Section policy
The purpose of papers in this section is to focus on “transformation knowledge” and present practice-oriented research aimed at coping with development challenges in mountain regions, or well-researched and validated development and policy experiences, exploring the transferability of these experiences across mountain contexts. Papers should present innovative development approaches and development recommendations for policy, decision-making and practice, and be embedded in the relevant national or international debate.

Papers should be well researched and documented; results should be presented based on sound facts, and scientific procedures and well-founded arguments. Work in progress can also be presented, offering exploratory data even if based on incomplete datasets and hypotheses still to be fully verified.

Papers should address a multi-disciplinary community of development-oriented researchers, policy-makers, decision-makers, project planners, and people in educational institutions. Papers will be reviewed by two experts who have an academic and development background.

Review questions for MountainDevelopment papers

1. Content

• Is the paper a unique/important/useful contribution to the relevant national/international debate?
• Are new research insights presented for a mountain development/policy community?
• Are innovative development approaches/methods presented?
• Is the validation of the approach/method presented (eg systematically assessed experiences; validation through the communities concerned, etc)?
• Is the approach/method transferable to other mountain regions?
• Are there useful and convincing recommendations regarding the transfer of the approach/method to other mountain regions?
• Are insights into the knowledge production/sharing process among different stakeholders presented?
• Do the references point to key papers (academic, policy, development) and are they adequate?

2. Methods

• Is the work sound from the point of view of concept and method?
• Are the research methods comprehensible for an audience of practitioners and policy-makers?

3. Structure

• Is the paper concise and well structured?
• Are the title, abstract, and keywords appropriate?
• Are the figures, tables, maps, etc relevant and accurate?