期刊名称：BMJ OPEN
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ISSN： | 2044-6055
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出版频率： | Monthly
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出版社： | BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP, BRITISH MED ASSOC HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, ENGLAND, WC1H 9JR
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出版社网址： | http://group.bmj.com/
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期刊网址： | http://bmjopen.bmj.com/
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影响因子： | 2.692 |
| 主题范畴： | MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL |
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 期刊简介(About the journal)
投稿须知(Instructions to Authors)
编辑部信息(Editorial Board)
About the journal
BMJ Open is an online, open access journal, dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas. The journal publishes all research study types, from study protocols to phase I trials to meta-analyses, including small or specialist studies. Publishing procedures are built around fully open peer review and continuous publication, publishing research online as soon as the article is ready.
BMJ Open aims to promote transparency in the publication process by publishing reviewer reports and previous versions of manuscripts as pre-publication histories. Authors are asked to pay article-publishing charges on acceptance; the ability to pay does not influence editorial decisions. All papers are included in PubMed and ISI Current Contents (Web of Science).
About BMJ Open
Aims and scope
BMJ Open is a medical journal. We consider papers addressing research questions in clinical medicine, public health and epidemiology. We also welcome studies in health services research, health economics, surgery, qualitative research, research methods, medical education, medical publishing and any other field that directly addresses patient outcomes or the practice and delivery of healthcare.
Our focus is on research that is relevant to patients and clinicians. We do not publish studies conducted in animals, laboratory studies not linked to patient outcomes, papers reporting solely physiological or biomechanical results from healthy participants, anatomy, cell biology or non-clinical psychology.
All research study types are considered, from study protocols through phase I trials to meta-analyses. This includes specialist studies and studies reporting negative results. Case reports should be submitted to BMJ Case Reports.
Our aim is to provide a home for all properly conducted medical research to be fully reported, after a rigorous and transparent peer review process. See our Resources for authors for more information on what we look for in a research study and how to maximise your chances of publication.
Publishing procedures are built around fully open peer review and continuous publication, publishing research online as soon as the article is ready. BMJ Open aims to promote transparency in the publication process by publishing reviewer reports and previous versions of manuscripts as prepublication histories.
Authors are asked to pay article-publishing charges on acceptance; the ability to pay does not influence editorial decisions.
Ownership
Wholly-owned by the BMJ Publishing Group.
Journal Statistics
| Acceptance rate |
60% (2013) |
| Frequency |
Continuous |
| Impact factor |
1.583 |
| Indexed by |
ISI Current Contents (Web of Science), PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, Google Scholar, CAB Abstracts, Global Health (CABI) |
| Launch date |
2011 |
| Lead times |
Median time to first decision 46 days (2012) |
| ISSN |
2044-6055 |
Contact information
For all contact information please refer to the contact us page.
Affiliations
 Dryad is an international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences. Dryad enables scientists to validate published findings, explore new analysis methodologies, repurpose data for research questions unanticipated by the original authors, and perform synthetic studies. BMJ Open has been working with Dryad since 2010.
 The BMJ Publishing Group is a founding member of COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics), which provides a forum for publishers and Editors of scientific journals to discuss issues relating to the integrity of the work submitted to or published in their journals.
 The EQUATOR Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the value of medical research literature by promoting accurate, transparent reporting of research studies. The BMJ Publishing Group is a sponsor of its activities.
 The mission of OASPA is to support and represent the interests of open access journal publishers globally in all scientific, technical, and scholarly disciplines. The BMJ Publishing Group has been a member since 2009.
 All BMJ Open articles are licensed using either Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) licence. These licenses let others distribute, remix, tweak and build upon your work. See our open access page for more details.
Frequently asked questions
More detail about BMJ Open is provided below.
- 1. Why has the The BMJ created BMJ Open?
- 2. What type of articles does BMJ Open publish?
- 3. How do I submit my article?
- 4. Can I opt for my article to be considered automatically for BMJ Open if it is not accepted by the The BMJ or another journal from BMJ?
- 5. What overall format should articles follow?
- 6. How can I share the raw data or other additional data from my study when it is published in BMJ Open?
