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
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
