This journal is not accepting submissions at this time.
Author Guidelines
Who can submit. JYSR welcomes STEM research by students currently enrolled in high school, an undergraduate program, or community college (or graduated within the past six months, for work completed while enrolled). Authors must be at least 13 years old. Authors under 18 must include a signed parent/guardian consent form (PDF), uploaded with the manuscript.
What we publish. JYSR publishes original or mostly original research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, including experimental, computational, theoretical and observational work. Full literature reviews are not accepted. Replications and extensions of previous work are welcome if the manuscript says clearly what was built on or recreated and what is new.
Requirements for every submission
The editor checks these before a manuscript goes to peer review. A submission that does not meet them is returned without review.
Original work, clearly stated. Any building on, extending or recreating previous work is stated in the introduction and cited.
Signed Authorship & Integrity Statement. Every student author signs and uploads the JYSR Authorship & Integrity Statement, confirming the work is their own.
Minimal, disclosed AI use. AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) may not be used to create any text, figures, analysis or results. Minimal use, such as explaining a concept or definition or helping debug code you wrote, is allowed but must be described in an AI-use statement in the Acknowledgements. If no AI was used, say so.
Data and code availability. Include a statement saying where your data and code can be found, or that they are available on reasonable request. Public repositories such as GitHub or Zenodo are encouraged. Data about people must be de-identified.
Sound method. A clear research question or hypothesis, methods appropriate to it, and conclusions supported by the evidence. Methods must be described in enough detail for someone else to repeat the work.
Ethics approvals. Work involving human participants (including surveys), vertebrate animals or hazardous materials must follow the applicable rules and approvals, described in the methods.
No prior publication. The work is not published in, or under review at, another journal. Preprints (for example on arXiv or bioRxiv) and science fair entries are fine.
Format
Length: 4–10 pages of main text and figures. References and appendices do not count toward the limit.
Layout: single column, 11 or 12 pt font, 1-inch (2.5 cm) margins, US Letter or A4, submitted as PDF (Word or LaTeX source may be requested after acceptance).
Required sections, in this order: Title; Abstract (up to 250 words); Introduction; Data and Methods; Results; Discussion, including a Limitations subsection; Conclusion; Acknowledgements, including three labeled statements (author contributions, AI-use statement, and data and code availability); and References, in any one consistent style (BibTeX author–year, APA or MLA).
Anonymize for review: do not put author, school or mentor names in the manuscript; enter them in the submission form. In the Acknowledgements, replace identifying names with "[removed for review]".
Templates: start from our Word template or LaTeX template (a .zip you can upload directly to Overleaf). Both already have this layout and these sections.
Figures and tables must be made by the authors, numbered, captioned and labeled with units. Report uncertainties or error bars and sample sizes where they apply.
Authorship and mentors
Teams of up to four students may submit together, and a student must be first author. Adult mentors may be co-authors only if they contributed. Every manuscript includes a short contribution statement describing who did what.
A mentor is strongly recommended. Give your mentor's name and contact details on the Authorship & Integrity Statement; we may email them to confirm your role in the work. If you did the work without a current mentor, upload an independent research statement (up to one page) explaining how you learned the methods and carried out the work. If you are extending work you did earlier with a mentor, name that mentor and project and explain what is new. For these submissions, the editor may ask for working files (such as code history, a lab notebook or raw data) or a short video call.
How manuscripts are evaluated
Manuscripts that meet the requirements are reviewed by at least one professional referee, who scores each of the following from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) and explains each score:
Criterion
What referees ask
Originality & significance
Does the work contribute something new, even modestly?
Rigor
Are the methods and statistics sound, and are the claims backed by the evidence?
Clarity
Could a reader in the field follow the work and reproduce it?
Context
Is prior work cited accurately, and is the contribution placed in context?
Student insight
Does the student show real understanding, for example in the limitations and the interpretation of results?
As a guide, accepted manuscripts average about 3.5 or higher with no score of 1. Scores inform the decision, but the final decision rests with the editors.
Review and timing. Every submission is first screened by an editor. Manuscripts that pass screening are reviewed by at least one professional referee: a scholar pursuing or holding a PhD in a related field. We aim to reach a first decision within 4–8 weeks.