- 7. How quickly will I know the decision on my article?
- 8. How are articles peer reviewed?
- 9. What article publishing fee does BMJ Open charge?
- 10. Does BMJ Open impose any copyright restrictions?
- 11. Can I comply with the Wellcome Trust and Research Councils UK open access policies by publishing in BMJ Open?
- 12. How do I sign up for email alerts about published articles?
- 13. Is there a print edition?
- 14. How do I subscribe to BMJ Open?
- 15. How can my library subscribe?
- 16. How do I order reprints of my article?
- 17. Where is BMJ Open indexed?
- 18. Does BMJ Open have an impact factor?
- 19. What is the difference between BMJ Open and BMJ Case Reports?
- 20. Who do I contact if I would like more information about BMJ Open?
1. Why has The BMJ created BMJ Open?
BMJ Open offers authors an affordable publishing service so that they can share their medical research from any therapeutic area or discipline. The journal aims to ensure that any well-conducted study has a home where it can be fully reported.
We particularly hope that BMJ Open will attract work that deserves publication but does not quite meet the specific needs of the audiences of TheBMJ and the specialist journals from BMJ, which is why the journal will not judge papers on more subjective criteria of novelty or potential impact.
Transparency and openness define BMJ Open. All articles will follow BMJ's high standards of ethics and transparency and will include clear statements of studies' strengths and limitations. As well as publishing definitive articles we will encourage researchers to share as much additional knowledge as possible. We welcome submissions of study protocols and pilot studies and will make it easy for authors to share raw datasets either as additional electronic material or through direct linkage from BMJ Open articles to data repositories.
2. What type of articles does BMJ Open publish?
We welcome research articles reporting a wide range of study designs, including:
- Study protocol
- Pilot study
- Qualitative study
- Cross sectional study or survey
- Before & after study
- Case control study
- Cohort study
- Diagnostic test study
- Modelling study
- Economic evaluation
- Randomised controlled trial
- Systematic review or meta-analysis
- Secondary analysis of database(s)
BMJ Open is a medical journal. We consider papers addressing research questions in clinical medicine, public health and epidemiology. We also welcome studies in health services research, health economics, surgery, qualitative research, research methods, medical education, medical publishing and any other field that directly addresses patient outcomes or the practice and delivery of healthcare.
Our focus is on research that is relevant to patients and clinicians. We do not publish studies conducted in animals, laboratory studies not linked to patient outcomes, papers reporting solely physiological or biomechanical results from healthy participants, anatomy, cell biology or non-clinical psychology.
All research study types are considered, from study protocols through phase I trials to meta-analyses. This includes specialist studies and studies reporting negative results. Case reports should be submitted to BMJ Case Reports.
The journal will also publish e-letters that respond directly to issues raised in BMJ Open articles. See our resources for authors and instructions for authors pages for more information.
3. How do I submit my article?
Please submit using our online manuscript submission site. If your article was previously submitted to another journal from BMJ and was rejected, we will happily assist in transferring the files to the BMJ Open site if you would like to be considered by BMJ Open. Please email the editorial office at editorial.bmjopen@bmjgroup.com for help with this (the article must not be under consideration by any other journal).
4. Can I opt for my article to be considered automatically for BMJ Open if it is not accepted by TheBMJ or another journal from BMJ?
Yes. Select this option when submitting to one of our other journals. If you have already submitted to one of our sister titles and had your paper declined there, please email the editorial office (editorial.bmjopen@bmjgroup.com) with the manuscript number of your original submission and we will gladly assist with the transfer of files.
5. What overall format should articles follow?
Please structure your research article using the items listed in the appropriate reporting statement, such as:
- CONSORT for a randomised controlled trial (CONSORT has several extension statements, e.g. for cluster RCTs, pragmatic trials)
- PRISMA for a systematic review or meta-analysis of randomised trials
- MOOSE for a systematic review or meta-analysis of observational studies
- STARD for a study of diagnostic accuracy
- STREGA for genetic association studies
- STROBE for an observational study
- SPIRIT for trial protocols
The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUality and Transparency Of health Research) online library includes a wide range of reporting statements at http://www.equator-network.org/resource-centre/library-of-health-research-reporting/.
