- Journal of Regional Development is a nationally refereed and scientific journal published by the General Directorate of Development Agencies of the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Republic of Turkey.

- Journal of Regional Development is published online and in print, three issues per year (April, August and December) in four-month periods. The journal may publish thematic special issues and there is no article limitation in these issues.

- The web page of Journal of Regional Development is https://www.kalkinmakutuphanesi.gov.tr. All processes related to the publication of the journal are carried out through the DergiPark system.

- The publication languages of Journal of Regional Development are Turkish and English.

- Journal of Regional Development always accepts article applications except for special issues. Articles whose evaluation process is completed are selected to be published for the issue deemed appropriate by the Editorial Board.

- All authors have equal rights in the evaluation, acceptance and publication processes of articles in the Journal of Regional Development. Articles are evaluated in the order they are sent and the order of publication of accepted articles is arranged according to the time of acceptance. However, the Editorial Board reserves the right to make changes when it deems necessary.

- Journal of Regional Development follows an open access policy. Readers can download, print and share each published article free of charge. Author names and article titles must be cited and it must be stated that the work was first published in the Journal of Regional Development. Articles cannot be changed in any way and cannot be used for commercial purposes.

- No fee is requested from authors during the publication process of articles in the Journal of Regional Development. Access to published articles is free of charge. All expenses of the journal are covered by the General Directorate of Development Agencies or development agencies.

- The author(s) of articles published in the journal are paid a royalty fee determined in accordance with the provisions of the “Regulation on Copyright and Operating Fees to be Paid by Public Institutions and Organizations”. No royalty fee is paid for Letters to the Editor and Science Talks.

- Publication rights are transferred to the General Directorate of Development Agencies of the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Republic of Turkey with the printed “Copyright Transfer Agreement” uploaded to the system by the author(s) together with their article applications.

- All scientific and legal responsibilities regarding the content of the articles published in the Journal of Regional Development (evaluation, opinion, photograph, map, document, etc.) belong to the author(s). The publication of the article does not mean that the opinions of the author(s) have been adopted or accepted by the General Directorate of Development Agencies.

The Journal of Regional Development includes original, scientific studies in the fields of regional policy, development and planning, that are free from ideological concerns and have a rich literature.

The Journal of Regional Development publishes conceptually well-structured, methodologically sound, empirically grounded, original and up-to-date research that will contribute to the field.

Review articles must systematically address the topic of regional development and planning in the literature, examine the discussions, criticisms and opinions related to national and international resource research with their strengths and weaknesses and make inferences.

The “Science Conversation” determined by the Journal Editorial Board and in which senior scientists in the field who have made significant contributions to the literature in the field of the Journal convey their evaluations on regional development and the “Letter to the Editor” containing the evaluations of authors who have played important roles in the process of national and regional policy development and implementation in the field of the Journal can be published in the Journal under the title of non-article articles (other). These articles are not subject to the peer-review process.

Articles sent to the Journal of Regional Development must not have been previously published in another publication or accepted for publication, and must not be included in the evaluation process of another journal.

Articles sent to the journal are first subjected to preliminary review by the Editor or the Editorial Board Member determined by the Editor. Preliminary review is conducted based on the Journal of Regional Development Article Preliminary Review Form, and the author(s) of the article are confidential via the text file of the Journal of Regional Development Article Preliminary Review Checklist.

Preliminary review consists of three stages: “general content evaluation”, “form evaluation” and “similarity analysis”. Within this scope, the article’s compliance with the purpose and scope of the Journal, its scientific quality and originality, and its compliance with the Journal’s publication principles and publication ethics policy are evaluated. The formal adequacy of the article is examined within the framework of the article writing rules and text template published on the Journal’s website. Quantitative checks are performed on the article supplementary files. At this stage; The similarity rate of the reviewed article is determined using an international plagiarism analysis program, if the similarity rate is over 20 percent it is considered plagiarism and the candidate article is not published.

Articles that do not meet the eligibility criteria as a result of the preliminary review are directly rejected and the authors are informed by the Editor within 1 month.

