Submission Guidelines

Please note that the Advance team is receiving a high volume of submissions thus our moderation timing is delayed. If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to advance@sagepub.com

Advance: a SAGE preprints community is a preprint server operating in the social sciences and humanities. Advance, in cooperation with the Transportation Research Board, also hosts a dedicated preprint space for the transportation community, transportRXiv (previously called TRB Practical Pipeline), which features practitioner-focused transportation research.

Preprints are early versions of full research articles that have not been peer reviewed. You should not upload as a preprint the version of a paper that has already been published or was accepted to be published in a peer reviewed journal, unless your journal specifically allows for this. Preprints are assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) upon posting. Posting published and accepted to be published work creates an additional DOI running the risk of confusing readers and splitting potential citations. For more information on what a preprint is see the FAQs.

There are two submission sections available to authors. Advance: Social Sciences & Humanities allows full research papers that cover all topics in the social sciences and humanities. This includes, but is not limited to, original research, literature reviews, commentaries, and case studies. Advance does not post editorials, book reviews, memoirs, personal essays, books, blog posts, or the version of a paper that has already been published or accepted to be published in a peer reviewed journal, unless your journal specifically allows for this. TransportRxiv allows papers, case studies, and other transportation research written for transportation practitioners.

Our goal is to post “early research done well.” This means we seek preprints that include a clear hypothesis, research question, or statement of purpose to serve as the focus. All preprints should detail methodologies utilized, state clear conclusions, and specify the limitations and implications for future exploration. Approved posts tend to have at least 5-10 references from reputable, scholarly sources. Because preprints are not peer reviewed, we reserve the right to reject articles for posting that include diagnostic and/or medicinal recommendations or research on sensitive topics that may need to undergo additional review outside of basic moderation checks. In these cases, we may require additional ethical statements to be provided by the author to support a posting decision.

Preprints are NOT peer reviewed. A preprint uploaded to Advance: Social Sciences & Humanities or transportRxiv will only undergo minimal moderation to ensure that the paper is of a scholarly nature, is based in the social sciences or humanities, is written in English, and does not contain any copyrighted materials used without permission or contain inappropriate, confidential, or harmful materials. You are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Upon submission, you will be asked to confirm that your work is original, does not infringe any copyright or other third party rights, that you have received all necessary rights (including the consent of your coauthors) to upload the preprint, that you have followed the appropriate ethical practices generally applicable to research, and that you agree to the Advance Terms of Use. Inappropriate ethical practices may include, but are not limited to, plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation.

If you are in need of English language editing, please visit a list of SAGE resources here.

Note that papers found to violate any of these guidelines may be removed from Advance.

Papers posted to Advance: Social Sciences & Humanities or transportRxiv should not be taken as an endorsement or validation by SAGE or by the Transportation Research Board of the paper's conclusions, findings, or quality.

Submitting a Preprint

To submit a preprint to Advance, you will need to register for an account. Registering and posting your preprint is free. Register for an account. If you need additional help, check out the How To Guides.

You'll need to select from the dropdown which submission group will be the best fit for your preprint.
Select Advance: Social Sciences & Humanities for all general social science or humanities research.
Select transportRxiv for transportation research.

You can add authors to your preprint by name, and if they have registered an account with Advance, you can also add them by email address. If they have linked their Advance account to their ORCID profile, you can also use their ORCID to add authors to your preprint. Please ensure your coauthors are aware and agree to have their paper posted to Advance. Note that the person who uploads the paper will be the only person authorized to make future revisions or edits to the paper. We highly encourage that the designated corresponding author also submit the preprint from their account.

Your paper may include all of your tables and figures, or you can choose to upload them as separate files. While any file type can be added, and most file types will appear in the content preview, more obscure file types may not be able to be previewed. Additional data and supplementary materials can also be uploaded alongside your paper. If you have your data stored in a publicly available online data repository (for example, Figshare Data Repository), you can include a link to the data set in the "References" field. There is no page limit for papers submitted to Advance but note that submissions greater in length may take longer to moderate.

Note if you plan to submit your paper directly to a SAGE journal from Advance, please check that your manuscript file type is accepted by the journal you are planning to submit to. Most journals allow .doc or .docx file type but may not allow for PDF submissions.

In addition to your paper, you will need to provide a title, a discipline category, keywords, and an abstract. As the submitting author, you will need to list your institution, job role, and country. You should also note any funding you received and list any potential conflicts of interest - or state that none exist. Please see the SAGE guides for funding statement and disclosure of conflicts of interest.

Once your paper is submitted, it will be reviewed by the preprint moderator team. If your paper passes moderation, it will be posted publicly on Advance and you will receive confirmation to the email address you provided when registering your account. If your paper is not approved for posting, the moderator will note why your paper was not approved and, if appropriate, you will be welcome to fix the issue and resubmit. Only approved papers will be eligible for direct submission to a SAGE journal from Advance.

Ethics approval and informed consent

Papers reporting human studies must include statements on the following:

(1) Ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB) consideration.

(2) Informed consent (for inclusion, collection/use of data or samples, and/or publication, as applicable).

