How to Prepare a Journal Article for International Submission in Norway

Norwegian academic researchers operate under one of the most explicitly quantified publication incentive systems in the world. The Norwegian Publication Indicator, introduced in 2005, allocates research funding to universities and university colleges based on the number and quality of scientific publications their researchers produce each year. Where you publish matters directly to your institution's budget, and the journals that generate the most funding points are overwhelmingly international, English-language publications.

This creates a specific and practical challenge. Norwegian researchers who produce strong research in Norwegian must submit it to English-language international journals to generate the publication points their institutions need. The quality of the English in those manuscripts affects whether they reach peer review, how peer reviewers assess them, and ultimately whether they are accepted for publication in the journals that count most under the incentive system.

This article explains how the Norwegian publication points system works, what the difference between level 1 and level 2 journals means for your publication strategy, what English language quality reviewers at international journals expect, and how professional editing before submission improves your manuscript's chances of acceptance in the journals that generate the most institutional value.

How the Norwegian Publication Indicator Works

The Norwegian Publication Indicator (Norsk publiseringsindikator) is a bibliometric system administered by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) that distributes a portion of the basic research funding allocated to Norwegian universities, university colleges, and research institutes. The system was introduced in 2005 and has become a central feature of Norwegian research management since then.

The principle is straightforward: institutions receive funding points for each scientific publication their researchers produce, and the number of points varies according to the journal or publisher in which the publication appears. Points are calculated annually and contribute to the institutional funding allocation for the following year. The more publications your institution produces in high-ranking journals, the more research funding it receives through this channel.

For individual researchers, the system creates direct institutional pressure to publish regularly in journals that generate points. Publication output in the Norwegian system affects department funding, influences promotion assessments, and shapes the research priorities of Norwegian institutions at every level.

Level 1 and Level 2 Journals: What the Tiers Mean

The Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series, and Publishers (Norsk vitenskapelig publiseringskanal) classifies scientific publication channels into two levels. Understanding the difference between these levels is the foundation of a strategic approach to publication in the Norwegian system.

Level 1: Standard scientific publications

Level 1 is the baseline tier and includes the majority of peer-reviewed scientific journals recognised as legitimate scientific publication channels in the Norwegian system. A publication in a level 1 journal generates one publication point for the institution. Most international peer-reviewed journals indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, and other major databases are classified at level 1. For most disciplines, the majority of publishable research finds its natural home at level 1 journals, and consistent publication at level 1 is a reasonable baseline expectation for research-active faculty.

Level 2: The most prestigious journals in each field

Level 2 is reserved for the most prestigious and scientifically significant publication channels in each academic discipline. A publication in a level 2 journal generates three publication points for the institution — three times the value of a level 1 publication. Approximately 20 percent of publication channels in any given discipline are classified at level 2, meaning level 2 represents the top fifth of journals by prestige and scientific impact in each field.

Level 2 journals in most disciplines correspond closely with the highest-impact journals in the field as measured by citation metrics: journals with the highest impact factors, the lowest acceptance rates, and the most competitive peer review processes. In medicine and life sciences, level 2 journals include publications like Nature, Science, The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the journals of major professional associations. In economics and social science, level 2 includes the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, and the leading disciplinary journals of each field. In engineering and applied science, level 2 includes the most selective IEEE and ACM publications and the highest-impact specialty journals.

The publication point differential between level 1 and level 2 is significant enough that a single level 2 publication generates more institutional value than three level 1 publications. Norwegian institutions consequently place considerable weight on level 2 publications in their research performance assessments, and researchers who publish regularly at level 2 are typically regarded as the most research-productive members of their departments by their institution's metrics.

How to check a journal's level

The Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals is publicly searchable at the Kanalregister, maintained by HK-dir. You can search any journal by title or ISSN to see its current level classification. The register is updated annually, and journals move between levels based on peer assessment of their scientific significance. Before submitting to any journal with the Norwegian system in mind, confirm the journal's current level in the register rather than relying on classifications from previous years, as levels do change.

What Level 2 Journals Expect from Submitted Manuscripts

The journals that generate the most value under the Norwegian publication indicator are the most competitive journals in their fields. They have acceptance rates that typically range from five to twenty percent. They have peer reviewers who are senior researchers at leading international institutions. They have editorial standards for English language quality that are set by the best manuscripts they receive, which come from research groups at Oxford, MIT, ETH Zurich, Harvard, and other institutions where English is either a first language or a highly fluent institutional norm.

A manuscript submitted to a level 2 journal from a Norwegian institution competes in this environment. The research quality must justify the submission — a level 2 journal will not accept a manuscript purely because the English is excellent. But a manuscript with strong underlying research that reads poorly in English is at a systematic disadvantage at every stage of the submission process.

