About the Journal

1. GENERAL EDITORIAL POLICY

1.1. FOCUS AND SCOPE

DESC– Law, Economics and Contemporary Society is an academic journal originally linked to the Law Postgraduate Program of FACAMP. This publication is dedicated to national and international research in the main theme "Law, enterprise and contemporary society" and the connections among business law, economics, politics, sociology, philosophy and international relations, with special attention to its research lines "State, enterprise and legal systems" and "Enterprises, Justice and Society".

  • Periodicity: Semestrial publication.
  • Languages: Portuguese, English, French, Italian, Spanish and German.
  • Support of publication: open access publication on the world wide web, whether or not followed by physical publication according to the commemorative edition or editorial board decision about the impact of each volume.

 

1.2. FIXED SECTIONS

Thematic dossier with thematic restriction to submissions. 

Articles on various topics linked to the scope and lines of research (open and continuous submission).

Commentaries of judicial decisions, pieces of news and current events with relevant legal impact and legal opinions (open and continuous submission).

 

1.3. EVENTUAL SECTIONS

Reviews: about books, collections etc. (open and continuous submission)

Interviews: content restricted to editorial evaluation.

Translations: texts of scientific impact, already published  or not, subject to editorial  evaluation.


1.4. BLIND PEER REVIEW POLICIES

Dossier: Subject-controlled and restricted submission with call for papers, specific deadlines limited by number and other requirements defined by invited editors. Double blind peer review and other criteria can be defined and changed through each call for papers, with invited works limited to 25% per number.

Articles, commentaries and opinions, book reviews: open, free and continuous submission, with double blind peer review, without call for papers.


1.5. SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE

The submission of articles is free and continuous, with deadlines of publication respecting the order of submission, review processes and the editorial preference criteria.

 

2. RULES FOR ARTICLES SUBMISSION

2.1. SPECIFIC FOCUS AND SCOPE

The academic papers submitted to the publication must be original and unpublished, have critical nature and contribute directly or indirectly to the reflection of the directions of national and international law, their transformation trends, in an interdisciplinary perspective, covering the areas of economics, sociology, politics, philosophy, directly related to the research lines Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito da FACAMP.

Book reviews must have critical, informative content, covering intertextual information about the life and work of the author object of the analysis, not being appropriate short comments, superficial or simple summaries of books. The novelty of the reviewed book accompanies the date of release of the work, which must be of academic interest and not of strictly commercial or professional purpose. It is recommended that reviews comment on books released in the past six months from submission, exceptions being justified in "comments to the editor" section.

The interesting translations to the scientific community cover not only recent texts, but also classical texts without translation in Portuguese or English, other languages being justified in "comments to the editor" section as well.


2.2. EVALUATION CRITERIA OF CONTENTS SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION

Preliminary evaluation by the Executive Board of DESC Journal: The authors are aware that, before starting the editorial flow of peer review processes, a preliminary analysis will be made about the adequacy of the submitted text to the Journal's editorial line, to language adequacy criteria, to plagiarism control, novelty, and to other rules of formatting, ethical aspects etc.

Thus, the following criteria will be considered also by reviewers:

  • Relevance and impact of the work.
  • Novelty and unpublished work.
  • Suitability to the scope of the Journal.
  • Author's research experience.
  • Adequacy to the grammar of the original language.
  • Internal coherence and cohesion of the text.

External adequacy of the article regarding the relevance of the theme and the references cited.
Recommended scientific grades of evaluation (for reviewers):

  1. Accept the article with a high recommendation degree.
  2. Accept the article upon conditions, regarding some item of the evaluation criteria to be slightly improved.
  3. Temporarily suspend acceptance of the article to recommend a journal of another scope or area.
  4. Temporarily suspend acceptance of the article and recommend mandatory changes necessary to achieve high degree evaluation.
  5. Definitely reject the article.

