These Guidelines concern both printed and electronic publications resulting from the Council's activities. Work published in the Yearbook for Traditional Music and work published directly by the Secretariat in the course of its routine duties are external to these Guidelines. Conference programmes, books of abstracts, and other materials prepared for specific events are also external to these Guidelines.

Editors of any other ICTMD publications, including but not limited to the collections of papers and articles resulting from ICTMD World Conferences, Study Group Symposia, Colloquia, Fora, and the scholarly meetings of National and Regional Committees, are kindly requested to communicate with the Secretariat via email (secretariat@ictmd.org) two times: 

1. After completing the editing process, but before printing, please send the completed manuscript via email to seek formal approval. The Secretariat shall either grant the approval or request specific improvements from the editor(s) based on the judgement of the Executive Board Committee for Publications within a period not longer than two weeks after receiving the manuscript. The document should not be published until this process is complete. In extreme cases, the Secretariat may also reject the manuscript; such a decision will be accompanied by an explanation.
2. After the launching of the publication, please provide the Secretariat with an electronic copy for the ICTMD archive. This copy will also be used to introduce the publication in the Bulletin of the ICTMD.

Whenever possible, we encourage that publications should be double-blind refereed (anonymity of author to referee and referee to author). This is important in many places for publications to be counted for purposes of promotion of the individual and assessment of the standing of the department, school, faculty, institute, or university to which the author belongs. However, this is not a condition for any publications submitted. 

Please note that the Executive Board's Committee for Publications can also be contacted directly by the editors at any time during the preparation of the publication. The aim of this Committee is to support the editorial work by answering specific questions and providing advice, if needed, which is expected to contribute both to the quality and quantity of the ICTMD publications. 

The quality of contents and language is expected to be assured by the editor(s) of the ICTMD publication. Publications are expected to comply with the ICTMD Declaration of Ethical Principles and Professional Integrity. In addition, editors should ensure that manuscripts are consistent in formatting (regardless of the system chosen) in the following areas:

• spelling and punctuation (including hyphenation)
• fonts and italics
• referencing, citations and quotations
• page design and setup (including headings, paragraphing, and figure captions)

All ICTMD publications are expected to use the Council's name and, whenever possible, the logo. The Secretariat shall provide the necessary files for the logo to the editor(s).

Established in July 2014 (Astana); revised in December 2017 (online), December 2019 (online), and August 2023 (online).