6. How can I share the raw data or other additional data from my study when it is published in BMJ Open?
We ask authors to include a data sharing statement in their article. The statement should explain which additional unpublished data from the study — if any — are available, to whom, and how. Those data could range from additional explanatory material to the complete dataset. People allowed access to the data might range from fellow researchers to everyone. And data might be available only on request, accessible online with a password, or openly accessible to all on the web with a link on bmjopen.com.
BMJ Open is committed to playing a role in encouraging greater sharing of data. We encourage authors to link their BMJ Open articles to all data deposited elsewhere. We ask this largely because we are keen to maximise the usefulness and usage of data and promote transparency, but also because many research funders now encourage or even mandate data sharing. We understand that many authors wish to guard data until they have published all their own papers, and we know that data sharing is hard to do. But we hope that authors will, increasingly, set the data free, perhaps after a set period of personal use.
We are working with the UK Dryad repository to provide a simple way for authors to store data and link to it from the published article. Please contact the editorial office if you are interested in pursuing this option.
We also strongly support the view that researchers should seek informed consent to data sharing from research participants upfront, at the recruitment stage. This editorial in TheBMJ provides some advice on how to go about this. There are good ethical and practical reasons for doing so. Even if the investigators have no current plans to share raw data, at some future time data sharing may become the norm. If so, sharing will be much easier if no one has to try to seek consent retrospectively.
Consent is particularly important because participants may be identifiable in a dataset - even an "anonymised" one that does not contain names or addresses. The combination of three or more indirect identifiers such as age, sex, and an unusual clinical detail may be enough for at least the participant, or another interested party, to recognise themselves.
Therefore, please provide a data sharing statement such as: "Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at..." If there are no such further data available, please use this wording: "No additional data available".
7. How quickly will I know the decision on my article?
BMJ Open will provide authors with a rapid and open peer review service, aiming to provide the majority of first decisions within four weeks.
8. How are articles peer reviewed?
BMJ Open uses open peer review. Reviewers will sign their reports and will declare competing interests to editors, and reviewers' reports will be posted online alongside accepted articles. No reviews returned to authors will be anonymous, and authors will always see the signed reviews on which editorial decisions were based.
9. What article publishing fee will BMJ Open charge?
Authors will be charged £1350 ( exclusive of VAT where applicable) for publication. This applies to accepted articles and there are no submission, colour or page charges. Submitted papers will be judged entirely on scientific validity rather than ability to pay. No payment information is requested before an article is accepted, so the ability to pay cannot affect editorial decisions.
We appreciate that some authors do not have access to funding to cover publication costs. The journal will accept part payment where only limited funds are available, and offers a waiver to authors without funding.
Your institution may already have arranged to cover your publishing costs or you may be eligible for a discount. Click here to find out.
10. Does BMJ Open impose any copyright restrictions?
Authors retain copyright. Articles are published under a Creative Commons licence to facilitate reuse of the content.
11. Can I comply with the Wellcome Trust and Research Councils UK open access policies by publishing in BMJ Open?
Yes. You can indicate at submission that your work was funded by one of these bodies and we will ensure that your article is published using their required licence.
12. How do I sign up for email alerts about published articles?
You can subscribe to receive BMJ Open email alerts within the article pages of the website and at http://bmjopen.bmj.com. Email alert options available for BMJ Open are:
- Electronic table of contents alerts
- Alerts when article is cited
- Alerts if corrections are posted
You can also sign up for RSS feeds that will update you when new content is published.
13. Is there a print edition?
No, BMJ Open is an online only resource
14. How do I subscribe to BMJ Open?
BMJ Open is a 'gold' open access journal - free to access for anyone with an internet connection. Therefore there is no subscription.
15. How can my library subscribe?
As with individuals, no library or institutional subscriptions are required.