After the subject area is determined in accordance with the scope of the Journal for the articles that are deemed appropriate as a result of the preliminary review, the referee evaluation process is started.

The referee evaluation process of the Journal of Regional Development is managed through the DergiPark System according to the double-blind refereeing (double-blind) model. In this process, the identities of the authors and referees are kept confidential. In the double-blind method, each article that passes the preliminary review is sent by the Editor to two separate referees in the review panel via e-mail. At this stage, the Editor assigns referees according to the content of the article and the referees' areas of expertise, taking into account the referee suggestions from the Editorial Board.

Referees are expected to conduct their evaluations according to the criteria in the system, based on the full text added to the system by the authors and not including any statements regarding the author(s) of the work. Referees submit their reasoned decisions regarding the scientific adequacy, contribution to the field and publishability of the article they evaluate by filling out the Journal of Regional Development Referee Evaluation Form. In cases where there are referees who have not completed their evaluations within this period, the referee is changed by the Editorial Board's decision and the process is repeated. The correction requests from the referees are evaluated by the author(s) and the author(s) complete their corrections within 15 days and upload them to the system. If the corrections are not made within the specified time (this period may be extended according to the reason provided by the author(s), the Editor has the right to reject the article. The referees can review the corrections and decide on their appropriateness, and if necessary, they can request re-correction.

In the Journal of Regional Development, no edits are made to the referee comments during article reviews, as per the Journal policy and guidelines. However, aggressive and personal criticisms of the author(s) are considered inappropriate. Authors take the referees' suggestions into consideration, but they have the right to object to issues they disagree with. They should convey their objections to the Journal in a scientific manner and with justifications. On the other hand, authors always have the right to withdraw their articles. Authors who want to withdraw their articles in the DergiPark system can make a request through the signed Article Withdrawal Form.

The opinions from the referees are reviewed by the Editor within 2 weeks and a final decision is made on the article. In the double-blind model, a “positive” opinion from at least two referees is required for the article to be accepted for publication. If one referee gives a “positive” opinion and the other gives a “negative” opinion, the article is sent to a third referee. After two “positive” referees’ opinions, the articles deemed appropriate for publication by the Editor are submitted to the Editorial Board for their decision to publish and in which issue of the Journal they will be published. When the publication date of the relevant issue arrives, the issue is prepared for publication and made visible. The author(s) of the articles accepted and rejected for publication are informed, but the texts of the articles are not returned.

Research irregularities (misconduct) in the Journal of Regional Development cover the following issues:

- Plagiarism: When the author partially or completely appropriates the work, original ideas, methods, data and findings of other authors without citing them in accordance with scientific rules, and presents them as his/her own work;

- Forgery: When the author uses falsified data that does not actually exist in his/her research;

- Distortion: When the author pretends to have used materials or equipment that were not used in the research or manipulates the processes, changing the research records, obtained data or results in line with the interests of the persons and organizations receiving support;

- Re-publication: When the author presents his/her duplicate publications as separate publications;

- Slicing: When the author divides the results of a research into parts that will disrupt the integrity of the research and inappropriately publishes them more than once and presents them as separate publications;

- Unfair authorship: Including people who have not actively contributed to the research among the authors or excluding those who have contributed, changing the author order without justification and inappropriately, using one's influence to include one's name among the authors despite not having actively contributed.

In this context, research irregularities are unethical behavior and unacceptable regardless of how they are committed.

The similarity rate of articles sent to the Journal of Regional Development for publication is determined. Before the referee assignment, articles are checked by running internationally recognized plagiarism analysis programs during the preliminary review phase. The rules taken into consideration during this process are as follows:

- The overall similarity rate of the article must be below 20 percent. In cases where the similarity rate exceeds 20 percent, articles are directly rejected and returned to their authors.

- The bibliographic materials of the article (references, citations, footnotes, etc.) are not included in the similarity scan. This issue is taken into consideration if the author(s) submits repetitive scientific terms that they request not to be included in the similarity scan to the Journal.

- The Journal of Regional Development can perform similarity checks at every stage of the publication process.

All authors who submit an article are deemed to have accepted these rules.