Desk rejection on language grounds

Most major international journals perform an initial editorial assessment before sending a manuscript to peer reviewers. At this stage, a handling editor reads the manuscript and decides whether it meets the journal's scope, format requirements, and language standards. Journals that receive thousands of submissions annually have explicit policies that allow them to reject manuscripts on language grounds at the desk review stage without sending them to peer review. A manuscript from a Norwegian researcher with strong research but persistent English language problems may be returned before any scientific reviewer has read the underlying work.

Desk rejection for language quality is particularly common at high-impact journals, because their editors have the luxury of being selective at every stage. A manuscript that requires significant language revision before it can be evaluated imposes costs on reviewers and editors that journals at the top of their fields are not obligated to absorb. Professional editing before submission removes this risk entirely.

Peer reviewer impression and language quality

Manuscripts that pass initial editorial assessment are sent to peer reviewers who are experts in the relevant field. Peer reviewers are evaluating the research, the methodology, the analysis, and the conclusions — but they are doing so by reading the manuscript in English. A manuscript that is difficult to read in English creates cognitive friction that accumulates across a long paper and affects how reviewers experience the research, even when they are trying to evaluate the science rather than the language.

Research on peer review consistently shows that manuscripts that are easier to read receive more favorable assessments, all else being equal. A reviewer who reads a clearly written manuscript with strong research produces a more favorable review than the same reviewer reading a manuscript with equivalent research that requires sustained interpretive effort. This is not a bias against non-native English writers. It is a predictable consequence of how human reading and evaluation work, and it applies equally to native English writers who submit poorly structured or unclear manuscripts.

Revision requests for language quality

Manuscripts that survive peer review often return with a request for revision. If reviewers have flagged language quality as a concern — even a minor one — the revision request will include a requirement to have the manuscript professionally edited before resubmission. This adds weeks or months to the publication timeline, requires additional work after what the researcher believed was the final submission, and introduces uncertainty about whether the revised manuscript will be accepted. Having the manuscript professionally edited before the first submission eliminates the language revision cycle entirely.

The Specific English Language Challenges Norwegian Researchers Face

Norwegian and English are closely related Germanic languages, and Norwegian researchers are among the most proficient non-native English writers in the world. Norwegian researchers' English is typically far stronger than that of researchers from more linguistically distant language backgrounds. But proximity to English does not eliminate the specific language patterns that Norwegian writers transfer into English academic writing, and these patterns are visible to the peer reviewers and editors at the highest-impact journals.

False friends and vocabulary precision

Norwegian and English share a large vocabulary derived from their common Germanic roots, but many cognate words have diverged in meaning or connotation between the two languages. Norwegian researchers writing in English sometimes use a word that looks like the right English equivalent but carries a different shade of meaning in English academic usage. In a general context these differences are minor. In a scientific manuscript where word choice affects the precision of a claim or the description of a methodology, they matter. A professional editor with subject matter expertise in your discipline identifies these precision issues in the context of your specific field's conventions.

Article use

Norwegian uses definite and indefinite articles differently from English, and Norwegian grammatical structures influence how Norwegian researchers use "the," "a," and "an" in English academic writing. Article errors are among the most consistent markers of non-native English in academic manuscripts, and they appear throughout the text in ways that are essentially invisible to the writer but immediately visible to a native English reader. A professional editor addresses article errors systematically across the full manuscript rather than catching isolated instances through self-review.

Sentence length and syntactic complexity

Norwegian academic writing tolerates longer and more syntactically complex sentences than the most highly regarded English academic journals prefer. Norwegian sentences that carry multiple coordinated clauses and subordinate phrases feel natural in Norwegian academic prose and produce English sentences that are grammatically correct but harder to read than the target journal's published articles. English academic journals in the sciences and social sciences have moved toward shorter sentences in which each sentence carries one main claim and its qualification. A professional editor restructures long sentences without losing the logical relationships between the ideas they contain.

Rhetorical organisation of the introduction

Norwegian academic writing conventions allow more extensive background and literature review before stating the research gap and the study's contribution than English academic journal conventions expect. An introduction that leads with two or three paragraphs of broad background before narrowing to the specific gap reads as slow to peer reviewers at English-language journals, who expect to find the research gap and the study's contribution within the first two paragraphs. Restructuring the introduction to lead with the gap — with background provided as evidence for why the gap matters — is one of the most impactful changes a professional editor can make to a Norwegian researcher's manuscript.

