International Journal of Intercultural Relations: Scopus, Scope & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is the International Journal of Intercultural Relations?

International Journal of Intercultural Relations is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal published by Elsevier and described as the official publication of the International Academy for Intercultural Research. It publishes research on intercultural relations, especially work involving acculturation, integration, intergroup relations, and intercultural communication.

The journal is relevant to researchers in psychology, communication, education, management, sociology, and related disciplines when their work focuses directly on intercultural processes. Its official guide makes theoretical grounding especially important: a manuscript should connect to intercultural adaptation, communication, or learning rather than merely include an international sample or compare countries.

IJIR is indexed in Scopus and SSCI according to Elsevier. Before submission, check the live author guide, the current Scopus source record, the latest journal metrics, and recent IJIR papers closest to your topic and method.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Elsevier; official publication of the International Academy for Intercultural Research.
• Scopus: Indexed; supplied Source ID 15496. Print ISSN 0147-1767; online ISSN 1873-7552.
• Scope: Intercultural processes, especially acculturation/integration, intergroup relations, and intercultural communication.
• Article types: Empirical research, reviews, full-length papers, brief reports/Short Communications, and Registered Reports.
• Peer review: Double anonymized; suitable papers are typically reviewed by at least two independent reviewers.
• Formatting anchors: abstract up to 250 words, 1–6 English keywords, APA 7 references, editable source files, and separate title page/anonymized manuscript.
• Publication model: Hybrid. Elsevier lists an OA APC of USD 3,490 excluding taxes; the subscription route has no author publication fee.
• Fit test: A strong manuscript should study an intercultural process and make its theoretical contribution explicit.

Journal Information at a Glance

Metrics are best treated as dated indicators rather than permanent journal characteristics. If a university requires a specific Scopus quartile or JCR category, save evidence from the applicable database and reporting year rather than relying on an undated web summary.

What This Page Covers

• IJIR aims, scope, subject areas, and recent research themes
• Scopus, SSCI, citation metrics, SJR, SNIP, and category quartiles
• Article types and manuscript word limits
• Abstract, keyword, file, anonymization, reference, and language requirements
• Double-anonymized peer review and current journal-level timeline indicators
• Open-access choices, APCs, and subscription publication
• Ethics, authorship, competing interests, research data, and generative-AI disclosure
• A practical fit framework, pre-submission checklist, and ethical publication-readiness support

Methodology and Sources

This profile was prepared primarily from the official journal homepage, the official Guide for Authors, Elsevier’s journal insights and editorial-board pages, the supplied Scopus source profile, and institutional journal browsers that report Scopus-derived SJR/SNIP/category metrics. The online ISSN was cross-checked through the ISSN Portal.

Journal metrics, fees, editorial teams, database coverage, and submission policies can change. Values on this page are therefore tied to the information available when this article was prepared on 10 August 2026, and authors should reconfirm live requirements before submission.

Understanding IJIR Aims and Scope

IJIR’s defining requirement is a focus on intercultural processes. The official scope says the journal advances knowledge of theory, research, and practice in intercultural relations and specifically mentions immigrant acculturation and integration, intergroup relations, and intercultural communication. It also states that publishable manuscripts should be grounded in theories of intercultural adaptation, communication, or learning.

That wording is useful for journal selection because it distinguishes a genuinely intercultural paper from work that is only internationally located. A study conducted in two countries is not automatically an IJIR paper. The manuscript should explain the cultural or intercultural mechanism being studied, identify the relevant theoretical framework, and show why the findings matter for intercultural relations.

Disciplines and applications

The journal offers an interdisciplinary forum spanning psychology, communication, education, management, sociology, and related disciplines. It prioritizes work that links theory and research with applications in education, health, social welfare, organizational settings, and community development.

Representative topics that may fit

Based on the official scope, potentially relevant themes include:

• immigrant acculturation, adaptation, and integration
• intercultural competence and intercultural learning
• intergroup attitudes, prejudice, discrimination, and contact
• refugee and migrant inclusion
• identity negotiation in multicultural settings
• intercultural communication in education or organizations
• cross-cultural adjustment among international students or workers
• social support and psychological adaptation after migration
• multicultural youth development
• policy attitudes toward migrants or refugees
• cultural transmission across generations
• intergroup emotions and social cohesion

This is a guidance list, not an official exhaustive topic list. A manuscript that focuses mainly on general management, national culture scores, language learning, or international business without a clear intercultural-process question may require a stronger fit argument or a different journal.

