Lighting Research & Technology
The aspects of light and lighting addressed by papers published in Lighting Research & Technology range from human responses to light to the generation, control and measurement of light. It covers lighting design for interior and exterior environments, as well as daylighting, energy efficiency and sustainability.
The journal publishes eight issues a year with around 60 peer reviewed papers published annually.
The journal has been published continuously since 1969. It is recommended by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE), and is included in the ISI Science Certification Index Expanded.
The Editorial Board is keen to consider work dealing with research studies, in-depth reviews, case-studies describing innovative design and discussion papers concerned with all aspects of light and lighting and its related topics.
The overall aim is to help improve our knowledge of the subject and hence the quality of the lit environment.
LR&T is essential reading for everyone involved with the subject of light and lighting, from the new student to the experienced practitioner, from the university academic to the industry technologist and specialist designers.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
| Teresa Goodman BSc ARCS CPhys MInstP FSLL | National Physical Laboratory, UK |
| Stephen A. Fotios BEng PhD CEng MEI FSLL MILP | School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, UK |
| Myriam Aries MSc, PhD | Jönköping University, Sweden |
| Dorukalp Durmus | Pennsylvania State University, USA |
| Teresa Goodman BSc ARCS CPhys MInstP FSLL | National Physical Laboratory, UK |
| John Mardaljevic BSc (Hons) Mphil PhD FSLL FIBPSA | Loughborough University, UK |
| Peter Thorns BSc (Hons) CEng FCIBSE FSLL | Zumtobel, UK |
| Elisa Belloni, PhD | University of Perugia, Department of Engineering, Perugia, Italy |
| Peter Boyce PhD FIESNA FSLL | Independent Consultant, UK |
| Dr Eleonora Brembilla, PhD | Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Technical University Delft, Netherlands |
| Iain Carlisle MSc MEng (Hons) MIET FSLL | DPA Lighting Consultants London, UK |
| Dr Kynthia Chamilothori, PhD | Human Technology Interaction Group, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands |
| Juliëtte van Duijnhoven, PhD, MSc, BSc | Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands |
| Brendan Keely BEng (HONS) MSC FSLL | CIBSE, UK |
| Yukio Akashi PhD | University of Fukui, Japan |
| Prof Cláudia Naves Amorim DsC | Universidade de Brasília, Brazil |
| Elisa Colombo PhD | Universidad Nacional de Tucuman, Argentina |
| Christopher Cuttle MA PhD FCIBSE FIESANZ FIESNA FSLL | Independent Consultant, NZ, New Zealand |
| Stanislav Darula MBdgSc PhD MSCCE MSLS | Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia |
| Dominique Dumortier PhD | Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'Etat, France |
| Prof Liisa Halonen DSc | Helskini University of Technology, Finland |
| Valéry Ann Jacobs PhD | Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium |
| Prof Warren G. Julian MSc(Arch) PhD BE BSc DipBdgSc LFIES | University of Sydney, Australia |
| Martine Knoop PhD | Technical University of Berlin, Germany |
| Ciji Pearl Kurian PhD | Manipal Institute of Technology, India |
| Mojtaba Navvab PhD FIESNA | University of Michigan, USA |
| Prof Edward Ng PhD | Hong Kong University, Hong Kong |
| Ashish Pandharipande | Signify, The Netherlands |
| Prof Mark S. Rea PhD FIES LC | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA |
| Prof Stephan Völker PhD | Technical University of Berlin, Germany |
| Jennifer Veitch BSc BA MA PhD MIESNA NRC | NRC Institute for Research in Construction, Canada |
| Prof He Xu PE | Academy of Building Research, Beijing, China |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Lighting Research & Technology
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lrt to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Lighting Research & Technology will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Ethics approval
2.7 Consent to participate
2.8 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving
3.4 The use of Artificial Intelligence for preparing manuscripts - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services
4.6 Advice to authors when revising their paper - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Lighting Research & Technology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Contributions usually take one of the following forms:
- Original Research Article: papers describing original theoretical, laboratory, or field investigations.
- Review: papers on a particular aspect of light or lighting or a related topic
- Case Study: papers describing new and innovative lighting installations and giving details of the design concepts and performance data.
