Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) Submission Guidelines

Key Takeaways

• UI's guidelines are series-specific. A UI Brief, a UI Paper and a full report follow different templates, lengths and review paths.
• Most UI output comes from institute researchers and invited external contributors. Outsiders usually start with a short pitch to the programme that covers their topic.
• Editors look for a defined policy problem, traceable sourcing and relevance to Swedish or Nordic decision-makers.
• Swedish-language pieces reach the domestic debate. English-language series reach international policy audiences.
• Confirm the current template, word limit and language with the editorial contact before you write, because UI updates its author instructions.

1. Introduction

The Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska institutet, UI) occupies a narrow but useful position for anyone writing about foreign policy. It is one of the few Swedish institutions whose publications reach diplomats, ministry officials, journalists, teachers and university students through the same channels. Researchers outside Sweden often discover it while looking for a Nordic outlet, then hit a practical problem: UI publishes across several series, in two languages, and there is no single public submissions page that covers all of them.

That gap creates predictable questions. Is unsolicited work welcome? What length does each series expect? Is there peer review? Should a first-time author write in Swedish or English? Who decides, and how long does it take? Authors who guess at the answers waste weeks reformatting a manuscript that was never going to fit the series they picked.

This article explains how UI's publishing works in practice, what its editors expect from a manuscript, how the review process runs, and how UI compares with other think tanks and policy outlets. It is written for researchers, doctoral candidates, practitioners and analysts who want a realistic picture before they send anything.

2. How UI's publishing model works

UI is an independent research institute, not a journal and not a commercial publisher. It was founded in 1938 and works from Stockholm on a government grant supplemented by project funding. Its researchers are organised into programmes covering security policy, European affairs, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, global governance, trade, climate and energy. The institute produces text in Swedish and English, and its output splits between short commentary and longer research-based formats.

That structure shapes the guidelines. Each series has its own template, and the responsible programme has a say in what it commissions. A prospective author therefore faces two questions before any formatting question: which series fits the piece, and which programme owns the topic.

Treat the table as a map rather than a contract. Series names, page limits and scope are revised from time to time, and an editor can tell you in one email what a website page may not.

On authorship, UI's series are written largely by institute researchers, affiliated researchers and experts invited to contribute to a project. Unsolicited proposals do get read, and external academics sometimes join a funded project as co-authors. The practical route in is a short pitch to the programme lead who works on your region or theme, not a completed manuscript sent to a general inbox.

Read three recent pieces from the series you are targeting before you pitch. You will see the house structure quickly: a stated problem, evidence, and an ending that speaks to decision-makers rather than to a literature review.

3. What the editorial team expects in a manuscript

A UI manuscript has to work as analysis for people who make or report on policy. Every factual claim should be traceable, and the argument should be visible in the opening paragraph.

Editors consistently ask for these elements:

• A research question and a stated position. Give the reader your judgment early. A piece that withholds its conclusion until the final page loses most of its policy audience.
• Evidence with named sources. Primary documents, official statistics, treaty texts, parliamentary records, named interviews. Where a source needs protection, say how the material was obtained and why the source is not named.
• Counterarguments and uncertainty. State what would change your conclusion. Policy readers trust a text more when it flags the conditions under which its recommendation fails.
• A Nordic or Swedish hook. Even a study of Sino-Brazilian trade needs a sentence explaining why a Swedish or Nordic reader should care, whether the link is trade exposure, EU negotiation, development cooperation or defence procurement.
• A clean structure. Subheadings, short paragraphs, no jargon that only specialists in one subfield recognise.
• Disclosure. Funding sources, prior publication of related work, institutional affiliation and any conflict of interest belong in the submission, not in a footnote added after review.
• An author note. Current position, relevant publications, and the languages you can be interviewed in. UI promotes its authors to media, so this information gets used.

Language choice matters more than many first-time authors expect. A Swedish-language piece can influence the domestic debate within days and may be quoted in the Riksdag or by Swedish newsrooms. An English-language paper reaches international researchers and EU-level readers but competes with far more publications. If your topic is Sweden's own policy, write in Swedish unless the editor suggests otherwise.