16. How do I order reprints of my article?
For more information about the BMJ Open reprints service contact:
Nadia Gurney-Randall
T: +44 (0)20 8445 5825
F: +44 (0)20 8445 5870
E: ngurneyrandall@bmjgroup.com
For more information about reprints in USA and Canada contact:
Marsha Fogler
T: 1(856) 489 4446
1(800) 482 1450 (Toll Free)
F: 1(856) 489 4449
E: mfogler@medicalreprints.com
17. Where is BMJ Open indexed?
All articles published in BMJ Open will be deposited by us on authors' behalf in PubMed Central. This means that articles are also discoverable through the PubMed database. BMJ Open is included in the ISI Web of Science, and is also indexed by Scopus, CAB Abstracts and Google Scholar.
18. Does BMJ Open have an impact factor?
Yes. BMJ Open's impact factor is 1.583.
19. What is the difference between BMJ Open and BMJ Case Reports?
BMJ Open does not publish case reports, only research articles. BMJ Case Reports publishes cases in all disciplines so that healthcare professionals, researchers and others can easily find clinically important information on common and rare conditions. Case reports published in other journals from BMJ will also be adapted for publication on BMJ Case Reports. BMJ Case Reports is not an open access journal.
20. Who do I contact if I would like more information about BMJ Open?
For queries regarding submissions, please contact the editorial office at editorial.bmjopen@bmjgroup.com; for other enquiries please contact Richard Sands, Managing Editor, BMJ Open (rsands@bmjgroup.com).
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BMJ Journals
About the journal
Welcome_to_BMJ_Open.pdf
Instructions to Authors
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Instructions for authors
Editorial policies
BMJ Open is an open access journal dedicated exclusively to publishing medical research. The journal aims to provide rapid publication of research across a range of medical disciplines and therapeutic areas, through a continuous publication model. As well as publishing definitive articles, including small and specialist studies, BMJ Open will consider protocols and pilot studies. See here for more information on what we publish.
Submissions should be made through our online submission system. Submissions will only be published after peer review, and reviewers' comments will be published alongside accepted manuscripts.
Articles should not be under review, or submitted for review, with any other journal when submitted to BMJ Open. This includes other journals from BMJ.
Authors retain copyright; articles are published under a Creative Commons licence.
Article publishing charges
BMJ Open levies an article publishing charge that reflects the true cost of the services provided. The charge (exclusive of VAT for UK and EU authors) is £1350. Charges for publishing a study protocol are 50% of the research article charge; a 50% discount will then also be available to the protocol's authors to publish the subsequent research findings in the journal, provided the results are submitted within a reasonable time from completion of the research. There are no submission or page charges, and no colour charges. There is a £50 surcharge for invoicing authors; unless a waiver has been granted, accepted articles will not be published until payment has been received.
Your institution may already have arranged to cover your publishing costs or you may be eligible for a discount. Click here to find out.
Publishing in BMJ Open enables you to fulfil the open access requirements of the Wellcome Trust and Research Councils UK, including using their preferred CC BY licence.
Articles are published online approximately 30 days from processing to production. BMJ are unable to process cancellations, refunds or returns for open access charges.
Waivers and discounts
We appreciate that some authors do not have access to funding to cover publication costs. The journal will accept part payment where only limited funds are available, and offers a waiver to authors unable to pay on request. No payment information is requested before an article is accepted, so the ability to pay cannot affect editorial decisions. BMJ Open offers a 100% waiver to corresponding authors from institutions based in Hinari Band 1 countries, and a 50% waiver to authors from institutions based in Hinari Band 2 countries. In recognition of reviewers' support, any reviewer that returns a full review, on time, can receive a 25% discount on article publishing charges for a paper for which they are the corresponding author, if submitted within 12 months of completing the review.
Studies that are wholly or part funded by the tobacco industry
BMJ Open will not consider for publication any study partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry, as explained here.
Submission policies
All articles will be subject to the BMJ's high standards of ethics and transparency. See the following links for general BMJ policies.
Manuscript formatting
Editorial policies
Patient consent forms
Licence forms
Please note that in some cases BMJ Open has different submission requirements (e.g. there are no colour charges); where this is the case these are outlined below.
Article types
Research articles
All articles should include the following.
- The article title should include the study type.