The Journal of Regional Development immediately investigates all allegations of scientific misconduct. Plagiarism detected after publication in the Journal is subject to removal from publication. If an article published in the journal is found to have plagiarised, used third party copyrighted material without permission or with incomplete notification; the Editor reserves the right to take various actions, including removing the article from publication and reporting the issue to the institution to which the author is affiliated, and an editorial note is published in the Journal for readers.

In case the reader notices a significant error regarding the articles published in the Journal of Regional Development or wishes to make any complaint regarding the editorial content (plagiarism, forgery, distortion of data, re-publication etc.), they can send an e-mail directly to the following addresses:

- dakkahve@gmail.com

- bolgeselkalkinma@sanayi.gov.tr

Complaints are considered as a contribution to the scientific content of the Journal and a rapid and constructive response will be provided.

Journal of Regional Development adopts an open access policy. Readers can download, print and share each published article free of charge. Author names and article titles should be cited and it should be stated that the work was first published in the Journal. Articles cannot be changed in any way and cannot be used for commercial purposes.

The Journal of Regional Development does not charge any application, evaluation and/or publication fees or similar payments for printed or electronic articles, and no fees, including subscriptions, are charged to any library or reader for access to published articles (publishing, reading, downloading articles).

A royalty fee calculated according to the provisions of the “Regulation on Copyright and Processing Fees to be Paid by Public Institutions and Organizations” is paid to authors for published articles. No royalty fee is paid for Letters to the Editor and Science Interviews.

The author(s) retain the copyright of the work and grant the Journal of Regional Development the right of first publication. The work is licensed under the Creative Commons License, which allows sharing provided that the author(s) and the first publication are stated in this Journal.

The Journal of Regional Development is committed to applying the highest standards of research and publication ethics in scientific periodical publishing. To this end, it takes into account and follows the international standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for editors, authors and publishers.

The Editor, Editorial Board, Advisory Board, authors and referees of the Journal of Regional Development are committed to preventing wrong practices in publishing in accordance with the academic and ethical standards set by the Committee on Publication Ethics, the Open Access Journals Index and the Open Access Academic Publishing Association.

Articles submitted to the Journal for publication are evaluated according to their academic and scientific content, regardless of the author's religious belief, ethnic origin, gender, nationality and political philosophy.

The Journal of Regional Development is obliged to keep articles submitted for publication confidential and not to use information obtained from the refereeing process for personal gain.

2.1. Ethical responsibilities of the editor

The editor must be responsible for everything published in the Journal. In this context, the Editor;

- should strive to meet the needs of readers and authors,

- should strive for the continuous development of the Journal,

- should ensure that the necessary processes are implemented to guarantee the quality of published studies,

- should value freedom of expression,

- should protect the integrity of the academic archive,

- should continue the publication processes without compromising ethical standards,

- should show openness and transparency on issues that require correction and explanation.

In this context, the Editor should follow research on ethical publishing, evaluate the Journal processes in light of new findings. Evaluate the effects of the Journal policies on author and referee behavior, and revise the policies when necessary to deter abuse.

The Editor shares his/her opinions and suggestions with the Editorial Board, taking into account the Advisory Board's evaluations, regarding the development of the Journal's publication policy and the improvement of publication processes. He/she directs the Editorial Board to take the necessary measures.

The Editor must consider the scope and target audience of the Journal to ensure that articles published in the Journal are compatible with the Journal's readership.

Readers must be informed about who funded the research published in the Journal and whether funders had any role in the publication of the article.

The Journal should adopt processes that promote accuracy and completeness of research reporting (such as appropriate guidelines, use of checklists).

The Editor should coordinate with the Journal's publisher to provide prompt and constructive feedback on reader complaints submitted to the Journal.

The Editor must communicate to reviewers the peer review model adopted by the Journal, the Journal's policies regarding the peer review process, and the expectations of reviewers.

The Editor must ensure that the peer review process is conducted in a double-blind model and protect the confidentiality of reviewers and authors.

In order to ensure that articles sent to the journal are evaluated by academicians who are experts in their fields, the Editor should ask the referees to evaluate articles that are in line with their fields of expertise.