Understanding Its Scopus Coverage and Journal Metrics

Elsevier lists IJIR as indexed in Scopus and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). The supplied Scopus Source ID is 15496. Elsevier also identifies subject areas of Sociology and Political Science, Social Psychology, and Business and International Management.

For PhD or promotion decisions, “the journal is Q1” is too imprecise. Record the database, year, and subject category required by your institution. Category-specific quartiles and citation indicators can change between reporting cycles.

Publisher and Editorial Leadership

IJIR is published by Elsevier and hosted on ScienceDirect. The journal identifies itself as the official publication of the International Academy for Intercultural Research. That relationship is academically relevant because the journal is explicitly positioned around intercultural research rather than as a generic social-science title.

The official editorial-board page lists Seth Schwartz of The University of Texas at Austin as Editor-in-Chief. It also shows associate and assistant editors and an international board distributed across multiple countries and regions. Editorial membership can change, so authors should use the live board page rather than relying on a saved list when identifying the current editor.

Article Types and Word Limits

The official author guide accepts empirical research and reviews, with both full-length papers and brief reports. It also accepts Registered Reports.

• Full-length articles: up to 8,000 words.
• Review articles: up to 10,000 words.
• Brief reports: up to 3,000 words and submitted as a Short Communication.
• Registered Reports: reviewed in two phases, with rationale and methods evaluated before the research is undertaken.

The journal states that these word counts exclude tables, figures, and references. Choosing the correct article type matters: compressing a full study into a brief report or submitting a narrative review without enough synthesis can create avoidable editorial friction.

Who Should Consider Submitting to IJIR?

IJIR may suit researchers whose central research question concerns interaction, adaptation, communication, learning, identity, or intergroup dynamics across cultural boundaries. Academic seniority is less important than conceptual fit. A well-designed postgraduate or early-career study can be relevant if it makes a clear theoretical and empirical contribution within the journal’s scope.

Journal-fit checklist

• Does the paper study an intercultural process rather than merely an international setting?
• Is the theoretical framing connected to intercultural adaptation, communication, learning, or closely related theory?
• Does IJIR publish the article type you have prepared?
• Do recent IJIR papers use comparable populations, concepts, or methods?
• Can you explain why IJIR readers should care about the result?
• Does the contribution extend theory, evidence, practice, or methodology in intercultural relations?
• Can you meet the word limit, anonymization, ethical, and reference requirements?

Recent Research Themes in IJIR

Recent ScienceDirect listings show the journal publishing research on immigration policy preferences, post-migration sexual health, acculturative stress among multicultural adolescents, discrimination and secessionist attitudes, refugee policy support, intercultural behavioral intentions among university students, cultural-transmission motives among immigrants, and social support and psychological adaptation among international students.

Recent special collections have also addressed intergroup emotions and immigration, Venezuelan migration and inclusion, relationships across non-WEIRD contexts, and the longer-term influence of intercultural COVID research. These examples reinforce the journal’s mix of social psychology, migration, communication, education, and applied intercultural questions. As a practical fit step, compare your paper with several recent articles—not to imitate them, but to check whether your question, theoretical framing, and methodological approach speak to the same research community.

Manuscript Preparation Requirements

The IJIR Guide for Authors contains several concrete requirements that should shape the manuscript before submission.

Files and anonymization

Elsevier asks for editable source files. Word submissions should use .doc or .docx and a single-column layout; LaTeX is also accepted. PDF is not accepted as the manuscript source file. Because IJIR uses double-anonymized review, the title page and anonymized manuscript are provided separately.

The title page includes the article title, author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, declaration of interest, and corresponding-author contact details. The anonymized manuscript contains the main paper, references, figures, and tables but should not reveal author identities or affiliations.

Abstract, keywords, highlights, and language

• Abstract: concise and factual, maximum 250 words.
• Keywords: 1–6 in English.
• Highlights: encouraged and should capture novel results or methods.
• Language: use American or British English consistently, not a mixture.

Structure and reporting

The author guide asks for clearly defined sections. The introduction should state the study objectives without becoming a detailed literature summary. Methods should be detailed enough to support reproducibility, including citations to established methods and descriptions of modifications.