 

2.3. CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER AND PRECEDENCE FOR PUBLICATION

The order of peer review and publication observes the chronological criterion of submission, which is registered and disclosed in internal control software page.The chronological order can be changed by decision of the DESC Editorial Board once the following preferential criteria of publication have been observed:

  • At least 75% of articles must be written by external authors, which means resident or linked to institutions from outside of the country or, in Brazil, out of the State of São Paulo.
  • Minimum qualification of doctor for authors or one of the co-authors in at least 60% of the articles (does not apply to interviews, commentaries, opinions, book reviews)
  • Author(s) pertinence to postgraduate programs as teacher or student, preferably from different Federative States of Brazil or from abroad.
  • Articles of foreign authors or authors bound to foreign academic institutions must achieve at least 15% of each number of the Journal.

 

2.4. POLICY OF STIMULUS TO EVALUATORS AND REVIEWERS

The Editorial board shall publish a list with the Journal evaluators' body, updated after each published number according to actual reviews in recent records, including the name of ad hoc reviewers who only acted in the current edition.

Following transparency criteria, each approved work will have the names of the reviewers who approved it in order to prove the editorial process and the origins of the opinions.

The editorial board will give a specific return to each evaluation offered crossing the opinions on the same article among reviewers and, in the end of the process, will give science of the cross-evaluation exclusively to the reviewers, still preserving the participants names closed.

If demanded by reviewers, once ended the editorial process, the evaluations issued by the DESC magazine may be published in a specific on line section as "technical production", according to the depth and quality of the written collaboration approved by the DESC Board.

Finally, we will adopt peer review classification systems (Publons and others) to qualify the performance of our reviewers, who are to be prized for excellence after the editorial year by DESC Board.


2.5. NEUTRALITY POLICY OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD, AUTHORS, EVALUATORS AND REVIEWERS

The editorial board, the permanent and ad hoc reviewers of DESC Journal assume a neutrality policy in the conduct of editorial processes, committing themselves to report any and all situations of suspicion or conflict of interest, be it objective or subjective, real or alleged, in the appreciation of any and all production submitted to their decision-making.

The information provided by the authors submitting articles to the evaluation covers the largest number of items available to reveal possible conflicts of interests by the reviewers.

Suspicions or conflicts of interest are considered to be any personal, economic or financial, professional, political-ideological or academic factor, of past, present or potentially future, or ties of kinship or affinity, links with public or private institutions that may have any interest in the issue researched, financed works in progress, personal disagreements or any other factor that may influence the quality of the judgments and technical decisions taken by the members of the editorial body of the magazine.

If there is any potential or actual risk of prejudice to the neutral evaluation of a work by evaluators, advisers or reviewers, the fact must be informed through a self-declaration of impediment addressed to the editorial board or executive council.

During the editorial processes flow, the opinions will be anonymously recorded in the system with exclusive access by the author of the works and by the authors of evaluation of the same work, thereby ensuring, through access to information, a high degree of transparency, neutrality and reasonableness of editorial policies.


2.6. AUTHORS EDITORIAL DUTIES AND ETHICS

Originality. It is supposed to be the unpublished article and not submitted to other periodicals; in case the article comes from thesis or academic work presented in university postgraduate program, or work presented at a congress, it’s considered unpublished since it has been published only in the resulting congress documentation (annals, yearbook, collection), in the electronic page of the event etc.

Authenticity. It is supposed to be the preservation of copyright and third-party personality rights, which implies the avoidance of voluntary or involuntary plagiarism, auto-plagiarism and any form of violation of the authenticity of the work submitted for publication, such as the improper inclusion of co-authors who did not participate in the actual work of research and write.

Neutrality. It is supposed to be the preservation of the objectification* of the article, which presupposes the disclosure of a minimum curriculum of all the current professional links of the authors in order to reveal, if necessary in a footnote, the absence of conflicts of interest between the object of the research and the personal and professional aspects of the authors. The authors apply the policies of scientific neutrality and integrity adopted by the editorial line of the Journal, when appropriate.