In order to ensure that the referee evaluation process is managed efficiently and smoothly, the Editor should evaluate the referees according to their response times and performance.

The Editor should create a database of referees and update the database according to the performance of the referees. The Editor should remove from the referee list referees who do not show the necessary sensitivity regarding tone and language in article evaluations and who persistently do not comply with the time plan.

The Editor should conduct a preliminary review of the article sent to the journal for publication in terms of its compliance with the journal's purpose and scope, its publication policy and publication principles, originality and formal adequacy. The Editor may apply to the members of the Editorial Board for preliminary review.

An information note explaining clearly and impartially the reason for the rejection of their work should be sent to the author(s) of the articles directly rejected as a result of the preliminary review by the Editor.

A description of the peer review processes should be published in the Journal and the Editor should prevent deviations that may occur in the defined processes.

If the decision is made to revise and correct the article based on the results of the peer review, the author(s) should be informed by the Editor and given time to make the necessary corrections.

The Editor's decision to accept or reject an article for publication should be based on the importance of the article, its originality, clarity of expression, validity of the study and relevance to the scope of the Journal.

The Editor should publish guidelines for authors on what is expected from authors and update these guidelines regularly.

Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions. They should convey their objections to the Journal in scientific language and with justifications.

Authors' requests for information about the status of their articles should be answered by the Editor in a manner that does not disrupt the double-blind system.

The Editor calls for meetings of the Advisory Board and the Editorial Board at specified intervals, collects opinions and supports the Advisory Board and the Editorial Board in developing the Journal's publication policy.

The Editor should inform the Editorial Board members about their duties and responsibilities.

The Editor should communicate the current version of the Journal of Regional Development Writing Rules to the Editorial Board members.

The Editor may request assistance from the Editorial Board members for the preliminary review of articles submitted to the Journal. In this case, the Editor should inform the Editorial Board members about the evaluation criteria of the preliminary review.

The Editor should evaluate the active participation of the Editorial Board members in the Journal's activities and share their opinions with the Publisher.

At the end of the peer review process, the articles deemed appropriate for publication by the Editor are submitted to the Editorial Board for evaluation in order to determine the publication decision and the number of publications.

Articles submitted to the Journal of Regional Development must be scientific studies in the basic subject areas of urban and regional planning, economics, social policy and politics and management, with established relevance to regional development, with a contribution to the regional policy-making process, original and in accordance with scientific ethics, free from ideological concerns, and rich in literature. Authors must apply with their original studies that have these qualities.

The Journal of Regional Development accepts articles that have not been previously published in another publication or accepted for publication, and are not in the evaluation process of another journal. Therefore, it should be stated that the articles submitted to the Journal have not been sent to another journal, and the submission date should be included in the articles.

Research and publication ethics are followed in articles published in the Journal of Regional Development. Scientific articles submitted to the Journal must take into account the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the international standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for Editors and Authors.

According to the decision of the TÜBİTAK Turkey National Academic Network and Information Center (ULAKBİM) dated February 25, 2020; “For all branches of science (including social sciences), separate ETHICS COMMITTEE APPROVAL must be obtained for clinical and experimental studies on humans and animals that require an ethics committee decision; this Approval must be stated and documented in the article”. In this context, the authors of research articles other than review articles applying to the Journal of Regional Development are requested to document that Ethics Committee Approval has been obtained for their research that requires ethics committee approval (Ethics Committee Decision, Decision date and number). In studies that require ethics committee approval, information regarding the permission (Board name, date and number) must be included in the method section and also on the first/last page of the article.

Research requiring ethics committee approval;

- Any research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that requires data collection from participants using survey, interview, focus group study, observation, experiment, interview techniques,

- Use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,

- Clinical research conducted on humans,

- Research conducted on animals,

- Retrospective studies in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Law.

In addition;

- In case reports (case analysis), information that the informed consent/consent form (Informed Consent Form) was signed should be included in the article,

- Permission should be obtained and stated from the owners for the use of scales, surveys, photographs belonging to others,

- Copyright regulations should be complied with and stated for the intellectual and artistic works used.

