About Crossroads Europe and UACES Graduate Forum

Crossroads Europe is the blog of the UACES Graduate Forum – the UACES network of postgraduate and early career researchers in contemporary European Studies. The blog showcases research, comments and analysis on the issues facing the EU and Europe today, as well as reflections on being a researcher. From time to time, members of the Graduate Forum also share their research experience, reflections of their scholarships or other funding they received or pieces derived from the latest peer-reviewed journal articles.

Crossroads Europe also provides a space for members of the UACES Graduate Forum to make a contribution to current debates and to gain experience in writing for an academic blog.

The editors provide constructive feedback and suggestions throughout the process, making Crossroads Europe the ideal venue for postgraduates to begin their online publishing careers.

The blog features articles which express a wide range of views. Authors are responsible for their own contributions, none of which represent the views of the editors, the UACES Graduate Forum or UACES. The editors will consider submissions received but retain all editorial rights with respect to selecting articles for publication.

Current Editors: The UACES Graduate Forum Committee

Past Editors: Viviane Gravey, Quincy Cloet, Anna Wambach, Anthony Salamone, Rachael Dickson, Maxine David, Helena Cicmil

 

How to Contribute

If you are interested in submitting an article to Crossroads Europe, send an email to the Graduate Forum Communications Officer (Filiz Doğan fdogan18@yahoo.com) with UACES Digital Communications Manager (Melina Dieckgraber mdieckgraber@uaces.org) in CC.

Before submitting a blog post, read the following guidelines carefully.

 

The Content

Our remit is two-fold. First, we publish work on Europe and European affairs, broadly defined – this includes all of the topics within contemporary European studies and related fields (e.g. Politics, International Relations, Law, History, Anthropology, Economics, Geography).

Second, we publish work on the research experience (such as academic writing, publications, teaching and learning, career opportunities) – principally within the frame of European studies.

For a sense of what we publish, please have a look at our recent articles. Our expectation is that, as a researcher, your submission will be within your expertise. Please note that, while our brief is wide, we can only accept articles which fall within our areas of focus

 

Length and Style

Our articles are comment and analysis-style pieces and run 600–1000 words. For further details on style and format, please follow our Style Guide.

 

Submission Process

You are welcome either (1) to let us know about an idea for an article or (2) to send us an article directly. Please be advised that, in line with our editorial remit, we may not be able to accept full articles sent to us without our prior agreement.

We aim to acknowledge receipt of submissions within two working days.

Following this, we will normally give a decision within a week. In the case of a pitch for an article, this decision is preliminary and subject to change after production of the actual article.

Should your article be successful, we will edit it in line with our house style, a summary of which is found as our Style Guide. We will send our proposed changes back to you for your agreement within 48 hours. We will take an absence of reply as confirmation of your agreement.

Once your article is ready for publication, we will schedule it in accordance with our availability and editorial direction. We will tell you when your article is published. We encourage authors to read the comments on their articles and to reply where relevant.

Please note that we publish our articles under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License. By submitting an article to us, you agree to this publication scheme and all other terms as outlined on this website.

 

Style Guide

Writing for an academic blog requires a different style than that for other kinds of publications. This guide outlines the style of Crossroads Europe.

Length: Our articles are generally 600–1000 words. We do not normally publish outside of this range.

Language: We publish in standard UK English.

Title: The title should give a clear understanding of the article’s content. It should be around 40-65 characters (including spaces), and no longer than 120 characters (including spaces).

Structure: Our articles are written in short paragraphs of several sentences at most. This style suits our format as a blog. Please do not use numbered lists or bullet points and instead render these in paragraph form.

References: All citations should be given as in-text hyperlinks. We do not publish footnotes, endnotes, references or bibliographies.

File Format: Please send your article as a Microsoft Word or Open Office file.