Research Policy Workflow Router (respol-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It names which respol- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at Research Policy (RP) — Elsevier's flagship journal of innovation studies and science, technology & innovation (STI) policy. RP's center of gravity is the economics, management, and sociology of innovation: R&D and technological change, national/regional/sectoral innovation systems, science and technology policy, entrepreneurship and technology management, university-industry links, and intellectual property. It is deeply interdisciplinary and carries the SPRU/Freeman-Nelson-Pavitt heritage; a paper earns space by advancing innovation-studies understanding, usually with a policy or managerial implication.

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as RP. Operational tells that you are at RP and not a sibling: the contribution is to innovation theory or evidence, not to a generic strategy or economics conversation; methods are pluralist (econometrics, bibliometrics/patent analysis, surveys, case studies, mixed methods) and no single technique is privileged; review is double-blind; the desk-screen rejects papers whose literature is "almost entirely economics or management journals" as out of scope (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准). Article types include full articles (~8,000–10,000 words incl. notes/refs/tables) and shorter Research Notes (~3,000–5,000 words) — verify on the guide for authors.

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?" on an RP-bound manuscript
• A draft's current bottleneck is unclear and needs diagnosis
• Work is ping-ponging between framing, theory, design, evidence, exhibits, and the response letter
• An RP decision letter arrived and the user must switch into revision mode
• The team is debating RP vs. a sibling (Industrial and Corporate Change, Technovation, JPIM, SMJ)

Routing table

Default order

1. respol-topic-selection — lock an innovation-studies question RP owns
2. respol-theory-development — build the mechanism / conceptual frame
3. respol-literature-positioning — stake the gap against the RP/SPRU canon
4. respol-methods — design and measurement appropriate to the claim
5. respol-data-analysis — estimation / bibliometric build / coding + robustness
6. respol-contribution-framing — sharpen the "so what + policy/managerial" claim
7. respol-tables-figures — exhibits that carry the mechanism
8. respol-writing-style — make the idea land (intro/abstract last)
9. respol-submission — Editorial Manager preflight + data/code statement
10. respol-review-process — calibrate expectations; consider Research Note
11. respol-rebuttal — after the R&R

respol-writing-style is a late polish; do not rewrite the intro before theory, design, and evidence settle.

Routing by paper archetype

RP spans several research traditions, and the binding constraint differs by tradition. Read the archetype, then enter the chain at the right link.

Worked routing example (illustrative)

A user says: "My patent-based paper on regional knowledge spillovers estimates fine, but a referee says the citation measure is endogenous and that the paper reads like an economics-of-geography paper, not innovation studies." That is two distinct RP pushbacks — an indicator/identification problem owned by respol-methods and respol-data-analysis, and a positioning/scope problem owned by respol-literature-positioning. Route to methods first to defend the patent-citation measure (e.g., self-citation correction, examiner vs. applicant citations), then to positioning to re-anchor the contribution in the innovation-systems literature so it reads as RP, not JEG.

Anti-patterns

• Treating RP as interchangeable with SMJ (strategy), Management Science (general management science), Industrial and Corporate Change, Technovation, or JPIM
• Polishing prose before theory, design, and the evidence hierarchy are stable
• Skipping respol-topic-selection and submitting a paper whose lit base is "all econ/management" — the classic out-of-scope desk reject
• Letting the appendix carry a claim the main text must establish

Minimal decision snippet

if decision_letter_arrived:         -> respol-rebuttal
elif ready_to_submit:               -> respol-submission
elif exhibits_unclear:              -> respol-tables-figures
elif claim_or_so_what_fuzzy:        -> respol-contribution-framing
elif estimation_or_indicator:       -> respol-data-analysis
elif design_or_measurement_shaky:   -> respol-methods
elif theory_thin:                   -> respol-theory-development
elif positioning_or_scope_fuzzy:    -> respol-literature-positioning / respol-topic-selection
else:                               -> respol-topic-selection