Proposal for a

Territorial Development Journal

Topical focus The focus will be primarily at practical experience and conceptual
issues regarding territorial development in developing and
transformation countries, including recent EU accession countries.
Territorial development is meant to encompass LED, regional
development, cluster promotion, and related issues.

The Journal will be multidisciplinary, and encourage articles with an

interdisciplinary approach, inviting authors with backgrounds in
economics, social science, geography, management, spatial planning
etc.

The main focus will be at efforts by societal actors to actively and

deliberately shape the economic development of territories. This will
be one distinguishing factor from journals with foci like “regional
science” or “urban studies” which take the spatial implications of
market-driven economic development processes as their starting point.

Target group: The journal is aimed at two types of readers:

Readers  Territorial development practitioners with an interest in conceptual
issues, in particular decision makers and individuals involved in
policy making, including officials in government ministries at
national and provincial levels, officials in development
organisations such as national development banks, officials in
donor organisations, and specialised consultants.
 Academics with an interest in relating their teaching to the ongoing
practice of territorial development.

Target group: The journal will try to attract two types of authors:
Authors  Academics with a firm footing both in academia and in consultancy
/ advisory work with development organisations, who have a first-
hand understanding of territorial development based on
consultancy / advisory work or on evaluations they have
conducted.
 Territorial development ractitioners with either an intrinsiv
motivation to share their experience and discuss them in the wider
community of practice, or with performance indicators that include
publications.

mesopartner
local economic delivery
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Acquisition of The following mechanisms will be used to raise interest by potential

articles, review authors:
process  e-mailing via the distribution lists available to mesopartner, and
possibly the ILO and other organisations
 direct communication between editors and individuals in their
respective networks
 direct approach to individuals who prepare papers for conferences,
in particular non-academic conferences
Each contribution will be submitted to a double-blind review process
by one reviewer. A second reviewer will be involved when the
judgement of the first reviewer and the editor differ.

Mode of publication Initial publication rhythm will be two editions per year, with the
option to increase the frequency if and when sufficient quality
contributions become available.

The journal will be disseminated primarily in electronic format. The

cost and benefit of going through a publisher specialised in electronic
publishing has yet to be assessed. If it is decided not to rely on a
publisher, the option is open to use a print-on-demand service (e.g.
lulu.com) for readers interested in a printed copy.

Production set-up The journal will have an editorial board that includes both academics
and practitioners. The tasks of the editorial board will include
 defining editorial policies (quality standards etc.),
 participating in the reviewing of submitted articles,
 raising interest for the journal, including attracting authors.

mesopartner
local economic delivery