform for spreading good practices. In addition, it allows them to express freely their views and opinions, to exchange experiences, and cooperate with other international development players across the world.

Subject Coverage

FACTS Reports mainly covers areas related to health, economic development, agriculture, education, and the environment. Suitable topics for FACTS Reports include, but are not limited to:

  • Healthcare delivery and supply

  • Protection of the environment

  • Poverty eradication

  • Women’s and children’s health

  • Microfinance

  • Sustainable agriculture

  • Development finance

  • Education

  • Empathy

  • Human migration

  • Employment and social policies

  • Affordable alternative energy

  • Trade capacity building, actions related to globalization

  • Rural development

  • Equity in health care distribution

  • Pharmaceutical pricing and drug distribution

  • Information and communication technologies for health monitoring and in response to natural disasters such as flooding or earthquakes

Authors are encouraged to send by e-mail presubmission inquiries and manuscripts in MS Word format to: facts-reports.ve@institut.veolia.org

Please feel free to suggest up to five potential referees while submitting manuscripts. Referees should not be from the same organization or institution as the authors, nor have collaborated recently on the same project.

Types of Articles

Peer-Reviewed Articles Describing Results from Field Actions

Peer-reviewed Articles should not exceed 5,000 words (30,000 characters), 50 references, and 7 tables and figures. Any extra data can be found by following a hyperlink and looking in the section headed “supplementary”.

Manuscripts in FACTS Reports address all aspects of work in the field, such as:

  • Practical aspects, featuring knowledge gained from operational experience.

  • Experience from practitioners and/or their organizations.

  • Specific examples and case studies.

  • Implications for field-based programs.

The article should be divided into the following sections:

  • Title

  • Authors and Affiliations

  • Abstract

  • Keywords

  • Introduction

  • Methods

  • Results

  • Discussion

The Results and Discussion sections can sometimes be combined.  

The pages of a manuscript should be placed in the following order: title page (title, authors, abstract, keywords), main text, acknowledgements, references, and appendices. All pages should be numbered consecutively. Tables and figures with their respective titles and legends should appear in the text at the appropriate location.

Title

The title should be limited to 40 words and contain no abbreviations.

Authors and Affiliations

Provide the full first name and last name of each author, their highest degrees, and the institutional affiliations of all authors.  Cite the corresponding author, and provide the full address and e-mail address for the corresponding author.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate contributors are listed as authors and that all authors have agreed to the manuscript’s content and its submission to FACTS Reports.

Abstract

The abstract (150-250 words) should be accessible to the general reader without reference to the main text. After a brief introduction of the topic, the summary presents the key points of the article. Reference citations and non-standard abbreviations should not be included in this section.

Keywords

Provide up to six key words that can be used for classification of the article. Insert all key words in lower case and separated by a comma.

Introduction

The Introduction section may contain the following:

Background

  • Historical context of the problem covered by the manuscript.

  • The goal of the project/program.

General or Geographical Information

  • The duration of the project/program.

  • The region, country or countries involved.

  • The particular characteristics of the regions or project duration.

  • Degree of involvement of local communities, and non-government organizations or local authorities.

Methods

The Methods section may contain the following:

  • Chronology of events.

  • The tools and strategies used for implementing the project.

  • Staffing issues and training provided, including length of time.

  • Transportation or funding issues.

Results

The Results section may contain the following:

Political Issues

  • •ocal responses to the solutions suggested by the field actors.

  • Local government endorsement, involvement or resistance.

Obstacles and Solutions

  • The main problems encountered.

  • The olutions provided to resolve the problems.

  • The cultural and/or ethical issues involved.

Specific Results and Costs

  • The situation before the intervention.

  • Concrete examples.

  • Both positive and negative results.

  • The main changes brought about by the intervention.

  • The results in each district. Success/failure rates.

  • Cost of the project/program, with breakdown by categories of the costs.

  • Any follow-up studies, including timeline.

  • Documentation of the results from the project.

  • Key benefits of the project.

Discussion

The Discussion section may contain the following:

  • Conclusions and future directions.

  • Challenges for ensuring ongoing success of the project.

  • The main pitfalls, and proposals for avoiding them.

  • Challenges or limitations for implementation on a larger scale.

  • Proposals for how the project could be implemented in a different region or context.

General Guidelines

Appendices should be labeled with capital letters: Appendix A, Appendix B, etc…

Footnotes should be numbered consecutively and be marked by lowercase letters.

Manuscripts must be written in clear and concise English and be accessible to a broad audience.

The paper should be written in a structured format, i.e. separating facts and results from their interpretation and discussion.

FACTS Reports articles substantially differ from standard articles. Authors are encouraged to browse published articles on the FACTS Reports website (www.factsreports.org) to prepare their manuscript, and to obtain feedback from colleagues prior to submission.