References

Citations follow APA Seventh Edition. The reference list is arranged alphabetically and then chronologically. Elsevier encourages DOI links and asks authors to verify bibliographic data carefully so references can link correctly to indexing services.

Contributor and disclosure information

The guide requires corresponding authors to acknowledge co-author contributions using CRediT roles. Authors must also complete competing-interest declarations and provide funding information. Appropriate ethics approval, consent, and data statements should be included when relevant to the study.

How to Submit a Manuscript to IJIR

Submission is handled through Elsevier’s online submission workflow linked from the official journal page. The safest route is to use the current Guide for Authors and select “Submit your article,” rather than relying on a bookmarked third-party submission URL.

1. Confirm that the manuscript is within IJIR’s intercultural scope and select the correct article type.
2. Prepare the title page and anonymized manuscript separately.
3. Check word limits, abstract length, keywords, references, figures, tables, declarations, and supplementary files.
4. Enter author and affiliation details accurately in the submission system.
5. Upload editable manuscript files and all required declarations/materials.
6. Review the submission checklist and confirm all authors approve the submission.

The journal’s checklist also requires full contact details for the corresponding author, complete file upload, grammar/spelling checks, consistency between in-text citations and the reference list, and permissions for third-party copyrighted material.

What Happens After You Submit a Manuscript?

IJIR uses a double-anonymized peer-review process. Editors first assess whether a submission is suitable for the journal. If it passes that stage, the guide says it will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for independent expert assessment. Editors make the final acceptance or rejection decision.

Elsevier’s journal insights currently report 16 days to first decision, 93 days to a decision after review, 224 days from submission to acceptance, and 12 days from acceptance to online publication. These are descriptive journal-level indicators, not guaranteed timelines for a specific paper. Reviewer availability, revision rounds, manuscript complexity, and editorial handling can all affect an individual case.

The journal also allows formal appeals that meet Elsevier’s appeal-policy requirements. For special issues, guest editors may coordinate reviews and recommend decisions, but the journal editor retains oversight and responsibility for the final decision.

Publication Ethics, Authorship, and Generative AI

IJIR directs authors to Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics Policy. Submission implies that the work is not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere and has not been published previously except in permitted forms such as a preprint, abstract, lecture, thesis, or registered report.

Authorship should reflect substantial contributions to the research and manuscript, final approval, and accountability. The journal expects the definitive author list at original submission and generally does not consider authorship changes casually after submission.

Authors must disclose financial and personal competing interests. The guide also includes a declaration requirement for generative-AI use. As a publication-readiness principle, any AI-assisted drafting or editing should be checked for accuracy, originality, confidentiality, correct citation, and compliance with the current Elsevier policy. AI tools cannot be treated as accountable authors.

For research involving people, sensitive communities, or potentially stigmatizing comparisons, ethical approval and informed consent should be documented as applicable. Inclusive language is explicitly encouraged by Elsevier. Intercultural research also benefits from careful terminology that avoids treating cultural groups as fixed or homogeneous without theoretical justification.

Open Access, APCs, and Publication Fees

IJIR is a hybrid journal: authors can choose open-access publication or the subscription route. Elsevier currently lists an open-access Article Publishing Charge of USD 3,490 excluding taxes. The amount may be reduced through institutional agreements or other applicable arrangements during submission.

For the subscription route, Elsevier states that no publication fee is charged to authors and the article is immediately available to subscribers. This distinction matters: an APC is linked to the open-access option, not to permission to undergo peer review or to the probability of acceptance. Always verify the live fee immediately before choosing a publication route.

How to Prepare a Stronger, Journal-Aligned Manuscript

A journal-aligned manuscript starts with conceptual fit rather than formatting. For IJIR, the introduction should make the intercultural process visible early: what cultural groups, contexts, identities, adaptation mechanisms, communication processes, or intergroup dynamics are being studied, and why does the chosen theory explain them?