- A structured abstract (max. 300 words) including the following (please note that for RCTs there is a specific CONSORT extension for abstracts):
- objectives: clear statement of main study aim and major hypothesis/research question
- design: e.g. prospective, randomised, blinded, case control
- setting: level of care e.g. primary, secondary; number of participating centres. Generalise; don't use the name of a specific centre, but give geographical location if important
- participants: numbers entering and completing the study; sex and ethnic group if appropriate. Clear definitions of selection, entry and exclusion criteria
- interventions: what, how, when and how long (this can be deleted if there were no interventions)
- primary and secondary outcome measures: planned (i.e. in the protocol) and those finally measured (if different, explain why) - for quantitative studies only
- results: main results with (for quantitative studies) 95% confidence intervals and, where appropriate, the exact level of statistical significance and the number need to treat/harm. Whenever possible, state absolute rather than relative risks
- conclusions: primary conclusions and their implications, suggest areas for further research if appropriate. Do not go beyond the data in the article
- where applicable, trial registration: registry and number (for clinical trials and, if available, for observational studies and systematic reviews)
- An 'Article summary' section consisting of the heading: 'Strengths and limitations of this study', and containing up to five bullet points that relate specifically to the study reported. This should be placed after the abstract.
- The original protocol for the study, where one exists as a supplementary file.
- A funding statement, preferably worded as follows. Either: 'This work was supported by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]' or 'This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors'. You must ensure that the full, correct details of your funder(s) and any relevant grant numbers are included.
- A competing interests statement. See this advice from the BMJ on what to include.
- Articles should list each author's contribution individually at the end; this section may also include contributors who do not qualify as authors.
- Any checklist and flow diagram for the appropriate reporting statement, e.g. STROBE (see below).
- Any article that contains personal medical information about an identifiable living individual requires the patient's explicit consent before we can publish it. We will need the patient to sign our consent form, which requires the patient to have read the article. This form is available in multiple languages.
- Please provide a data sharing statement such as: "Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at Dryad repository, who will provide a permanent, citable and open access home for the dataset.
We recommend your article does not exceed 4000 words, with up to five figures and tables. This is flexible, but exceeding this will impact upon the paper's 'readability'. Supplementary and raw data can be placed online alongside the article, and we may request that you separate out some material into supplementary data files to make the main manuscript clearer for readers.
We also recommend, but do not insist, that the discussion section is no longer than five paragraphs and follows this overall structure (you do not need to use these as subheadings): a statement of the principal findings; strengths and weaknesses of the study; strengths and weaknesses in relation to other studies, discussing important differences in results; the meaning of the study: possible explanations and implications for clinicians and policymakers; and unanswered questions and future research.
Authors are encouraged to submit figures and images in colour - there are no colour charges.
At upload you will be asked to choose one general subject area that applies to your article - it will be published under this banner on the main table of contents. You will also be asked to select further subject headings to be used for the 'Browse by topic' section, and specific keywords for help with identifying reviewers.
Reporting guidelines
The guidelines listed below should be followed where appropriate. Please use these guidelines to structure your article. Completed applicable checklists, structured abstracts and flow diagrams should be uploaded with your submission; these will be published alongside the final version of your paper.
- CONSORT Statement (for reporting of randomised controlled trials: please use the appropriate extension to the CONSORT statement, including the extension for writing abstracts)
- STARD (for reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies)
- STROBE(for reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)
- PRISMA (for reporting of systematic reviews)
- MOOSE (for reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies)
- STREGA (for reporting of gene-disease association studies)
- CHEERS (for reporting of health economic evaluations)
The Equator Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency Of health Research) provides a comprehensive list of reporting guidelines.
Data sharing
See also our data sharing FAQs.
Study protocols
Protocol manuscripts should report planned or ongoing studies. If data collection is complete, we will not consider the manuscript.
Publishing study protocols enables researchers and funding bodies to stay up to date in their fields by providing exposure to research activity that may not otherwise be widely publicised. This can help prevent unnecessary duplication of work and will hopefully enable collaboration. Publishing protocols in full also makes available more information than is currently required by trial registries and increases transparency, making it easier for others (editors, reviewers and readers) to see and understand any deviations from the protocol that occur during the conduct of the study.
The SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items for Randomized Trials) statement has now been published (see here for details). It is an evidence-based tool developed through systematic review of a wide range of resources and consensus. It closely mirrors the CONSORT statement and also reflects important ethics considerations. We encourage investigators to adhere to the SPIRIT recommendations when drafting their protocols.
Various other resources exist that list the ingredients of an authoritative trial protocol, e.g. the UK Dept of Health/Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Toolkit and the US National Institutes for Health provide advice on how to structure a trial protocol. BMJ Open will consider for publication protocols for any study design, including observational studies and systematic reviews.
We strongly encourage you to register your study. Prospective registration is mandatory for any clinical trials. Acceptable registries for trials are listed here. We recommend Prospero for registration of systematic reviews.
General BMJ policies apply (see above) on manuscript formatting, editorial policies, licence forms and patient consent (where applicable to study designs). Protocols should include, as a minimum, the following items.
- Protocol papers should report planned or ongoing studies. Manuscripts that report work already carried out will not be considered as protocols.
- Protocols for studies that will require ethical approval, such as trials, are unlikely to be considered without having received that approval.
- Title: this should include the specific study type, e.g. randomised controlled trial.
- Abstract: this should be structured with the following sections. Introduction; Methods and analysis; Ethics and dissemination. Registration details should be included as a final section, if appropriate.
- Introduction: explain the rationale for the study and what evidence gap it may fill. Appropriate previous literature should be referenced, including relevant systematic reviews.
- Methods and analysis: provide a full description of the study design, including the following. How the sample will be selected; interventions to be measured; the sample size calculation (drawing on previous literature) with an estimate of how many participants will be needed for the primary outcome to be statistically, clinically and/or politically significant; what outcomes will be measured, when and how; a data analysis plan.
- Ethics and dissemination: ethical and safety considerations and any dissemination plan (publications, data deposition and curation) should be covered here.
- Full references.
- Authors' contributions: state how each author was involved in writing the protocol.
- Funding statement: preferably worded as follows. Either: 'This work was supported by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]' or 'This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors'.
- Competing interests statement.
Study 'pre-protocols'
The journal will also be glad to consider publishing 'pre-protocols'; articles discussing provisional study designs that have yet to reach the stage of a formal proposal. These pre-protocols should include as much of the information required to publish a full protocol as possible, along with a statement of any areas of the study design where authors would particularly welcome comment. The pre-protocol will then be published online for community comment.
Pre-protocols should be presented formally. They should not be 'pitches' and should not discuss undeveloped research questions.
Pre-protocols will be peer-reviewed; reviewers will be checking that the research question and rationale are scientifically credible and ethically sound. They will be asked to consider the rest of the pre-protocol as it stands and comment on strengths and weaknesses.
Based on the reviewers' comments the pre-protocol will then be accepted for publication or declined. There will be no revision procedure. Reviewers' comments will be published alongside the submission.
Pilot studies
Articles reporting pilot studies should explain the work's wider context and explain why the term 'pilot study' applies. The term 'pilot study' should not be applied to justify reporting a small-scale study. Justifications for a pilot study include:
- trialling a new procedure intended for use in a larger programme of research
- establishing power calculations required for a full-scale study
- establishing how many patients and/or healthcare professionals can be recruited
- evaluating the financial, technical, administrative or logistic feasibility of a full-scale study, including issues of data collection, protocol adherence, and questionnaire design.
The sample/patient size should still be justified. The article should explain the impact that the pilot study had on decisions regarding future research.
Rapid responses and online comments
We encourage readers to comment on articles published in BMJ Open. Please follow our guidelines set out in our Blog and eLetter response terms and requirements, available here. It is also possible to post less-formal comments online at the end of articles using the Disqus commenting facility.
Peer review process
All articles published in BMJ Open will have been sent for external, open peer review. Reviewers will not be asked to judge importance or breadth of appeal. Readers will be able to make these judgements for themselves. We recommend you use our instructions for reviewers as a checklist to ensure that your article is complete. Upon publication, all previous versions of the manuscript will also be made available, as will the reviewers' comments and authors' replies to those comments.
