The Reinforcement Learning Journal is now accepting submissions

We are pleased to officially announce that the Reinforcement Learning Journal (RLJ) is now accepting submissions on a rolling basis. At RLC’26 in Montréal, during the Townhall, we shared with the community that we planned to move away from RLC having a single deadline a year to embracing the fact that RLC papers are (and always have been) actually published as journal papers, but not allowing submissions throughout the year. It is now happening. Below we elaborate a little more on this change.

Context. Papers presented at RLC have always been Reinforcement Learning Journal (RLJ) papers, but they were reviewed as conference papers. There was a submission deadline, reviewers were assigned simultaneously, and decisions were announced at the same time. As in a conference, the program chairs, responsible for overseeing the review/publication process, would change every year, and new program chairs would carry on.

This conference system has a couple of drawbacks. Because all reviewers are assigned simultaneously, the assignments end up being based on availability, not necessarily expertise, and area chairs don’t necessarily have a say in who they work with as reviewers. Similarly, because all decisions need to go out at the same time, sometimes we can’t do justice to some papers (for example, when a reviewer is unable to submit their review, or when more discussion is needed). Because program chairs change every year, some loss of institutional knowledge is unavoidable, and the process and criteria may change each year slightly.

The change. RLJ will now accept papers throughout the year, and volumes will be published quarterly. Papers accepted by (not submitted by, not received reviews by) a pre-defined date will then be expected to present at the next RLC conference, with the exact presentation format to be determined by the RLC general chair for that year. For RLC 2027, the acceptance deadline is likely to be around May 2027 and will be announced on the RLC page.

Rationale. We hope this change will give authors a better experience by having the EiCs assign editors who are experts in the manuscript’s topic, and then those editors can do the same with reviewers. Similarly, we hope this will also improve the reviewing experience for RLC, as reviewers should be assigned manuscripts on topics more closely related to their expertise.

Logistically, this change should let us amortize, throughout the year, the work of managing hundreds of submissions. It should also better preserve institutional knowledge, as EiCs will serve longer than a year. Finally, it will give authors more time to plan attendance at RLC and apply for visas, since submitting early will give them more time to handle everything related to attending the conference.

What is not changing. Papers will continue to be published at RLJ, with the same ISSN. The only difference is that we will publish multiple volumes spread throughout the year. RLJ’s reviewing criteria are largely unchanged. We will continue to focus on technical correctness and claims matching evidence. The cover page will continue to be a key mechanism for us to emphasize that. Although we are changing the role names, they are functionally similar: Editors-in-Chief can be seen as program chairs, senior area chairs, and area chairs can be seen as editors, and we will maintain the senior and technical reviewer roles.

Timeline. When explicitly talking about RLJ as a journal, timelines are a key concern people raise. We will do our best to ensure every paper will receive a final decision eight weeks after it is submitted (EiCs assign an Editor within a week, the Editor assigns reviewers within two weeks, reviewers write their reviews within three weeks, the Editor signs off the review within a week, and the EICs sign off the recommendation within a week). If at any point in time we are late in one of these steps, we will let you know right away, so you are not left wondering what the status of your submission is. That being said, we have limited capacity to review papers, based on our pool of reviewers and editors. Thus, we can’t make any promises if we are at capacity or if we see a surge in submissions around specific dates. Thus, the timeline is a target, not a guarantee. You should plan appropriately if you want to present your paper at the next RLC and submit your work early; we might not be able to manage all submissions in the target timeline if there’s a spike in submissions 8-10 weeks before the RLC cut-off date.

Outcomes. Manuscript papers can have two different outcomes. Accept and Reject. Accept means the paper can be published with very minor typographical changes; Reject means the submitted manuscript cannot be published as is. A Reject might come with a requirement that authors should wait six months before resubmitting, often because the paper does not meet the acceptance criteria or requires significant changes. If no such requirement is stated, a rejected paper can be resubmitted as soon as every concern the editor has raised is addressed. This revised version still requires the editor to sign off on the new manuscript, and they may also loop reviewers in again. Revisions should be submitted with a cover letter to the editor specifying the changes made to the paper.

More information. If you want to know more about RLJ, our editorial process, and more, we invite you to go to rlj.org. We have written extensive documentation to support authors, reviewers, and editors throughout.

A final note. We are extremely excited about this change, and we hope it will further support our goal of providing a great publication venue for the community while also improving the experience for both authors and reviewers. We have already curated an amazing list of editors who have agreed to support us on this (see Editorial Board), and we are starting to invite reviewers now. RLJ can’t succeed without community support and engagement. From our end, we promise to monitor everything closely and constantly curate the pool of reviewers and editors to ensure everyone is aligned with RLJ Editorial Guidelines.

Marlos C. Machado, Philip S. Thomas, Adam White, and Emma Jordan (on leave).
RLJ Editors-in-Chief