Fees.
$25 submission fee, due at submission. Before you submit, pay the submission fee via PayPal and keep your PayPal transaction ID; you will enter it in the "Comments for the Editor" box during submission. Submissions without a valid transaction ID will not be screened. This fee is non-refundable, except in exceptional circumstances at the editors' discretion.
$150 publication fee, due only after acceptance and before publication.
Publication fee scholarships are available for authors with financial need, but are extremely limited. To apply, contact us after acceptance with either a brief statement of financial need or proof of eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunch (college students may instead show Pell Grant eligibility).
If you withdraw before paying the publication fee, you owe nothing further.
The publication fee is non-refundable once your article is published. It is refunded in full if we do not publish within 60 days of payment.
Submission Preparation Checklist
All submissions must meet the following requirements.
All authors are enrolled in high school, an undergraduate program, or community college (or graduated within six months), and are at least 13.
The manuscript reports original or mostly original research (not a literature review), and clearly states any previous work it builds on, extends or recreates.
Either a mentor is named on the Authorship & Integrity Statement, or an independent research statement is uploaded.
No AI tool created any text, figures, analysis or results, and the Acknowledgements include an AI-use statement (or state that no AI was used).
The manuscript includes a data and code availability statement, a limitations section and a contribution statement, and a student is first author.
The main text and figures are 4–10 pages, single column, 11–12 pt font, 1-inch margins.
The work has not been published in, and is not under review at, another journal.
I understand that the $25 submission fee is non-refundable except in exceptional circumstances, that a $150 publication fee is due only upon acceptance, and that publication fee scholarships are extremely limited.
I have read and agree to the Terms of Service (and, for authors under 18, a parent or guardian has agreed on my behalf).
Articles
Section default policy
Copyright Notice
Authors retain copyright and grant JYSR the right of first publication, with the work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This allows others to share and adapt the work with credit to the authors and JYSR.
Privacy Statement
Privacy Statement
The Journal of Youth Scientific Research (JYSR) collects only the personal information needed to review, publish, and administer submitted research. This statement explains what we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have.
What we collect
Account and contact information: names, email addresses, school or institutional affiliation, and country of authors, reviewers, and editors.
Submission materials: manuscripts, supplementary files, contribution statements, and mentor or sponsor contact information.
Consent records: parent/guardian consent forms for authors under 18, including the parent or guardian's name and contact information.
Payment records: whether a fee was paid, covered by a scholarship, or refunded. Payments are handled by a third-party payment processor; JYSR does not receive or store card or bank account numbers.
Scholarship applications: if you apply for a publication fee scholarship, the statement of need or proof of eligibility (such as free or reduced-price lunch or Pell Grant eligibility) you provide. It is used only to decide the application, is seen only by the editors handling it, and is deleted once a decision is made.
Basic site data: cookies needed to keep you logged in, and anonymized usage statistics (such as article views and downloads).
How we use it
We use this information only to operate the journal: to manage submissions, conduct editorial screening and peer review, communicate with authors, guardians, and reviewers, process fees and scholarship applications, and publish accepted articles. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising or share it with third parties for their own marketing.
Who can see it
Editors and the referees assigned to a manuscript can see the submission and the information needed to review it.
If an article is published, the authors' names, affiliations, and the article itself become public, as is standard for open-access research. Email addresses, ages, consent forms, mentor contact details, and payment records are never published.
We may disclose information if required by law.
Authors under 18
Authors must be at least 13 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; if we learn that we have, we will delete it. Submissions from authors under 18 require a signed parent/guardian consent form, and a parent or guardian may contact us at any time to review, correct, or request deletion of their child's information.
Retention and your choices
We keep submission and account records for as long as needed to operate the journal and maintain the scholarly record. You may ask to see, correct, or delete your personal information at any time. Published articles generally remain public as part of the scholarly record, but we will consider correction or removal requests in line with our editorial policies.
Contact
Questions or requests about your information can be sent to [email protected].
We may update this statement as the journal develops; the current version is always posted here. Last updated: October 2026.
