respol-review-process

Review Process (respol-review-process)

When to trigger

• You want realistic odds and timelines before or after submitting to RP
• A desk reject arrived and you need to read whether it was scope, contribution, or fit
• You are deciding whether to position the work as a full article or a Research Note
• A decision letter arrived (reject / major / minor) and you need to plan, not yet write, the response
• You are weighing transfer to a sibling (ICC, Technovation, JPIM) after an RP rejection

How Research Policy review actually works

RP runs a double-blind process (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准): the Editor-in-Chief routes a submission to a Handling Editor matched to its area (innovation systems, science/technology policy, entrepreneurship and innovation, university-industry interactions, R&D management, or innovation methodology), who manages the referees and the decision. Before referees, there is a desk screen that tests two things: whether the paper is genuinely innovation studies (the out-of-scope filter for econ/management-only papers) and whether the substantive contribution is plausible. Surviving that, expect a small number of expert referees and the standard reject / major-revision / minor-revision / accept ladder. Treat all timeline numbers as volatile and verify on the live journal pages (待核实).

What RP referees reward vs. punish

| RP referees reward | RP referees punish / desk-reject |

|--------------------|----------------------------------|

| A genuine advance to innovation theory or evidence | Technique-as-contribution with no innovation-studies payoff |

| Construct-disciplined patent/bibliometric or mixed-methods work | "Patents = innovation" and black-box pipelines |

| A claim with an earned policy/managerial implication | A token "implications for policymakers" paragraph |

| Engagement with the RP/SPRU canon | A lit base that is "all economics or management journals" (out of scope) |

| Methodological pluralism fit to the question | A default design forced onto the wrong question |

Reading the decision letter and planning the cycle

• Desk reject (scope): the literature/framing signaled the wrong audience. Re-anchor in innovation studies (→ respol-topic-selection, respol-literature-positioning) before any other venue.
• Desk reject (contribution): the so-what was not RP-grade. Sharpen the advance (→ respol-contribution-framing), or consider a sibling honestly.
• Major revision: the most common path to acceptance. Triage referee points into (a) must-fix identification/construct issues, (b) framing/positioning, (c) discretionary. Plan the analysis before drafting the letter.
• Minor revision: mostly exhibits, clarity, and framing — handle with respol-tables-figures / respol-writing-style.
• Research Note pivot: if the contribution is real but compact, the Note format (~3–5k words, with a justifying cover letter) may fit better than padding a thin full article.

When to consider a sibling instead

• Firm performance / competitive advantage lens dominates → SMJ.
• Industrial dynamics / capabilities / evolutionary firm theory dominates → Industrial and Corporate Change.
• A managerial how-to or NPD-process study → Technovation / JPIM.
• A pure causal estimate with thin innovation theory → a field economics journal.

Checklist

• [ ] Expectations set to RP's double-blind, handling-editor process (not a generic top-journal model)
• [ ] The desk-reject risk (scope vs. contribution) is correctly diagnosed
• [ ] Article-type choice (full vs. Research Note) is revisited against the contribution's size
• [ ] Referee points are triaged into must-fix / framing / discretionary before drafting
• [ ] A sibling-venue decision, if any, is made on substance, not just impact factor
• [ ] Timeline/odds claims are marked 待核实, not asserted as fixed

Anti-patterns

• Treating an out-of-scope desk reject as a quality problem and resubmitting unchanged elsewhere
• Assuming RP timelines/acceptance rates from memory instead of verifying
• Padding a Note-sized contribution into a thin full article (or vice versa)
• Planning the rebuttal before triaging which referee points are binding
• Shopping the paper to a sibling without fixing the underlying framing

Output format

【Journal】Research Policy
【Skill】respol-review-process
【Stage】pre-submission / desk-reject / major / minor / planning-transfer
【Decision read】scope vs. contribution vs. fixable execution
【Article type revisit】full vs. Research Note
【Referee triage】must-fix / framing / discretionary
【Sibling option】RP-fixable or genuinely SMJ/ICC/Technovation/JPIM?
【Source status】timelines/odds verified or 待核实
【Next skill】respol-rebuttal