The LIVES Working Papers are published by the National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES and aim at diffusing theoretical, empirical, and methodological research in the field of Life Course Research. Potential papers are research papers prepared for publication in scientific journals, structured conference communications and methodological or research reports, literature reviews, or data descriptions. All disciplines are invited to submit and publish in the LIVES Working Papers. Authors are however expected to clearly relate their paper to the life course paradigm. The following authors' guidelines refer particularly to research and conceptual papers; the submission standards for methodological and research reports and literature reviews are more flexible. Papers receive a limited review and authors are fully responsible for the content they publish.

Submission procedure

• Once a submission is received, one of the editors evaluates whether this first draft meets minimal standards for a scientific paper (whether it is complete in all its parts) and sends it to a reviewer (according to specific competences and topics).
• All submitted papers will be read and reviewed by a Professor or a post-doctoral researcher who will recommend to accept or to reject the paper or who will ask for revisions. Recommendations to revise and resubmit can refer to content and style. This is only a limited review process and should not take more than four to six weeks. The authors remain responsible for the content of the paper which does not reflect the opinions of the Editors, the Editorial Board or the NCCR LIVES.
• Based on the reviewer’s evaluation, the editors will make the final decision about the publication.
• The Editorial Assistants will standardize the first 2 pages. The Working Paper (WP) is given a number and put on the LIVES WP website in pdf format available for download. When a modified version of the Working Paper is published as a journal article, it will be indicated on the website together with the link to the journal or book where it is published.

Authors' guidelines

• Authors can submit an electronic copy of their paper by using the submission form.
• Submission of all papers must include an abstract (150-350 words), the author/s' name/s, the author/s' affiliation, title, and contact information. Please indicate also whether your paper will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal or whether it is meant to stay a Working Paper (research report, descriptive results). This information will help reviewers to focus their comments accordingly. The preferred language for manuscripts submitted to the LIVES Working Papers is English. Manuscripts in French and German will be considered as well.
• Research and conceptual papers should not be longer than about 10,000 words (including references). For research reports, the text length is more flexible. However, since the LIVES Working Papers will be only distributed in electronic format, we are flexible regarding the number of pages and the use of colors in graphs.
• Authors should use in-text citations rather than footnote citations. General font is Verdana. Additional information on the text can be given in endnotes. Open Document Format, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and Rich Text formats are acceptable.
• Authors keep the copyrights. Modified versions of the Lives Working Papers can therefore be submitted to scientific peer-reviewed journals at any time.
• Once a modified version of the Working Paper is published in a scientific journal, the authors should communicate this to the Editors who will add the sentence: "A revised version of this Working Paper has been published as a journal article and is available under <web address>. Please quote the journal article". The LIVES WP will still remain available online.

Reviewers' guidelines

• The goal of the light review process for a LIVES WP is to avoid publishing papers that are not publishable regarding common scientific standards. Attention shall be paid to:
  1. The general structure of the argumentation in the paper, the interest of the research presented and the relationship with the life course approach
  2. The soundness of the theoretical approach and the state of the art of the literature review
  3. Whether the methodology is appropriate and/or innovative (sampling, data, analysis)
  4. For empirical research papers, whether results are consistently derived and interpreted; for data descriptions and literature review papers, whether they are complete and informative; for methodological papers, whether they propose innovative tools
  5. Language and style
  6. Additional references can be suggested
• In case of rejection, reasons shall be given.