Editorial Policy

Focus and Scope

Journal of African Real Estate Research is a diamond open access journal that aims to understand African real estate markets, including their structure and workings, and the nature and impacts of efforts that seek to reform them. In this context, real estate markets are taken to include different components of the built environment, including planning, funding and development, construction, management, ownership and occupation.

The Journal's aim is supported by providing a forum for debate and the dissemination of research on the key issues relating to the above issues via:

• The publication of research papers based on the results of completed research projects or programmes;
• Notes on ongoing or proposed research programmes;
• Reviews of relevant books; and
• Letters commenting on previously published papers and contributions or on other relevant matters.

The Journal of African Real Estate Research will contribute to the development of the real estate research community in Africa and enable discourse and dialogue between researchers engaged in research into real estate issues in Africa.

To this end, papers that have a strong policy emphasis, either in analysing the impact of existing polices or putting forward proposals for appropriate policies, are strongly welcomed. Additionally, papers that address these issues in the context of Africa - at a local, national and regional basis, or on a comparative international basis - are invited for submission to the journal. 

Section Policies

Editorials

The editorial section is written by the Editor-in-Chief to accompany every issue of the journal. This section of the journal is indexed and not peer-reviewed.

Research Articles

This section of the journal is the substantive element of the journal and is open to any expert in the field. This section is indexed and all articles undergo a double-blind peer-review process.

Occasional Sections

From time to time and based on the availability of materials,  other communications will be published and will be freely accessible to the readers. These include research notices, book reviews, comments on contributions and announcements of significant events or to commemorate the contributions of a relevant academic.

Research Notices

The research notice section of the Journal is there to provide authors with a platform to update or inform the journal audience of research projects. This section is open to any author to submit and is typically 1000-2000 words in length. Research notices are indexed in the journal archives before research articles.

Book Reviews and Commentary

The book review and commentary/letters section of the Journal is open to anyone wanting to publish a review of a book relevant to the scope of the Journal or comment on contributions to the Journal or on other matters relevant to the scope of the Journal. This section is indexed after the research articles section and reviewed by the editors to ensure that the reviews and comments meet a high-quality standard.

Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically via the journal platform:   https://journals.uct.ac.za/index.php/JARER/about/submissions. Manuscript submissions are required to be uploaded onto the website in Microsoft® Office Word format. The submission of manuscripts directly via email or in PDF format is not permitted/acceptable.

More details and instructions regarding the submission of manuscripts is provided on the submission page on the journal website: https://journals.uct.ac.za/index.php/JARER/about/submissions.

Peer Review Process

Authorship

All individuals listed as authors of a manuscript should have played a considerable role in conceptualising the research or content of the manuscript, in writing or critically editing the manuscript, and/or in the analysis of data presented in the manuscript. All authors should be thoroughly familiar with the substance of the final manuscript and be able to defend its conclusions. Exclusion from authorship of individuals who have made author-level contributions for papers published in JARER is considered unethical and fraudulent. Other individuals who have participated in generation of the research paper but who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments section with a brief indication of the nature of their contribution. Any changes in authorship must be approved in writing by all of the original authors. 

Conflict of Interest

All authors are required to disclose any affiliations, funding sources, and competing interests that might be perceived as sources of bias related to the reported research and/or presented content. Editors and reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests and will be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

A competing interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors should disclose any financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment if they were to become public after the publication of the manuscript

Originality & Plagiarism

All manuscripts must be original. No manuscript will be considered which has already been published in the proceedings of a conference, published in another journal or is being considered by another journal. However, when work described in conference proceedings is substantially revised and extended, it will be considered for publication. By submitting a manuscript, authors certify that the article is not being considered for publication nor has it been published elsewhere.

The journal uses iThenticate, a software to prevent scholarly and professional plagiarism. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are scanned against the iThenticate database to verify originality.

Publication Frequency

The Journal of African Real Estate Research publishes bi-annually. The journal will publish articles online as they are finalised for publication. These articles will subsequently be assigned to a volume and issue according to the journal's publication schedule. A research article will take on average 20 weeks for acceptance for publication.

Open Access Policy

The Journal of African Real Estate Research (JARER) is a Diamond Open Access Journal and provides immediate free access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors do not pay article processing charges (APCs) or publication fees to publish, and readers do not pay subscriptions to read JARER publications. Author(s) retain copyright and are free to deposit (self-archive) their published research papers on institutional repositories, academic social media and personal or departmental websites.

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.

Licensing Information

The Journal of African Real Estate Research (JARER) is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. This license allows users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license also allows for commercial use. JARER has migrated from a CC BY-NC 4.0 license to a CC BY 4.0 license to allow for further sharing and re-use of knowledge with no restrictions.

Language

The Journal of African Real Estate Research content is published in English. All articles to be submitted should be written in English.

Geographical Diversity

This journal is committed to growing our author and editorial geographical diversity, to reflect our interests in real-estate issues across the entire African continent. We aspire to include work from underrepresented African countries and voices in the years to come.