1. Read recent IJIR papers. Check how authors frame intercultural mechanisms, theory, sampling, and social implications.
2. Make the theory operational. Do not mention acculturation, identity, contact, or communication theory only in the literature review; show how it informs hypotheses, variables, qualitative questions, analysis, and interpretation.
3. Explain cultural context carefully. Describe sampling, migration history, language, setting, and group definitions needed to interpret the study without stereotyping populations.
4. Strengthen methods transparency. Provide enough detail for independent understanding and, where appropriate, reproducibility.
5. Connect findings to intercultural relations. A statistically significant result is not enough if the discussion does not explain its theoretical or applied relevance to IJIR readers.
6. Respect the anonymization workflow. Remove author-identifying material from the blinded manuscript and keep acknowledgements on the title page.
7. Check APA 7 and source accuracy. Every cited work should appear in the reference list and vice versa; verify DOIs and publication details.

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

The journal does not publish a public rejection-reasons table, so the following is practical publication guidance rather than an official IJIR rejection taxonomy. A manuscript is at higher risk of poor fit when the intercultural component is peripheral, the theoretical basis is vague, the article type or word limit is wrong, methods do not support the claims, or the paper does not explain what it contributes to intercultural research.

Other avoidable problems include identifying information in the anonymized file, inconsistent references, missing declarations, unclear English, unsupported generalizations about cultural groups, or a discussion that overstates causality. Correcting presentation cannot compensate for a weak study design, but strong preparation helps editors and reviewers evaluate the research on its merits.

Practical IJIR Submission Scenarios

1. Strong scope match: a longitudinal study of discrimination, contact and migrant acculturation has clear intercultural theory and should next be checked against recent IJIR papers and the correct article type.
2. Weak scope match: a multinational employee-productivity study with no culture, identity, adaptation or communication mechanism may fit a management journal better.
3. Formatting problem: a 9,200-word empirical paper with a 340-word abstract and author details in the main file needs correction to the journal’s 8,000-word, 250-word and anonymization rules.
4. ESL manuscript: sound intercultural findings obscured by inconsistent language may benefit from editing for clarity without changing the author’s analysis.
5. Major revision: answer reviewers point by point, identify exact changes and provide evidence for any respectful disagreement.

Pre-Submission Checklist for IJIR

Planning to Submit Your Research to IJIR?

Preparing for IJIR involves more than correcting grammar. The manuscript needs a defensible intercultural research question, appropriate theoretical grounding, clear methods, a contribution that matters to the journal’s readership, correct anonymization, APA-style references, and complete declarations.

Contentxprtz can support journal-scope alignment review, manuscript assessment, academic editing, proofreading, journal formatting, reference consistency, title and abstract refinement, cover-letter editing, reviewer-response editing, and publication-readiness checks. Explore journal publication support if you want help preparing your own research for a clearer and more compliant submission.

Contentxprtz does not control editorial decisions and does not guarantee journal acceptance or publication. The purpose of professional support is to help authors present their work clearly, accurately, ethically, and in line with applicable journal requirements.

Summary: International Journal of Intercultural Relations

International Journal of Intercultural Relations is an Elsevier journal centered on intercultural processes and associated theory, empirical research, and applied implications. It is the official publication of the International Academy for Intercultural Research, is indexed in Scopus and SSCI, and uses double-anonymized peer review.

The journal accepts full-length empirical articles, reviews, brief reports/Short Communications, and Registered Reports. Key preparation rules include the 8,000-word full-article limit, 10,000-word review limit, 3,000-word brief-report limit, 250-word abstract limit, 1–6 English keywords, APA 7 references, editable source files, and separate identifying/anonymized files.

Elsevier currently lists a USD 3,490 open-access APC excluding taxes, while subscription publication has no author publication fee. Before submitting, verify the live Scopus/JCR metrics, current fee, editorial information, and author instructions. The strongest reason to select IJIR remains substantive fit: the paper should make a clear contribution to understanding intercultural adaptation, communication, learning, or closely related intercultural relations.

Conclusion: Choose IJIR for Intercultural Fit, Not Indexing Alone

IJIR is most relevant when intercultural relations are the intellectual center of the manuscript. Its multidisciplinary audience can accommodate psychological, communication, educational, sociological, management, migration, and community perspectives, but the paper should still articulate a clear intercultural process and theoretical contribution.

Before submission, confirm the latest Guide for Authors, Scopus record, JCR information, open-access fee, and editorial details. Then check the manuscript against recent IJIR research and the journal’s concrete preparation rules. Optional professional editing or publication-readiness support can improve clarity and compliance, but authors remain responsible for their research and the journal alone decides acceptance.