Articles Published Without Peer-Review

Commentaries and Editorials

In addition to articles describing results from field actions, FACTS Reports also publishes editorials and commentaries, which are published by invitation only.

Commentaries

FACTS Reports publishes articles on policies or the development of a field in its Commentaries section. These articles are not peer-reviewed. The text should not exceed 5,000 words, 50 references, and 6 figures or tables. These articles present issues and/or approaches from a synthetic point of view. They should be accessible to the reader, regardless of his/her field actions. The style should be informative, clear, and concise. Commentaries are edited in-house and are not peer-reviewed, although editors may occasionally ask colleagues for advice and guidance.

The format of references is the same as for peer-reviewed Articles (see below).  However, Commentaries contain, in addition, a short biographical sketch of the author (about 200 words) and a photograph. Commentaries have an Abstract and key words, as for peer-reviewed Articles.

Editorials

Editorials are not peer-reviewed. The text should not exceed 2,500 words, but can be significantly shorter.  There is no abstract. These articles present issues and/or approaches from the author’s point of view. For example, editorials could give an analysis of a new orientation on international development policies. An editorial could also highlight some aspect of an accepted article.

Submission

New submissions and revisions should be uploaded or sent as one file (preferably Word format) containing the complete text, tables, and figures.

Please submit by e-mail to: facts-reports.ve@institut.veolia.org

Publication of figures and tables

Upon acceptance of the manuscript, all figures should be sent as separate files with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Photographs and images must be provided with a resolution of at least 300 dpi to generate the PDF posted online. We accept PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF, or TIFF formats for the figures. Please note that we cannot accept PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator files. Color files should be in RGB. Composite figures containing multiple panels must be collected into one file before submission.

Tables should be created in Word format.

References

Please use the following style for references:

Citation of a complete work

The following order should be adopted:

  • author’s last name, comma, initial(s) or first name

  • year of publication (in parentheses)

  • title of the work (in italics, capital letters for major words, i.e. do not capitalize definite articles, indefinite articles, auxiliaries, conjunctions and prepositions unless they are the first word of the title) and, where appropriate, publication number

  • publisher; place of publication; relevant pages (if appropriate).

  • Desrochers, P. (2000), Eco-Industrial Parks:The Case for Private Planning, Political Economy Research Center, Bozeman, Montana.

Citation of part of a work

The following order should be adopted:

  • author’s last name, comma, initial(s) or first name

  • year of publication (in parentheses)

  • title of the contribution, article or conference paper (within double quotation marks, capital letters for major words)

  • title of the work (in italics, capital letters for major words); where appropriate the number of the edition

  • publisher; place of publication; relevant pages (if appropriate)

Adams, Jan (1997), “Globalisation, Trade and the Environment”, Globalisation and the Environment: Preliminary Perspectives, OECD, Paris, pp. 179-198.

Keeble, D. (1992), “High-technology Industry and the Restructuring of the UK Space Economy”, in P. Townroe and R. Martin (eds.), Regional Development in the 1990s: The UK in Transition, Jessica Kingsley, London.

Guellec, D. and B. van Pottelsberghe (2000), “The Impact of Public R&D Expenditure on Business R&D”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2000/4, OECD, Paris.

Citation of a journal or periodical

The following order should be adopted:

  • author’s last name, initial(s) or first name followed by a comma

  • year of publication (in parentheses)

  • title of the article (within double quotation marks, capital letters for major words)

  • title of the journal or periodical (in italics, capital letters for major words)

  • volume number, issue number, periodicity

  • publisher, place of publication, relevant pages (if appropriate)

Bandrés, E. and A. Cuenca (1999), “Transfers in Spanish State Retirement Pensions”, Fiscal Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, The Institute for Fiscal Studies, Madrid, pp. 205-219.

Note: "et al." should only be used after 4 authors.

Websites

When providing Internet addresses, we suggest deleting “http://” because this protocol is nowadays implied. Of course, if another protocol is used (“ftp” or others), it must be specified. And if there is no “www” in the electronic address, then the “http://” should be retained. Cite only as much of the electronic address as needed for the reader to access the reference. Do not cite several lines of Internet code.

Eriksen, S. (1997), Public Administration Reform: The Case of Norway, www.statskonsult.no/aktuelt/historie/enotat1/index.htm.  

European Commission (2002), “Commission’s Action Plan for Skills and Mobility”, COM(2002)72 final, http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/news/2002/feb/ap_en.pdf.

Fjaerly E. and R. Aaberge (1999), “Tax Reforms, Dividend Policy and Trends in Income Inequality”, Discussion Papers No. 284, Statistics Norway, Research Department, ftp://ftp.ssb.no/pub/publikasjoner/dp284.pdf.

Copyrights

FACTS Reports articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

Users are free to read, download, copy, distribute and adapt FACTS Reports articles as long as authors retain control over the integrity of their work and are properly acknowledged and cited.

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