Authors are responsible for the originality and confirmation of the sources in their articles. The sources cited should definitely be stated in accordance with the Journal of Regional Development Writing Rules.

Within the framework of the evaluation processes, research data supporting their work may be requested from the author(s). In this case, the author(s) must submit the data in question to the Editorial Board.

All authors must disclose any financial interest they have with other individuals or institutions that may inappropriately influence their work.

In articles submitted to the Journal of Regional Development, individuals who do not contribute to the article intellectually should not be listed as authors; their contributions to the article should be explained in the Information Section according to their type.

During the evaluation process of the articles, changes such as adding an author, changing the order of authors, or removing an author cannot be proposed by the author(s).

The Journal of Regional Development Writing Rules should be taken into consideration in the articles submitted, and the Turkish Language Association Writing Guide should also be followed in those written in Turkish. In articles prepared in English, the “EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles Published in English” should be taken as a guide.

During the evaluation process of the articles, any correction requests from the referees are evaluated by the author(s) and the author(s) complete their corrections within 15 days and upload them to the system. The author(s) may request an extension by providing a reason, provided that it is within the extension period. The Editor has the right to reject the article.

Author(s) must inform the Editor when they detect an error in their published, early-sight or evaluation studies and cooperate with the correction or retraction process.

Author(s) are obliged to keep the data of the published article for 5 years after the date of publication in a manner that will allow the TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM TR Index Committee to review it.

All articles sent to the Journal of Regional Development are evaluated using the double-blind refereeing method. In this method, the Editor assumes the role of a mediator and in order to ensure an unbiased, objective and independent evaluation process, authors are kept confidential from referees and referees are kept confidential from authors. Referee evaluation reports are not published and the evaluation is shared under the ownership of the Journal and the referee who conducted the evaluation.

In the double-blind method, each article that passes the preliminary review is sent by the Editor to two separate referees in the review panel via e-mail. Referees submit their reasoned decisions regarding the scientific adequacy, contribution to the field and publishability of the article they evaluate by filling out the “Journal of Regional Development Referee Evaluation Form”. Care is taken to ensure that referee reports contain comprehensive, guiding and article-enhancing information that will reveal the scientific contribution of the referees.

Referees must be aware of their responsibilities regarding the confidentiality of the process and the ownership of the evaluated article according to the model used in the Journal for the evaluation process.

Referees are required to only referee articles in their fields of expertise.

Referees should evaluate articles impartially and objectively, comments should be objective, should not be defamatory or slanderous, and opinions should be expressed clearly and explicitly with supporting evidence and references. Referees should complete their evaluations within the time period given to them.

Referees should be meticulous about potential research irregularities in the article they evaluate and report these to the Editor.

Referees should declare any conflict of interest. Referees should decline to evaluate an article if they have a potential conflict of interest that may arise from any competitive, collaborative or other relationship or connection based on the content of the article they evaluate.

Referees should respect the confidentiality of the work submitted to them. The evaluation report or information about the article cannot be shared with others. Referees do not communicate directly with authors, cannot discuss unpublished articles with their colleagues, and cannot use research-related data in their own studies.

In the Journal of Regional Development, no adjustments are made to referee comments in article reviews due to the Journal policy and guidelines. However, the tone and language used by the referees in their evaluations must comply with the rules of courtesy and respect and must be scientific. Aggressive and personal criticisms against the author(s) are considered inappropriate.

Referee evaluation reports must be kept for five years after the date of publication in a manner that will allow the review of the TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM TR Index Committee.

Journal of Regional Development measures the performance of referees during the referee evaluation process. Referees are expected to be aware of this situation and comply with the ethical responsibilities stated above.

Journal of Regional Development is published by the General Directorate of Development Agencies of the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Republic of Turkey.

The Publisher accepts that the refereeing process is the responsibility of the Editor and that the decision-making authority in the article publication process is the Editorial Board.

In order to determine the similarity rate in the articles during the article evaluation process, the Publisher purchases and ensures that it is operated by internationally recognized plagiarism analysis programs.

The Publisher provides open, electronic and free access to the Journal on the Journal's website.