About the REALISME Papers

Reviewers guidelines

Authors are responsible for the scientific quality of their research. The role of the editorial board is to assess the overall quality of the manuscript submitted, and in particular, the clarity of the objective, the logical coherence, the quality of language, and the adherence to ethical procedures. Members of the board may call upon one or more external reviewers.

When reading the manuscripts, reviewers should respond to the following questions:

For all manuscripts:

• Is the message of the proposed publication clear and explicit? YES / NO
• Are the arguments coherent? YES / NO
• Is the manuscript intelligibly written and does it respect the standards of the language used? YES / NO

In addition to the preceding questions, for manuscripts on scientific research:

• Is there a specific/explicit objective or research question? YES / NO
• Do the data presented satisfy the objective? YES / NO
• Was the study approved by an ethics committee? YES / NO

Recommendations:

• Do you recommend publication of the manuscrit? YES without modifications / YES with modifications / NO
• If YES with modifications: what points should the author(s) improve, given the above-mentioned evaluation questions?

Manuscripts will be accepted or rejected based on the reviewers’ feedback.

About the REALISME Papers

Author guidelines

Manuscript preparation:

• Word limit: There is no limit, but authors are encouraged to keep their manuscript within a reasonable word count and to be concise.
• Reference format: Authors should use reference management software (e.g. Zotero) and organize their references according to the American Psychological Association (6th Edition).
• Open review process: Authors are encouraged to thank reviewers in the final manuscript.
• Publication process: Authors are responsible for formatting their manuscript according to the collection’s template.
• The following statement must appear in every manuscript: “The authors are entirely responsible for the scientific quality of the research presented in this publication.”

Submission process:

• Pre-evaluation: Authors seeking publication in the collection must first submit an abstract. The editorial board will review the abstract within one week. Authors whose abstracts are positively reviewed will then be invited to submit their manuscript.
  • Abstract preparation: 500 words maximum, 5 key words, 3 key citations, format unstructured.
  • Pre-evaluation criteria: relevance, language quality, logical coherence, adherence to abstract preparation instructions.
  • Abstracts should be sent to Émilie Robert ().

• Manuscript review time frame: The committee will review the manuscript within a maximum of one month after it is received.
• Manuscript formatting time frame: The final formatted version will be made available on the Papers website as soon as the final manuscript is submitted.

About the REALISME Papers

The REALISME Papers

The REALISME Papers Collection

Launched in 2014, the aim of the REALISME Research Chair is to develop the emerging field of implementation science in global health. More specifically, its objective is to improve the implementation of community-based interventions to make them more effective from a health equity standpoint. In this context, the Chair is inaugurating a new collection of research documents dealing with community-based health interventions in low-income countries and/or with issues concerning the more vulnerable populations in these countries and in Canada. The REALISME Papers have been created in response to a certain number of problems:

• Insufficient dissemination of studies in French and Spanish on the topic of public health as applied to global health, because of the predominance of English as the language of dissemination.
• Limited access for researchers in certain countries, and for most stakeholders, to research published in subscription-based journals.
• Open-access fees charged by scientific journals that limit students’ and early-career researchers’ capacity to share their knowledge in these journals.
• Long and onerous publication processes imposed by scientific journals.

Given these problems, many studies are not published because of lengthy procedures, language constraints, and strict requirements related to scientific quality. The objective of these Papers is therefore to ensure the rapid dissemination of good-quality research and reflection on the Chair’s themes, in open-access, without fees, in French, English and Spanish. The REALISME Papers encourage graduate-level students (master’s, doctoral), postdoctoral fellows and researchers working in French, English or Spanish to submit their manuscripts. The following types of publications will be accepted:

• Scientific articles or reports
• Commentaries and opinions
• Descriptions and analyses of interventions (e.g. logic model of an intervention)