Verfassungsblog: Submit an Article or Propose a Symposium or Book on Constitutional Law (Open Access, Articles up to 2,000 Words) (Rolling Submissions)

Verfassungsblog is a discourse platform and forum of debate for constitutionalists in Europe and beyond, operated by Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH in Berlin. It describes itself as an interface between the scholarly expert discourse and the public demand for informed opinion on topical matters of constitutional law and policy. Since 2011 it has hosted debates on issues such as constitutional decline in EU member states, regional separatism in Scotland and Catalonia, and European constitutional courts.

Content receives a DOI and is archived in the intRechtDok open access repository (ISSN 2366-7044).

• Submit an article: single blog posts on topical questions of constitutional law and policy, sent to the editors by email.
• Propose a symposium or book: Verfassungsblog hosts online symposia on topical events and developments in legislation and jurisdiction. Each symposium or volume consists of 10 to 15 concise contributions, first published as a blog symposium and later compiled into an open access digital edition and a print-on-demand book (a Verfassungsbook). Proposals use the official proposal form.

The call is open: Verfassungsblog states that it welcomes article submissions and addresses constitutionalists “in Europe and beyond”, with no nationality or institutional restriction, so authors from India may submit.

Conflict of interest policy: Verfassungsblog does not publish articles by individuals directly involved in the topic in a legal, representative or advisory capacity (for example lawyers or employees of associations or interest groups), nor by academics who advised a party involved in the matter. Authors who have been professionally involved should contact the editors before submitting.

• Length: 1,500 words recommended; posts beyond 2,000 words will probably be sent back for shortening.
• Thesis first: set out a clear, sharp thesis in the first paragraph, then contextualise, justify and defend it.
• Title and subtitle: a short title (50 characters max) and a descriptive subtitle (100 characters max), without punctuation, dashes, italics or bold.
• Subheadings: short, regular, without numbering or punctuation; do not start the text with a subheading.
• References: hyperlinks (with DOIs for scholarly works where available) to open access sources; footnotes only in exceptional cases; cite judgments by paragraph or page in parentheses.
• Typography: double curly quotation marks, italics for emphasis, and avoid bullet points.

Verfassungsblog rejects submissions with generic, AI-typical phrasing and does not give individual feedback on such rejections. Authors who used AI tools must disclose the scope and method of that use (grammatical proofreading, sentence-level editing, shortening or summarisation, or generating arguments or content). This disclosure is a required part of the submission and a precondition for editorial review.

Each submission is reviewed by Verfassungsblog’s editors and, where necessary, by Advisory Board members. Symposium and book proposals are reviewed by at least one Advisory Board member. Submissions must be original; authors must disclose prior publication or parallel review. Content is published open access under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, with authors retaining copyright.

Articles: no charge. Verfassungsblog states that its publishing services are financed through institutional membership “without charges for authors and readers”.

Edited volumes (Verfassungsbooks): Verfassungsblog states that it needs to charge EUR 6,000 per edited volume, ideally covered by editors through research grants or university open access funds. Editors without the financial means are still encouraged to propose, and Verfassungsblog says it will try to help secure funding for books it wants to publish.

Articles: send the text as a text document to submission@verfassungsblog.de, with the AI-use disclosure. For end-to-end encrypted communication, use confidential@verfassungsblog.de with the public key given in the submission guidelines. Before publication you will be asked for a licence-free picture and a one or two sentence bio giving your affiliation only.

Symposia and books: complete the official proposal form (editor details, abstract of up to 150 words, outline of up to 500 words, structure, contributors, readership, timeline and funding) and send it to submission@verfassungsblog.de.

The submission pages state no closing date: this is a standing invitation, so submissions can be sent at any time.