How to submit to JEI (2026)

Key facts

Full name

Journal of Emerging Investigators

Kind

Journal

Field

All sciences (middle and high-school authors)

Submissions

Rolling

Template

Get the JEI manuscript template

On Lumina

$149 per paper

Deadlines

JEI publishes no submission deadline. Pick your own target date and the roadmap counts back from it. Note the mentor step is a hard requirement here, not a suggestion.

As recorded in Lumina's venue data on 9 September 2026; confirm on the venue's site.

Formatting and submission rules

• An adult must submit the manuscript. A teacher, mentor, or lab PI submits on the student's behalf; the student author may not submit their own work
• Must use JEI's own manuscript template — submissions not on the template are returned unread
• One manuscript per student author in the system at a time
• $49 submission fee, charged at submission. Fee waivers are available on request through the submission checklist page
• Human subjects or vertebrate animal research requires additional documents at submission
• Submitted through the Editorial Manager platform
• All contributing students are authors, ordered by contribution, largest first

A roadmap that counts back from the deadline

JEI has no fixed deadline, so pick your own target date; each step counts back from it.

1. 12 weeks beforeFix the question and the claim

   One sentence: what you tested and what would have proved you wrong. Check the journal actually publishes your field.

2. 11 weeks beforeGather approvals and paperwork

   Human subjects or vertebrate animals mean extra forms at submission. Get them now: you cannot obtain consent or approval after the fact, and it is the most common reason a finished student paper cannot be published.

3. 10 weeks beforeBackground reading

   8-15 sources you can actually cite. Two lines each on what they found and how yours differs.

4. 9 weeks beforeWrite Methods while you remember them

   Enough detail that another student could repeat it: quantities, models, settings, dates, how many trials.

5. 8 weeks beforeResults and figures

   Every figure needs a caption that stands alone. State the test you ran and the exact numbers, not just "significant".

6. 7 weeks beforeFull draft on the venue template

   Start from the journal template rather than reformatting later. Section order is fixed and reordering a finished draft is where students lose a weekend.

7. 2 weeks beforeMentor read

   A teacher or mentor reads it end to end. Some journals require an adult to submit on the student's behalf, so this is a hard dependency, not advice.

8. 1 week beforeFormat pass against the venue rules

   Page cap, abstract word count, section order, citation style, file formats. These are machine-checkable and they are what gets a student paper desk-rejected.

9. Deadline weekSubmit

   Upload through the journal's system, pay or request a waiver for any fee, and keep the confirmation.

What Lumina does for a JEI submission

Venue Fit checks that JEI is the right target for the paper. The Guided Builder writes it in JEI's format, the Manuscript Audit re-checks the statistics and the claims the way a reviewer would, the Submission Checklist runs the venue's rules before you upload, and deadline reminders keep the roadmap above honest. Every tool needs a free account; preparing a paper for JEI is $149, paid once per paper.

Format your paper for JEI — free to start See the roadmap

Questions

Lumina is not affiliated with Journal of Emerging Investigators; submission decisions are the venue's alone.

Other venues

All venues →NeurIPSICLRICMLCVPRACLAAAIarXivIEEESpringerElsevierNHSJSPSHSJ