JPART Introduces a Submission Cap Pilot Beginning July 1, 2026

The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART) will introduce a one-year submission cap pilot beginning July 1, 2026.

The PMRA Board has approved the creation of this pilot policy. The purpose is to protect the quality of JPART’s editorial process and preserve reviewer capacity at a time when submission volumes are increasing rapidly.

Readers can also review the editors’ full policy document for additional detail: JPART-submission-cap-policy.pdf

Why JPART Is Introducing a Cap

JPART has experienced a sharp increase in submissions in recent years, with especially rapid growth in 2025 and 2026. When the current editors began their term in autumn 2023, the journal received approximately 45 to 50 submissions per month, or about 575 submissions per year. In April 2026, JPART received 119 submissions in a single month.

This increase places substantial pressure on editors, associate editors, and voluntary reviewers. Every manuscript requires editorial review. Some manuscripts are desk rejected, while others are sent to multiple reviewers. In both cases, the process requires significant scholarly labor.

The submission cap is designed to slow the growth in submissions while keeping JPART open to high-quality work from the public administration research community.

How the Submission Cap Will Work

The cap applies to individual authors.

A manuscript counts toward the cap for every listed author, whether that person is the sole author, first author, co-author, or corresponding author. A manuscript counts toward the cap at the time of submission.

Beginning January 1, 2027, the standard annual limits will be:

• No more than two manuscripts that are desk rejected in a calendar year
• No more than three total manuscript submissions in a calendar year

This means the cap includes both a desk-rejection limit and a total-submission limit.

Transition Rule for 2026

Because the policy begins in the middle of the year, JPART will use a transition rule for the remainder of 2026.

For 2026 only:

• Authors may submit no more than three manuscripts that are desk rejected
• Authors may submit no more than four manuscripts total
• Submissions made before July 1, 2026, will count toward the annual cap

This transition rule applies only in 2026. Beginning January 1, 2027, the standard calendar-year cap will apply.

What This Means for Authors

The cap is not intended to prevent serious scholars from submitting their best work to JPART. It is intended to discourage repeated low-quality or insufficiently checked submissions and to protect editorial and reviewer capacity for manuscripts with a stronger chance of contributing to public administration research and theory.

Authors should ensure that manuscripts submitted to JPART have undergone careful review, validation, and quality control before submission. As generative AI changes research and writing workflows, authors remain responsible for the argument, evidence, analysis, and text they submit.

Evaluation of the Pilot

The submission cap is a one-year pilot. JPART, in collaboration with the PMRA Board, will monitor how the policy works in practice, including submission volume, desk rejection rates, reviewer burden, author behavior, and the journal’s ability to process manuscripts in a timely way while preserving editorial quality.

The policy will be reviewed in June 2027 and may be adjusted if modification is needed.

Comments

PMRA welcomes comments about the policy. Please send comments to [email protected].

JPART Policy Document