- Opinion: discussion papers, which explore a subject from a theoretical view point. By invitation only.
- Research note: concise research article raising a specific issue.
- Correspondence: concerning previously published papers.
Papers should be no longer than 5000 words and with no more than ten illustrations - at the Technical Editor’s discretion. Correspondence should not normally be more than 1000 words.
For papers, acceptance is conditional on authors’ addressing the referee’s comments transmitted by the Technical Editor. Discussion may be solicited from outside commentators for publication with submissions. Authors will normally be given an opportunity to reply.
All materials submitted for publication is assumed to be exclusively for Lighting Research and Technology, and not to have been submitted for publication elsewhere. All authors must assign copyright to the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineering (by completing the copyright assignment form).
The opinions expressed by the authors and contributors to discussions are those of the individuals concerned and are not necessarily those of the Institution or the Society of Light and Lighting.
Copyright wording for Conference Special Issues
The journal will consider articles previously published by conference organisers, though authors should inform the Editor and acknowledge the first source of publication in the article itself. The author must retain all the rights in the work or clear any necessary permissions with the copyright owners. At the time of submission, the author should confirm that they have not granted the conference organisers a licence to the work.
The journal editor will consider the article for publication if it has been substantially revised, expanded and rewritten so that it is significantly different from the conference paper or presentation on which it is based. The article must be sufficiently different to make it a new, original work. As a guide, you should aim to have more than 50% new material. This is a matter of judgement and will be based on a comparison of the submitted article with the original conference paper.
See section 3.1.2 Prior Publication
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article and write your abstract, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
Lighting Research & Technology requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of Lighting Research & Technology to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.
Please state whether informed consent to participate was obtained from participants and whether the consent was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Lighting Research & Technology and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Lighting Research & Technology offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
3.4 The use of Artificial Intelligence for preparing manuscripts
LR&T and Sage recognise the value of large language models (LLMs) (e.g. ChatGPT) and generative AI as productivity tools that can help authors in preparing their article for submission; to generate initial ideas for a structure, for example, or when summarizing, paraphrasing, language polishing etc. However, it is important to note that all language models have limitations and are unable to replicate human creative and critical thinking. Human intervention with these tools is essential to ensure that content presented is accurate and appropriate to the reader.
Authors are required to:
Clearly indicate the use of language models in the manuscript, including which model was used and for what purpose. Please use the methods or acknowledgements section, as appropriate.
Verify the accuracy, validity, and appropriateness of the content and any citations generated by language models and correct any errors or inconsistencies.
Provide a list of sources used to generate content and citations, including those generated by language models. Double-check citations to ensure they are accurate, and are properly referenced.
Be conscious of the potential for plagiarism where the LLM may have reproduced substantial text from other sources. Check the original sources to be sure you are not plagiarising someone else’s work.
Acknowledge the limitations of language models in the manuscript, including the potential for bias, errors, and gaps in knowledge.
Please note that AI bots such as ChatGPT should not be listed as an author on your submission.
Authors should be aware of the limitations of language models and consider these in any use of LLMs in their submissions. More information on this can be found here: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/chatgpt-and-generative-ai-0
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
All figures should be submitted as individual files in EPS or PDF format where possible, although JPEG, EPS, PowerPoint and TIFF formats will also be accepted.
PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX files): a suggested alternative format for MS Excel generated graphs is to copy and paste the graph as an Enhanced Metafile in an editable MS PowerPoint file. This format is scalable and allows labels to be added using the grouping feature.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Lighting Research & Technology adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style (see exceptions below). View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
Lighting Research & Technology exceptions to Vancouver style references:
- Please name all authors in full.
- Please spell out the full name of the journal.
Lighting Research & Technology conforms to the Sage house style. Click here to review guidelines on Sage UK House Style.
Though LR&T welcomes submissions to the journal from pre-prints, citations of preprint articles are not accepted.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
4.6 Advice to authors when revising their paper
When submitting your paper, your primary concern should be the content and rigour of your paper. However, to save time after possible acceptance you should revise your paper according to the following guidelines: Advice to Authors.
Lighting Research & Technology is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lrt to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Lighting Research & Technology editorial office as follows:
Professor Steve Fotios
steve.fotios@sheffield.ac.uk