RTM Article Submission Guidelines
Research-Technology Management welcomes manuscripts that offer insights into technological innovation, illustrate how management tools and models can be applied to the fostering and management of innovation, and give R&D managers the tools to support and promote innovation across their organizations.
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Our focus is on ideas and information that will help senior industrial R&D and technology leaders run their operations more effectively. This means an emphasis on real-world experience that can be applied by practitioners across a broad spectrum of industries. Articles based primarily on research studies should, therefore, de-emphasize methodology and theoretical discussions in favor of explaining:
- what the investigators learned, and
- why (and how) those findings can be useful to industry managers.
RTM articles are concise and practice centered.
We accept unsolicited submissions in three categories:
Feature articles are full-length, research-based articles that offer new insights into major issues in innovation and R&D management. Candidates for feature articles generally run around 3,500 words (not counting references or other ancillary material), although we will occasionally publish truly groundbreaking pieces as long as 5,000 words. Very few papers over 4,000 words are sent for review, and we will not send for review a paper longer than 5,000 words at initial submission.
Managers at Work entries are practice-based articles offering models or methodologies around a timely issue in innovation and R&D management. These tend to be shorter than feature articles, generally coming in at 2,000–2,500 words (not counting references or other ancillary material). Managers at Work candidates undergo the same peer review process as feature articles; indeed, pieces for this department are frequently identified in the peer review and guidance process.
One Point of View articles offer fully supported and convincingly argued opinions about key issues in R&D and innovation. These are shorter still, generally running about 1,500 words at the outside. We will occasionally publish longer point-of-view pieces by recognized thought leaders making complex or critical arguments. One Point of View pieces do not go through peer review; rather, they are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor, who decide whether to proceed to publication and offer advice on revision.
We do not accept unsolicited submissions for columns (i.e., The Human Side, Innovation for Innovators) or for Perspectives. If you are a freelance business journalist interested in writing for Perspectives, please contact the Managing Editor separately.
Before submitting, please review the brief guidelines provided below. Articles that do not conform to our requirements may be returned unread.
After an initial evaluation by the Editor-in-Chief, feature articles and Managers at Work articles will be sent for review by our Board of Editors. One Point of View articles will receive a rigorous evaluation by the Editor-in-Chief. The evaluation process can take from six to eight weeks; we are working to reduce this time. Please contact us if you do not receive an acknowledgment of receipt within 2 business days of submitting or if you have no further feedback 12 weeks after submitting.
Thank you for your interest in publishing in Research-Technology Management.
James Euchner, Editor-in-Chief
Visiting Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management
euchner@iriweb.org
MaryAnne Gobble, Managing Editor
gobble@iriweb.org
How to Submit
Research-Technology Management accepts only electronic manuscripts, submitted via email to the Managing Editor (gobble@iriweb.org), with a courtesy copy to the Editor-in-Chief (euchner@iriweb.org). All submissions must conform to the following requirements:
- Manuscript should be submitted in .DOC, .DOCX, or .RTF format.
- Manuscript should be formatted for US letter-size paper (8.5x11).
- Manuscripts should use a standard 12-point font; we recommend Times New Roman or similar for readability.
- Although we will ask for separate illustration files for accepted manuscripts, illustrations, tables, and figures should be embedded in the manuscript file at initial submission.
Manuscripts that do not conform to these initial technical requirements will be returned unread.
A Brief Style Guide
RTM’s house style is based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (CMS). If you are in doubt about a question of style, please refer to CMS.
RTM articles include several components, which should be included in your manuscript file in the following order:
- Authors’ names, contact information, and short bios (50-100 words). Please clearly identify the corresponding author; corresponding author’s contact information should also be included in the submitting email.
- Overview. Please provide a brief synopsis (100-150 words) designed to help busy readers quickly grasp the main points of the article.
- Keywords. Please provide 5-8 keywords describing the content of your article. Descriptors may be one or two words; they need not appear in the article itself.
- Body of article. The first section of your article, which should establish the context and give readers a map of the discussion to come, should not have a subhead. Rather, simply leave two or three line spaces between the keywords and the main article.
- References. Please see below for more information on the References section.
Note: Although we are no longer using the numbered reference system for citations, RTM still allows substantive footnotes, although these should be minimized as much as possible. Notes should be listed at the end of the text, after References, under the heading Notes.
Figures and Tables
We ask that figures and tables be embedded in the initial manuscript, placed in the text near where they are referenced and captioned, to simplify the review process. If your manuscript is accepted, we will later ask for figures and captions to be separated out.
Please note that RTM is published in black and white; design figures accordingly. Color, light lines, and shading will not reproduce well and should not be used. Please use Helvetica for all text within figures. Text should be large enough to be readable after reduction to one-column (3.25 in.) or two-column (6.5 in.) size.
Tables should be set in the same font as the text of the article.
Captions should be provided for both tables and figures; these should be included as regular text, and not embedded in figures. Please write captions as active sentences that capture the key features of the figure and clarify their relationship to the text. Instead of “R&D Organization Chart,” use “R&D at the XYZ Company is managed according to a modified matrix where the R&D director has functional as well as scientific responsibilities.”
References
RTM uses the author-date system described in CMS. References in the text should appear enclosed in parentheses and should include authors’ last names and year of publication. Do not put a comma between authors’ names and the year; multiple references in a series should be separated by a semicolon. Examples:
(Smith 1997)
(Smith, Jones, and Doe 2004)
(Smith 1997; Smith, Jones, and Doe 2004)
Please format the references list as regular text at the end of the article, under the heading References. Your reference list should conform to the sample references below. Please consult CMS for detailed information:
Books
Christensen, C. M. 1997. The Innovator’s Dilemma. New York: Perseus.
Christensen, C. M., Roth, E. A., and Anthony, S. D. 2004. Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Articles and book chapters
Keinonen, T. 2008. Design in business: Views from nucleus and the periphery. Design Management Review 13(3): 30–36.
Beaman, K. 2008. Think local, act global: Building an effective global organization. In 21 Tomorrows New Formula: Concept-Driven Innovation Through Strategic HR, ed. Lynne E. Mealy, 1–12. Austin, TX: Futura.
Conference presentations
Presentations included in published volumes of conference proceedings should be treated as chapters in a multiauthor book; see above.
Kirk, B. 2009. Creating an environment for effective innovation. Presentation given at the Stage-Gate Innovation Summit 2009, Clearwater Beach, FL, February.
Online resources
For resources available both in print and online, please include complete information for the print version, followed by the URL and an access date using the following general format:
Beaman, K. 2008. Think local, act global: Building an effective global organization. In 21 Tomorrows New Formula: Concept-Driven Innovation through Strategic HR, ed. Lynne E. Mealy, 1–12. Austin, TX: Futura. http://www.jeitosa.com/resources/ karen_beaman/BeamanGlobalization.pdf (accessed March 1, 2010).
For resources available only online, include as much information as possible. The idea is that the reader will be able to locate the reference easily and with certainty using the information provided. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain publication date for online resources. If a publication date is not specified, use the most recent date of editing or copyright indicated on the site.