Submissions

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Author Guidelines

Journal Fit and Scope

The NICEC Journal publishes scholarly articles on the broad theme of career development across a range of contexts.

These include:

  • Career development in the workplace: private and public sector organisations, small, medium, and large enterprises, and independent practice
  • Career development in education: schools, colleges, universities, adult education, and public career services
  • Career development in the community: voluntary, charity, and social organisations, third age contexts, and independent or public services

Career development is understood to encompass both:

  • how individuals and groups navigate learning, work, and life pathways
  • and the interventions, systems, and policies designed to support these processes

The journal publishes research-based, theoretical, and practice-informed contributions that advance understanding in the field of career development, career education, and career counselling.

The journal has a national and international readership and welcomes submissions from authors worldwide.

Relevance to the Journal

Submissions must demonstrate clear and explicit relevance to the field of career development.

The journal does not normally publish articles focused solely on the following areas unless they include substantive engagement with career development:

  • Human resource management (e.g. recruitment and selection)
  • General education studies
  • The psychology or sociology of work

Authors should ensure that the contribution to career development is clearly articulated.

Use of Literature

All submissions are expected to engage critically with relevant academic and professional literature in career development, career counselling, and career education.

Authors should:

  • Situate their work within existing scholarship
  • Demonstrate awareness of relevant theoretical and empirical debates
  • Use literature to contextualise and support their arguments

Authors are encouraged to consult previous issues of the journal to understand its scope, style, and areas of focus.

As the journal has an international readership, authors should ensure that sufficient contextual information is provided for readers unfamiliar with specific national, institutional, or professional contexts.

Readership

The journal is intended for a diverse readership engaged in career development-related work, including:

  • researchers and scholars
  • practitioners (e.g. guidance professionals, counsellors, educators)
  • policymakers and consultants

The journal values contributions that bridge research, policy, and practice.

Issue Format

Issues of the journal typically include articles accepted through the peer review process and published in order of acceptance.

The editors may group articles within an issue to enhance thematic coherence.

The journal also publishes:

  • Themed sections within open issues
  • Special issues or collections focused on particular topics

Special issues may be developed through open calls or by invitation.

Submission and Deadlines

Calls for papers and submission deadlines for special issues will be published on the journal website.

The journal accepts submissions on a rolling basis. Manuscripts submitted outside specific calls may be considered for future issues.

Publication Schedule

The journal publishes two issues per year:

  • Spring issue (normally April)
  • Autumn issue (normally October)

All articles are published online as open access at
https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk

Full issue PDFs are also made available via the NICEC website and to members of the Career Development Institute (CDI).

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The text adheres to the stylistic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • Citations and references conform to the APA 7th edition guidelines.  
  • The text uses 1.5 line-spacing; uses a 12-point font
  • all illustrations, figures, and tables are provided as separate files.
  • The main submission file is in Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • The author has read the Journal copyright, licencing and privacy statements and understands that making a submission will be taken as acceptance of these arrangements.
  • Any use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools of any kind in writing the article must be declared to the editor.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided. Journal DOI numbers must use the prefix https://doi.org/

Articles

Section default policy

Copyright Notice

Material published in the Journal is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This means that the article may be shared freely, provided the source/author is clearly acknowledged and no changes are made to the text.  Authors may share their final published version of the article on their own website or institutional repository. We ask that this is done by sharing the article weblink (not the pdf), as this will raise awareness of the Journal among potential readers. 

By submitting an article, authors agree to the following terms:

  1. In submitting an article, the Author hereby grants to NICEC the exclusive first publication right to the paper submitted by him / her for inclusion in the publication named above and the non-exclusive rights thereafter to publish and authorise the publication of all articles and all parts, adaptations and abridgements thereof in all forms and media throughout the world.
  2. In consideration for the above grant of rights, and subject to delivery of acceptable material, NICEC hereby undertakes to prepare for publication and publish the paper unless prevented by circumstances beyond its control.
  3. The Author agrees that NICEC may make minor changes to areas such as formatting, spelling, referencing, layout or punctuation, to ensure quality and uniformity of style.
  4. NICEC agrees that the Author may share the final published PDF of their article (e.g. publication to the Author’s web profile, or institutional repository).
  5. The Author warrants to NICEC that in respect of the paper submitted: (i) it does not infringe any existing copyright or licence; (ii) except where the Author, at the time of submission of the paper, notifies NICEC, the paper is original; (iii) the Author has the full power to make this assignment and that this assignment does not infringe the rights or licence of any other person, and that where there a co-author, the co-author also fully agrees to the terms in this document; (iv) the paper contains nothing defamatory or otherwise unlawful and no information has been obtained in contravention of legislation currently in force (v) submission of the paper demonstrates acceptance of all these conditions.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. As a United Kingdom based publisher, UK data protection legislation will apply.