Author Guidelines
INDUSTRICS
1. Scope and what we look for
INDUSTRICS publishes peer-reviewed research at the intersection of industry and intelligent systems, across four principal areas: industrial AI (machine learning for industrial performance, prediction and optimisation), smart manufacturing (connected operations, predictive maintenance, digital twins), digital supply chains (resilient, data-driven supply chain and logistics systems), and automation & systems (control systems, robotics, industrial IoT, integrated industrial systems).
The journal's defining criterion is applied relevance. A submission should demonstrate not only methodological soundness but a credible path to industrial value: validation on industrial data or a realistic testbed, comparison against practically meaningful baselines, and honest discussion of deployment considerations such as cost, scalability and integration effort. Purely theoretical work is welcome where the industrial implications are made explicit. Incremental parameter tuning on public benchmarks, without industrial context, is unlikely to be sent for review. Where fit is uncertain, send a presubmission inquiry with your abstract to editorial@scientara.org.
2. Article types
| Type | Word limit | Figures / tables | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Paper | 6,000–10,000 | No limit | Single-blind, ≥ 2 reviewers |
| Review Paper | 8,000–15,000 | No limit | Single-blind, ≥ 2 reviewers |
Word counts exclude the abstract, references, figure captions and table content.
Research Papers present new methods, systems, architectures or empirical findings, validated on industrial or industrially realistic data with quantified improvement over sensible baselines. Case-study-driven papers are welcome when the analysis generalises beyond the single site studied. Review Papers must go beyond summarising the literature: organise the field with a clear taxonomy, identify open problems and industrial adoption barriers, and state a defensible search methodology (databases, date ranges, screening criteria).
3. Authorship and ORCID
Authorship is reserved for individuals who made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception, design, execution or interpretation of the work, participated in drafting or critically revising the manuscript, approved the submitted version, and accept accountability for the work. Contributors who do not meet all criteria belong in the Acknowledgements. Every submission includes an Author Contributions statement in CRediT format. The corresponding author must provide an ORCID iD; co-authors are strongly encouraged to. Changes to the author list after submission require written explanation and the agreement of all authors. AI tools cannot be listed as authors.
4. Research integrity
INDUSTRICS follows COPE guidelines on authorship, conflicts of interest, misconduct and retraction. By submitting, authors confirm the manuscript is original and not under consideration elsewhere in any language.
- Similarity screening. Every submission is screened with professional similarity-detection software before editorial assessment. Substantial unattributed overlap with published work — including the authors' own — leads to return or rejection.
- AI-assisted writing. Any use of AI tools in manuscript preparation must be disclosed in the Declarations, naming the tool and describing the use. The corresponding author bears full responsibility for all content.
- Conflicts and funding. Declare all financial and non-financial interests, including employment or consultancy with industrial partners whose products or processes are studied, and all funding sources with grant numbers.
- People and proprietary data. Studies involving human participants must report ethics approval or a documented exemption. Work using proprietary industrial data must confirm the data owner consented to publication; anonymisation of commercially sensitive values is acceptable and should be stated.
5. Manuscript preparation
- Use the official INDUSTRICS manuscript template (download button above). Submit as .docx or .pdf.
- Times New Roman 12 pt; 1.5 line spacing; 2.5 cm margins; A4; pages and lines numbered continuously.
- SI units throughout; define every symbol and abbreviation at first use; number equations (1), (2), …
- British or American English, applied consistently.
Structure for Research Papers: title page (title, authors, affiliations, corresponding email, ORCID); abstract of 150–250 words, structured where possible; 4–8 keywords; Introduction; Literature Review (may be combined with the Introduction); Methodology / System Design; Results and Discussion; Conclusion; Declarations (funding, conflicts, data availability, author contributions, AI-assisted writing); Acknowledgements; References.
Figures: minimum 300 dpi for photographs, 600 dpi for line art; labels legible at final size; submit each figure as a separate high-resolution file in addition to embedding it. Colour is free of charge; choose colour maps that remain interpretable in greyscale. Tables: numbered sequentially, title above, footnotes below, no vertical rules. Every figure and table must be cited in the text before it appears.
6. References
APA 7th edition: in-text citations by author and year; an alphabetised list with hanging indent; DOIs wherever available. Every citation must match a reference entry and vice versa. Cite datasets, code repositories and standards formally, with version numbers; worked examples are included in the manuscript template. Preprint citations are acceptable and should be replaced with the published version at revision where one exists.
7. Data, code and reproducibility
Every submission must include a Data Availability Statement. Deposit datasets, code, trained models and simulation assets in a persistent public repository (Zenodo, Figshare, or an archived GitHub release) and cite the repository DOI in the manuscript — openly available data and code are weighted positively during review. Where industrial confidentiality prevents full release, state the restriction plainly and provide what can be shared: an anonymised or synthetic version, the feature schema, or the evaluation scripts. “Data available on reasonable request” is acceptable only with a stated reason.
8. Submission and peer review
- Submit online through the Scientara portal; ORCID sign-in is supported. A complete submission comprises the manuscript, separate figure files, supplementary material, and a cover letter stating the contribution, scope fit and any related manuscripts under consideration elsewhere. You may suggest up to three qualified reviewers without conflicts.
- Editorial check for scope, formatting and completeness within 5 working days.
- Peer review: single-blind, at least two independent reviewers, typically completed within 30–45 days.
- Decision: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject. Revised manuscripts are due within 21 days with a point-by-point response to every reviewer comment. A rejected manuscript may be appealed once, in writing, on substantive grounds; the Editor-in-Chief's decision on appeal is final.
- Publication: accepted articles are published continuously online with a Crossref DOI assigned upon acceptance.
9. After acceptance
Authors receive proofs and should return corrections within 5 working days; at proof stage only errors may be corrected. The version of record is preserved: substantive post-publication changes are handled through versioned releases or formal corrections, each dated and noted — silent edits are never made. Concerns about published work are investigated under COPE flowcharts and may result in correction, expression of concern, or retraction.
10. Open access, copyright and fees
INDUSTRICS is an open access journal. An article processing charge (APC) of USD 300 applies to each accepted article; there are no submission fees and no page or colour charges. Nothing is payable at submission or during review — the APC is invoiced only upon acceptance, and payment has no bearing on editorial decisions. Fee waivers may be granted at the publisher’s discretion for authors without access to funding. Articles are published immediately open access under a Creative Commons licence and authors retain copyright. Self-archiving of the submitted, accepted or published version in institutional or subject repositories is permitted at any time, with a link to the version of record. Published articles are preserved through Portico.
11. Pre-submission checklist
- Manuscript follows the template: A4, Times New Roman 12 pt, 1.5 spacing, 2.5 cm margins, page and line numbers.
- Word count within the limit for the article type; abstract 150–250 words; 4–8 keywords.
- All figures cited in text and supplied as separate 300/600 dpi files.
- References complete in APA 7 with DOIs.
- Declarations complete: funding, conflicts, data availability, author contributions (CRediT), AI-assisted writing.
- Corresponding author ORCID iD provided; data or code deposited where possible with the DOI cited.
- Cover letter states contribution, scope fit and related submissions.
Questions at any stage: editorial@scientara.org.