Artificial intelligence (AI) has made many tasks associated with writing a paper – including assembling a literature review, scraping and cleaning online data, designing an empirical model, analyzing data, checking formal models, and presenting results – much easier and more efficient. This technology will likely make it easier for scholars to write a larger number of papers per year. The media is reporting that some scholars are now writing more than 200 papers per year. We recently observed that one scholar submitted six manuscripts to AJPS during 2026 in a four month time period. Other editorial teams we have spoken with have described similar patterns.
This growth in papers will very likely continue to translate into a growth in submissions per scholar. Already, AJPS submissions increased 19% from 2025 to 2026, as measured by mid-year editorial reports. This increase in submissions per scholar presents significant challenges for AJPS and all journals, given the finite resources of the editorial staff and reviewer pool. We and many editors believe that failure to address the submissions growth crisis would present an existential threat to the entire structure of academic journals. Something must be done.
We are announcing a new policy at AJPS that would limit the number of submissions per individual per year, effective immediately. The policy is as follows:
“Individuals are allowed to author or co-author no more than three submissions to AJPS in any twelve month time period. Note that this is a rolling twelve month time period, and not a calendar year. So, if an individual wishes to submit a paper on December 1, 2027, then they can only have submitted at total of two manuscripts since December 2, 2026. Article, correspondence, and research note submissions collectively count towards the submissions limit. The date of submission is the date that the manuscript is first submitted to Editorial Manager. If you are unsure of the dates of your past AJPS submissions, that information is available in your Editorial Manage profile, which you can access by logging in. A scholar’s limit of three applies to all coauthor teams. That is, if a manuscript is coauthored with scholars A, B, and C, it will not be considered for publication if, for example, scholar A submitted three other manuscripts that year with three other, different sets of coauthors. Scholars are not allowed to attempt to circumvent this policy by creating multiple profiles within Editorial Manager (that is, multiple profiles for a single person). Once per calendar year, an individual can request a waiver of the limit, permitting submission of a fourth manuscript. When an authorial team submits a manuscript, they will be required to declare on Editorial Manager that none of the coauthors have submitted more than two manuscripts in the previous 12 month time period.
“This policy is enacted effective November 4, 2026. In the first year of this policy, we will only count those submissions sent in since the beginning date of the policy. That is, we will not count manuscripts submitted before November 4, 2026 towards your three manuscript submission limit. Once the policy has been in place for a year, we will count submissions over the past twelve months.”
We enacted this policy after a series of conversations with the AJPS editorial team, the MPSA executive council, other journal editors, and scholars more broadly.
We offer a few observations about the new AJPS policy.
- There are several possible policy approaches to addressing the submission volume crisis. This submissions cap policy is only a first step, and in the future, additional measures will likely need to be taken.
- As an empirical matter, we are unaware of any examples over the last several years of a single scholar publishing more than three articles at AJPS in a single 12 month time period. That is, it is challenging to author a manuscript appropriate for publication in AJPS, and in the past no one has published more than three per year, meaning that this policy is very unlikely to prevent the publication of AJPS appropriate content.
- Some may believe that this policy discriminates against large labs managing major research efforts. The concern is that such labs generate large numbers of manuscripts, and each of those manuscripts is likely to have at least one common coauthor, such as the lab director. We do not believe that even major labs are likely to produce more than three AJPS appropriate manuscripts per year. For labs (or scholars) producing several manuscripts per year, we hope this policy provides incentives to make realistic assessments of their manuscripts, submitting to AJPS only those manuscripts that provide a genuine fit for AJPS, and sending other manuscripts to journals that are the best fit for them. We note that in recognition of this concern, we permit scholars once per year to request to submit a fourth manuscript.
We thank all of you for being members of the AJPS community, as authors, reviewers, and readers.