The ethics approval statement should specify whether approval was obtained (including the name of the ethics committee or IRB, and the approval number if available) or whether the study was exempted from review (including the name of the ethics committee or IRB and the reason for exemption). If ethics approval was not sought, please specify why it was not required and cite the relevant guidelines or legislation where applicable, for the benefit of an international readership.

The informed consent statement should specify whether informed consent was obtained, and whether it was written or verbal (and if the latter why that was the case, in addition to how the consent was recorded), or if the need for consent was waived by ethics committee/IRB or another authorized body (including the reason for the waiver). If informed consent was not sought, please specify why it was not required and cite the relevant guidelines or legislation where applicable, for the benefit of an international readership.

For case reports:

Please confirm that the patient(s) or their guardian(s)/legally authorized representative(s) provided written informed consent for the disclosure of patient information in the present paper. If the consent was verbal, please state why written consent was not obtained, in addition to how the consent was recorded. If the need for consent was waived, please provide the name of the ethics committee/IRB or other authorized body, plus the reason for the waiver. If informed consent was not sought/obtained for the disclosure of patient information in the present paper, please specify why it was not obtained; however, please note that Advance requires informed consent for the disclosure of patient information in case reports, except in exceptional circumstances or when waived by ethics committee/IRB or other authorized body.

You may refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals for additional guidance.

Pictures of Human Subjects

If you would like to include audio-visual materials depicting human subjects, please download and have those depicted individually sign this release form. All materials depicting human subjects without authorized consent via a signed release form will be asked to be removed from your paper.

Commenting Policy

Readers are welcome to post questions, feedback, and comments on the preprints. In order to leave a comment, you must first register for an account. All posted comments are moderated to ensure that the comments are not offensive, obscene, or spam. Scholarly critiques on papers should be constructive and professional. You should list any potential conflicts of interest - or state that none exists - in the body of your comment. Comments may be removed if they do not meet these standards.

Licensing your preprint

All preprints on Advance must be licensed under one of six different Creative Commons licenses listed below. You will need to select a license when submitting your paper. For more detailed information, please visit the Creative Commons website.

Please note that you cannot grant or waive rights to a work that you do not own unless you have permission from the owner.

CC-BY (Attribution only) allows content to be copied, adapted, displayed, distributed, re-published or otherwise re-used for any purpose including for adaptation and commercial use provided the content is attributed. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

CC-BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) allows content to be remixed, adapted, and built upon even for commercial purposes, provided content is attributed and the new creation is licensed under the identical terms. All new derivative works will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

CC-BY-ND (Attribution-NoDerivatives) allows a work to be copied, displayed, distributed, republished or otherwise re-used provided the re-use is not an adaptation or derivative and the integrity of the original work is maintained. To create an adaptation, translation, or derivative of the original work, further permission is required and can be obtained by contacting the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial) allows content to be copied, adapted, displayed, distributed, republished or otherwise re-used provided the purpose of these activities is not for commercial use. Commercial use means use of the content by a commercial organization or individual for direct (including through sale, loan or license) or indirect (including through marketing campaigns, promotional materials or presentations) gain or remuneration. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

CC-BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) allows content to be copied, adapted, displayed, distributed, republished or otherwise re-used provided the purpose of these activities is not for commercial use. All new derivative works will carry the same license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives) allows a work to be copied, displayed, distributed, republished or otherwise re-used provided the re-use is not an adaptation or derivative and the integrity of the original work is maintained. Additionally, this license does not allow for commercial use of the work. Commercial use means use of the content by a commercial organization or individual for direct (including through sale, loan or license) or indirect (including through marketing campaigns, promotional materials or presentations) commercial gain or remuneration. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Interested in Submitting to a Peer Reviewed Journal?

If you are interested in submitting to a peer reviewed SAGE Journal, you can now directly transfer your preprint to the SAGE Journal of your choice.

To submit your preprint to a journal, go to “My Submissions”, and then click “Submit to a Journal”. Next, select the preprint you would like to submit. You will be recommended several SAGE journals, curated for you based on the disciplines you selected for your preprint.

When you've selected the journal you would like to submit to, you can check out that journal's submission guidelines or you can click the “Submit” button in order to transmit your files to that journal’s submission system.

Not sure of the right journal? Check out SAGE’s Journal Recommender.

Check if your own journal selection is among the top results or find alternate options. Then, come back to Advance and submit to that journal or to SAGE Path, a free article transfer service where you can select up to 3 journals.

Want to ensure your research paper meets format, language, and style requirements? Check out SAGE’s Author Services.

Important things to note:

Your main manuscript file must be a .doc or .docx file type as PDF manuscript files may not be supported by all journal submission sites.

Only approved preprints are eligible for submission to a journal. If your preprint is undergoing moderation, you will not be able to submit to a journal until your preprint has been approved by the moderators.

Once submitted to a journal, you will not be able to submit to another journals for 30 days. Please note that it is SAGE’s policy that authors can only submit to one journal at a time, and you should not submit your preprint to more than one journal at a time. For more information on this, please see SAGE’s policies on Ethics & Responsibility.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact the Advance team at advance@sagepub.com.