O Bulletin

Genesis

The Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management of Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań was one of the two institutions in Poland to launch, since the academic year 2007/2008, a Regional Development speciality under measure 5.4.3, "Support for the education of personnel for the purposes of regional development in the Spatial Management field of study, in specialities contracted for with the Minister of Science and Higher Education", co-financed by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management.

One of the initiatives implemented under this project was working out the conception of and launching a new journal of a national range: a bulletin, in a Regional Development and Regional Policy series. The series format was intended to offer the possibility of popularising the results of the latest studies, exchanging opinions, and presenting experiences in regional development and regional policy issues in Poland. Initially, the Bulletin had three parts: articles, practical experiences, and new publication and reviews.

The Bulletin was an important source of information for students of the Regional Development speciality about current theoretical problems in regional development and regional policy. It allowed them to get acquainted with practical experiences following from the implementation of regional programmes. An important supplement to each volume was information about new publications on regional development and regional policy that appeared on the Polish and foreign markets, supported by reviews.

As part of inter-university cooperation, the libraries of all the academic centres in Poland offering a Spatial Management course of study received every volume of the Bulletin. A copy of each was also sent to all Marshal Offices and Voivodeship Offices. Thanks to the financial support granted, the journal was distributed free of charge. In accordance with the assumptions of the project, which closed in 2011, the series ended in 16 volumes, each appearing in 500 copies.

The Bulletin today

On completion of the 5.4.3 project, "Support for the education of personnel for the purposes of regional development in the Spatial Management field of study, in specialities contracted for with the Minister of Science and Higher Education", co-financed by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, the Institute decided to continue publishing the series (nos. 17/18 and 19), which met with a highly encouraging response from readers, especially people conducting research on, and active in the practice of, development policy.

In order to enhance the Bulletin's status, the Institute turned to the Minister of Science and Higher Education with a request to put it on his list of point-scoring journals. The official's decision being favourable, the Bulletin has been added to list B of such journals. Therefore, steps have been taken not only to maintain the ministerial score, but also to increase the number of points awarded:

● in order to widen the spectrum of readers, the journal's title has been changed to Regional Development and Regional Policy. Bulletin of the Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań;

● the Editorial Council has been enlarged to include representatives of foreign academic centres;

● new principles of publication have been adopted, and the journal has started to come out in an electronic version apart from the printed form;

● the journal's structure has been decided upon, making it a rule to publish no fewer than 24 articles a year, including two in congress languages;

● new rules for reviewing papers submitted to the journal have been adopted, which will certainly improve the quality of the articles published here; and

● measures have been taken to prevent cases of "ghostwriting" and "guest authorship".

In its present form, the journal offers an opportunity to popularise the results of the latest research and to exchange opinions and experiences in the field of broadly understood development policy in terms of both, theoretical determinants of development processes and the public intervention undertaken. It is an important source of information about current theoretical problems in regional development and regional policy, and about practical experiences acquired in the course of building a new model of Polish regional policy.

The journal's distribution will embrace libraries of those academic centres in Poland whose research and teaching offers cover a similar field. An obligatory copy will also go to the Ministry of Regional Development and to the Marshal Office of each voivodeship.

The editors plan to publish 4 volumes per year, with circulation running at 100 printed copies and a possible publication of additional special issues.

The journal is indexed in the following databases: Arianta, EBSCO, CEEOL, CEJSH, CEON Biblioteka Nauki, Google Scholar, WorldCat, ERIH PLUS, MOST WIEDZY.

International Publisher Number: ISSN 2353-1428

A Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 International license applies. Authors are allowed to self-archive preprints and postprints. The editorial office does not oblige the authors or recommend depositing in a public repository the research data accompanying the preparation of the article. Publishing in the journal is free charge.

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