Converting an academic article is a common task, and it usually goes wrong in the same way. A journal article leads with a gap in the literature; a UI Brief leads with a problem facing a government or institution. Cut the literature review to a sentence, move the policy implications from the end to the first page, replace conditional academic phrasing with a direct claim, and keep the evidence. Nothing else about the research needs to change.

Practitioners writing their first policy piece face a different test. Field experience is an asset, and the editor will still ask how you know what you claim. Be ready to explain your sample, your access, and the limits of what you observed.

Avoid advocacy in any series. UI publishes analysis, and a text that reads as a campaign document will be sent back even when the underlying argument is sound. The same applies to forecasts: state a prediction together with the conditions and indicators that would confirm or contradict it.

4. The review and publication process

Expect two to four rounds of editing and a schedule that news events can move. Briefs can be turned around within weeks when a topic is live. Papers and reports run on longer cycles, often two to six months from acceptance to publication, and multi-author reports follow the project's funding calendar.

The usual sequence:

1. Pitch. Send the responsible programme or editorial contact a short proposal: topic, argument in two or three sentences, why it matters now, which series you are aiming at, proposed length, language, and a brief author biography.
2. Editorial decision. The programme assesses fit with its work plan and the current publication schedule. Ask about the expected timeline at this stage rather than later.
3. Draft and review. The assigned editor returns comments. Longer papers may go to an external reader with subject expertise.
4. Revision and fact check. Editors query figures, dates, titles and sourcing. Have your source files ready.
5. Copyedit, layout and proof. You will see a proof, and the request to return corrections within a short window is normal in small editorial teams.
6. Publication and promotion. UI distributes through its website, newsletter, social channels and press contacts. Some pieces are translated, in either direction.

Pitches fall through for a small set of reasons. The topic sits outside a programme's remit. The argument has already appeared in another outlet. There is no Swedish or Nordic angle. The news window has closed. The proposal names no sources. The proposed length does not match the series. Knowing which of these applies saves an author months.

One boundary condition worth stating plainly: UI's own series are editorially reviewed policy publications, not peer-reviewed journal articles. List them accurately on a CV. They carry weight with policy employers, ministries, think tanks and media, and an academic appointments committee may weigh them differently from a journal article.

5. Comparing UI with other outlets

The right outlet depends on the audience you need to reach, not on prestige rankings.

A workable rule: send time-sensitive analysis to a fast outlet, send the deep empirical work to a journal, and send the piece that needs to land with a Nordic decision-maker to UI. The two audiences rarely overlap, and one manuscript can serve both if you rewrite the frame for each.

6. FAQ

Does UI accept unsolicited submissions from authors outside Sweden?

In practice, most UI series are written by institute staff, affiliated researchers and invited experts, and unsolicited proposals are considered when they match a programme's current work. Send a short pitch to the programme lead covering your region or theme before you draft a full manuscript, and ask whether the series is open to external authors at that moment.

Should I write in Swedish or English?

Write in Swedish when your target is the domestic debate, Swedish officials, or Swedish media. Write in English when you want international researchers, EU institutions or a global readership. If the topic sits between the two, ask the editor which series and language the programme can place first.

Is a UI publication peer reviewed?

No. UI's own series go through editorial review, and longer papers may receive comments from an external subject reader. That process improves the text but does not produce the double-blind referee reports that journals issue. Describe a UI Brief or Paper as an editorially reviewed policy publication.

How long should a UI Brief be?

Length limits change with each revision of the author instructions, so confirm the current figure with the editorial contact. As a working habit, write to the argument and cut anything that does not support it. Editors trim padding in every series.

7. Conclusion

UI suits authors who have something specific to say to a Swedish or Nordic policy audience and who can support it with evidence. The institution's value comes from that concentration: a well-argued Brief can reach officials, journalists and teachers who will never read a specialist journal.

Before drafting, identify the programme that owns your topic, read its recent output, and send a pitch that names the series, the length and the language. Confirm the current template rather than relying on a version you found from an earlier year. If your audience sits outside the Nordic region, look at the comparison table and pick the outlet that actually reaches the people you need.