V.V.Kondrashin – editor-in-chief, Doctor of historical sciences, professor, head of the Russian history, regional history and methods of teaching history subdepartment, Penza State University

The "University proceedings. Volga region. Humanities" journal has been established to deliver research results in the field of humanities obtained by the leading research teams of the Volga region to the wide scientific community. The journal publishes original articles containing the results of fundamental and applied research in the field of  history, as well as survey articles by the leading scientists in the journal's subject matter.
The editorial office seeks to expand the range of activity, greets the works based on the interdisciplinary approach allowing to reach a new level of integration of universities' research teams, to consolidate the efforts of scientists in research of theoretical and practical issues drawing attention of scientific and expert societies.
The editorial policy stipulates the necessity to comply with the standards of competence, professionalism, ethics. The perspective of the journal's activity is associated with publication of research results of various generations of Russian and foreign scientists. The stated goal is being reached as well by the opportunity for the articles to be published in English, and the priority for publication is given to the works with international authorship including young scientists. We are open for discussion of new scientific directions and subject matter and we are ready to provide pages of the journal as a site for discussions and "round tables". The existing journal’s multistep system of reviewing allows to select only best works, describing significant scientific results, considering experience of foreign scientists in the researched fields and being of interest for Russian and world scientific community. 

Manuscript Processing Charges
The publisher is bears all expenses for journal production and publication. Publication of papers is free of charge for the authors. Peer review is not paid.

Open Access Policy
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access, recommended by DOAJ. 

The publication conducts the policy of maximal availability of the published materials for researchers. All the articles of archival and current journal issues are under free access on the journal’s web site, as well as on the portals of Russian and foreign e-libraries and online databases. Users can use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal.

A policy of screening for plagiarism
All the articles provided for review have their original text tested for the level of uniqueness determined by using the appropriate software that shows the uniqueness of the article, sources used and coincidence of the text by means of Antiplagiatsystems.
During the examination, the reviewer analyses the report verifying the text originality in order to assess the reliability of identified citations and self-citations. The reuse by the author of his/her own texts from early works without reference to the source or to the extent not justified by the citation goal is recognised unconscionable self-citation and is prohibited. The author’s citation of his/her past publications is acceptable if the new paper is a follow-up to a previously initiated study. Processing of the text to increase the originality percentage is recognised a serious ethical violation. The authors are not allowed to reiterate the ideas and duplicate the results of scientific studies already published in printed or electronic form.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Privacy Statement
Specified when registering the names and addresses will be used solely for technical purposes of a contact with the Author or reviewers (editors) when preparing the article for publication. Private data will not be shared with other individuals and organizations.

Copyright Notice
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0. that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.