Editorial Policies

Aims and Scope

The Journal of Work Health and Safety Regulation (JOWHSR) is a peer-reviewed open-access multidisciplinary journal of international scope in work health and safety regulation. It is published in English and administered by the Japan Association of Occupational Health Law. Articles are published online as they become available, and a printed issue is compiled twice a year.

The journal aims to advance academic research and to inform policy debate and decision-making in all aspects of work health and safety regulation, including prevention, compensation, and rehabilitation/return to work.

The Journal is interested in submissions that include analysis of legislative, administrative, or judicial developments in a single country that have transnational implications or that relate to potential international trends; doctrinal (legal analytical) comparisons addressing common work health and safety issues across two or more countries; empirical analyses; case studies; analysis of theoretical, methodological, or historical issues in work health and safety regulation; scholarship on mixed systems of law or of supranational legal regulation; and discussion of economic, social, or cultural aspects of work health and safety regulation and/or the ‘transferability’ of legal rules or policy approaches.

Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on work health and safety regulation – including from occupational health, medicine, sociology, regulatory studies, industrial relations, psychology, social policy, criminology, socio-legal studies, and history – are welcome.

The journal is also interested in submissions that analyze important court decisions (case notes), reports on work health and safety regulation issues (reports) and developments in work health and safety legislation (legislation notes), as well as reviews of books on work health and safety regulation (book reviews). The journal will also publish occasional editorials (including guest editorials) reporting on developments in work health and safety regulation from around the world. If it contains implications for regulation, it does not matter what the discipline is.

Journal and Ethics Policies

JOWHSR upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing. Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editors believe may not comply with these policies.
The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in JOWHSR, they must first withdraw it from our journal.

Authorship

Submission to the JOWHSR implies that all listed authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript, and have agreed to the order in which their names appear. Any changes to the author list after submission—such as adding or removing authors, or reordering—must be approved by all authors and the journal editor.
To ensure transparency and accountability in scholarly contributions, JOWHSR follows authorship principles consistent with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations on ‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors’, which are widely recognized across academic disciplines.

Conflict of Interest

In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest related to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived, or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially.
Potential conflicts include but are not limited to competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.
Manuscripts must comply with the ICMJE standards regarding conflicts of interest. All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other individuals or organizations within the three years preceding submission.
All authors are required to submit a Conflict of Interest (COI) form and to disclose any potential conflicts of interest in the manuscript.

Copyright, Open Access License Policy

JOWHSR is fully Open Access and published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.

Authors are required to assign all copyrights in the work to the Society, who then publish the work under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International). This license allows users to share unmodified articles, non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given. Authors will be required to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement upon acceptance.

Editorial and Peer Review Process

JOWHSR operates a double-blind peer review system, in which both authors and reviewers remain anonymous throughout the review process.

When a manuscript is submitted, it is first assigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who conducts an initial screening to assess whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and meets basic publication standards. Manuscripts that do not meet these criteria may be rejected without external review.
Manuscripts that pass this initial screening are then assigned to an Associate Editor, who selects two, or when necessary, three reviewers based on their expertise, reputation, and previous experience. These reviewers evaluate whether the manuscript is valid, original, coherent, and clearly written. They assess the rigor and soundness of the arguments presented, the appropriate use and interpretation of relevant laws, regulations, scientific evidence, and literature, as well as the manuscript’s overall contribution to knowledge and practice in occupational health, safety regulation, and related fields. They also assess the novelty, significance, and overall contribution of the work to the field.
Upon receiving the reviewers’ reports, the Associate Editor makes a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief, who then makes the initial decision on the manuscript. If revisions are requested, authors must submit a revised manuscript by the stated deadline. Delays may result in the manuscript being treated as a new submission.