How to Choose the Right Journal Before You Write

The Norwegian publication indicator system rewards strategic journal selection, and the most effective time to make that selection is before you complete the manuscript rather than after. Journals have specific scope requirements, methodological preferences, article length limits, and formatting conventions that affect how a manuscript should be written and presented. Writing a manuscript without a specific target journal in mind often produces a document that needs more revision to fit any particular journal's requirements than one written with a specific outlet from the beginning.

Check the journal's level in the Norwegian Register before committing to a submission target. Read five to ten recent articles in the journal to understand its preferred article structure, its typical methodological approach, its citation style, and its English register. Compare your manuscript's research design and findings to the journal's recent publications and assess honestly whether the research contribution is at the level the journal publishes. If the research is not yet at level 2 standard, submitting to a strong level 1 journal generates one publication point and produces a publication record while the research is developed further toward level 2.

For Norwegian researchers in the sciences, checking whether the target journal requires a data availability statement, a pre-registration declaration, or specific reporting guidelines such as CONSORT, PRISMA, or STROBE before submitting is essential. These requirements are applied at the desk review stage and manuscripts that don't comply are returned without peer review.

Editing Your Manuscript Before Submission

Professional editing of a journal article manuscript before submission addresses the full range of language issues described above: article use throughout the manuscript, sentence length and structural complexity, the organisation of the introduction section, vocabulary precision in the context of your discipline's conventions, tense consistency across sections, and the register of the results and discussion sections. All corrections are returned in Track Changes so you can review, accept, or question each individual change before the manuscript is submitted.

The editing process is most effective when the manuscript is in its final or near-final form — when the research, the methodology, the analysis, and the conclusions have been reviewed by your co-authors and you are satisfied with the scientific content. Editing a draft that will be substantially revised afterward is inefficient because language corrections made before content changes may need to be revisited. Have the manuscript edited after co-author review and before submission, not before.

For Norwegian researchers who work in disciplines where English is not the primary language of their everyday research work — some areas of the humanities, Scandinavian studies, education research, and Norwegian-focused social science — the gap between Norwegian-language research thinking and English academic writing conventions can be larger than in disciplines where English is the routine working language. For researchers in these disciplines, rewriting rather than editing may be the more appropriate service for a manuscript that was conceptualised and drafted primarily in Norwegian. See our rewriting and paraphrasing service for guidance on when rewriting is the right choice.

The Certificate of Editing for Norwegian Journal Submissions

Many international journals recommend or require a certificate confirming native English editing for manuscripts submitted by authors from non-native English-speaking countries. This requirement is listed in the author guidelines of major publishers including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor and Francis, and SAGE, and it is enforced at the desk review stage at journals that require it. A manuscript submitted to a journal that requires this certificate without the certificate attached may be returned before peer review.

Editor World provides a certificate of editing on request at no additional charge for any manuscript. The certificate confirms the name and credentials of the native English editor who reviewed the manuscript, the date of completion, and that no AI tools were used at any stage of the editing process. It is issued as a downloadable PDF that can be uploaded directly to the journal's submission system alongside the manuscript.

As international journals have become more attentive to the use of AI tools in manuscript preparation, a certificate that specifically confirms human editing by a qualified native English professional is increasingly valuable. A manuscript accompanied by a certificate from a professional editing service that uses only human editors provides a stronger submission credential than an uncertified manuscript or one accompanied by an AI-generated editing certificate.

Getting Started with Journal Article Editing

Editor World's journal article editing service connects Norwegian researchers with native English editors whose academic background matches their discipline. You choose your editor by field before submitting. Browse editor profiles at editorworld.com/editors by academic discipline, credentials, and verified client ratings from previous researchers who have submitted manuscripts in your field. Read what previous clients in your discipline say about the editing they received before selecting an editor.

Message any editor directly before submitting to discuss your manuscript, your target journal, whether the journal is level 1 or level 2 in the Norwegian register, and any specific language concerns you want the editor to focus on. Request a free sample edit of your abstract and introduction before committing to the full manuscript. A sample edit shows you the specific patterns in your own manuscript and the editor's approach to addressing them before you proceed.

For a full overview of Editor World's services for Norwegian researchers and academics, visit our English editing services in Norway page. For researchers in Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger specifically, our city pages for Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger cover institution-specific services and the specific research communities in each city. For guidance on the full academic editing process for international journal submission, visit our academic editing service page.

Content reviewed by Editor World editorial staff. Editor World provides professional journal article editing services for Norwegian academic researchers submitting to international scientific journals. Information about the Norwegian Publication Indicator and the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals is based on publicly available documentation and is provided for informational purposes only. Researchers should consult their institution's research administration for guidance on their specific publication obligations.