*objectification, according to some authors of critical epistemology like Gaston Bachelard, means a permanent process of seeking objectivity, which is impossible in theory, especially in the social sciences

Responsibility: The obligations widely accepted by the Brazilian scientific community follow these and other parameters in the local guidelines to researchers and Codes of Scientific good Practices (Authorship and contributorship | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics). The international scientific community follow several guidelines of good practices, being sufficient that authors assume fully responsible for the knowledge and the fulfillment of the obligations resumed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in the Responsible research publication: international standards for authors (2010). 

 

2.7. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF EDITORIAL BOARD AND REVIEWERS TO ETHICS PRINCIPLES OF DESC JOURNAL

The DESC Journal Executive Board publicly assumes the following ethical and legal commitments regarding the composition of its articles, authors, published content and editorial policies:

In case of conflict between the right to express authors opinions and the personality rights of third parties (rights to intimacy, honor, etc.), preference will be given to the latter, and articles that violate these rights of third parties should be rejected.

Continuous anti-plagiarism control mechanisms are adopted, with internal measures in case of suspicion and external measures in case of malpractices proof, including the final communication to the interested parties and owners of copyright involved.

The editorial neutrality commitment implies the preliminary refusal of quota policies of any kind, so to preserve blind peer review neutrality criteria. The editorial board may adopt other forms of support quota and affirmative actions, including related topics to gender, race, beliefs, etc. in other editorial policies, such as in the selection of thematic dossiers and publication of selected articles outside the minimum required for excellent periodic qualification (25% allowed without peer review).

All reviewers should adopt the principles of tolerance to improve articles under evaluation; secrecy and confidentiality of communications and contents related to the authors' copyrights and personality rights; good justifications for decisions in reviews; intolerance to any suspicion of copyright and third-party personality rights infringement; greater objectification possible in potential conflicts of interest.

The profile of DESC Journal is strictly academic, not binding to economic or commercial interests, nor to political parties, governmental or non-governmental, public, private, religious or secular organizations, and search its goals grounded on editorial independence and broad freedom of expression principles.

 

2.8. JOURNAL'S COMPLIANCE AND INTEGRITY POLICIES

The rules for electing members of the editorial board and of the executive board, as well as the financial management policies of DESC Journal shall comply with the strict criteria of integrity, transparency, publicity and periodic audit according to its own statute prepared by the Faculties of Campinas – FACAMP, the maintainer and supporter, and the DESC Journal executive board.

2.9. OPEN ACCESS POLICY

DESC – Law, Economics and Contemporary Society provides immediate and unrestricted open access to its content, based on the principle that freely available scientific knowledge contributes to the global democratization of information and research.

All published articles are made freely available to readers without charges for access, reading, downloading, distribution, or reproduction, subject to the terms of the journal's licensing policy.

The journal does not charge submission fees, article processing charges (APCs), or publication fees.

All published content is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

2.10. DIGITAL PRESERVATION AND ARCHIVING POLICY

All files submitted to DESC – Law, Economics and Contemporary Society are stored in the institution's cloud-based digital preservation system, ensuring the security, integrity, preservation, and long-term archiving of editorial and scientific materials.

The journal adopts digital preservation practices aimed at guaranteeing the continued accessibility, recoverability, and integrity of submitted and published content over time.

2.11. PRIVACY, ADVERTISING AND COPYRIGHT POLICY

The names and addresses informed to the Journal will be used exclusively for the purposes related to this publication, not being available for other purposes or to third parties and are recorded only on the digital platform used (OJS), which can be audited at any time according to the limits of the software, by request of interested parties.

The publication license of all works submitted to DESC magazine follows creative commons 4.0 standards, which means wide access and reading by the world wide web of computers, authorization to works reproduction without commercial purposes, not included the assignments of rights, or publication or alteration of works to third parties without express authorization by the authors of the texts published here.

DESC Magazine declares no advertising interests, excluding all commercial advertisement of any kind in the digital environment, except the occasional mention to supporters in some printed edition. Any advertisement involved in printed physical volumes does not pass through the editors' decision and, if the case, will be published separately from the scientific content of the Journal.

DESC Magazine does not order articles, does not promote direct marketing, limiting itself to make free invitations to the scientific community in the propagation of its call for papers and dossiers by e-mail and social networks.