Peer review of study protocols
BMJ Open will consider publishing without peer review protocols that have formal ethical approval and funding from a recognised, open access advocating research-funding body (such as those listed by the JULIET project). Please provide proof that these criteria are met when uploading your protocol. Any protocols that do not meet both these criteria will be sent for open external peer review, with reviewer comments published online upon acceptance, as with research articles. Reviewers will be instructed to review for clarity and sufficient detail. The intention of peer review is not to alter the study design. Reviewers will be instructed to check that the study is scientifically credible and ethically sound in its scope and methods, and that there is sufficient detail to instil confidence that the study will be conducted and analysed properly.
As with research articles, protocols will be published under a Creative Commons licence.
The journals from BMJ are willing to consider publishing supplements. Supplement proposals may be made at the request of:
- The journal editor, an editorial board member or a learned society may wish to organise a meeting, sponsorship may be sought and the proceedings published as a supplement.
- The journal editor, editorial board member or learned society may wish to commission a supplement on a particular theme or topic. Again, sponsorship may be sought.
- The BMJ itself may have proposals for supplements where sponsorship may be necessary.
- A sponsoring organisation, often a pharmaceutical company or a charitable foundation, that wishes to arrange a meeting, the proceedings of which will be published as a supplement.
In all cases, it is vital that the journal's integrity, independence and academic reputation is not compromised in any way. All supplements are fully peer-reviewed. For further information on criteria that must be fulfilled, download the supplements guidelines (PDF).
Plagiarism detection
BMJ is a member of CrossCheck by CrossRef and iThenticate. iThenticate is a plagiarism screening service that verifies the originality of content submitted before publication. iThenticate checks submissions against millions of published research papers, and billions of web content. Authors, researchers and freelancers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting www.ithenticate.com.
Instructions to Authors
BMJOpen_instructions_for_authors_updated_qi.pdf
Editorial Board
BMJ Open - Editorial Board
Editor in Chief
Managing Editor
Associate Editor
Dr Alison Walker
BMJ
London, UK
Editorial Advisory board
Editorial advisory board members provide feedback on the journal's performance, advise on priorities and developments within their areas of expertise/interest and may be consulted on individual manuscripts for an editorial opinion or to suggest reviewers. They do not take editorial decisions.
Richard Ablin
University of Arizona
Tucson, USA
Fredrick Ashbury
PwC
Toronto, Canada
Greg Atkinson
Teesside University
Teesside, UK
Amal Kumar Banerjee
Association of Physicians of India
Howrah, India
Mauricio Barreto
Instituto de Saude Coletiva
Salvador, Brazil
Anne Barton
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
Christina Bergh
Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Gothenburg, Sweden
Anders Bjartell
Lund University
Malmo, Sweden
Knut Borch-Johnsen
Steno Diabetes Centre
Gentofte, Denmark
Chris Bullen
University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand
Andrew Bush
Imperial College London
London, UK
Christopher Butler
University of Cardiff
Cardiff, UK
Paul Davis
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Canada
Hans-Christoph Diener
University Duisburg-Essen
Essen, Germany
Emad M. El-Omar
Aberdeen University
Aberdeen, UK
Tom Fahey
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
David Felson
Boston University
Boston, USA
Timothy Gilligan
Cleveland Clinic
Ohio, USA
Peter J. Grant
University of Leeds
Leeds, UK
Gordon Guyatt
McMaster University
Hamilton, Canada
Engelbert Hanzal
Medical University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
Judd E. Hollander
University of Pennsylvania,
Pennsylvania, USA
Anil K Jain
Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital
Delhi, India
R V Jayakumar
Amrita Institute of Medical Science
Kochi, India
Linda Kao
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore, USA
Yutaka Kawakami
Keio University
Tokyo, Japan
Rose Anne Kenny
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Karim Khan
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada
Amit Khosla
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital
New Delhi, India
Matthew Kiernan
Prince of Wales Clinical School
Sydney, Australia
Nigel Klein
Institute of Child Health
London, UK
Sallie Lamb
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK
C. Soon Lee
Liverpool and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Sydney, Australia
Robert Lindsay
Helen Hayes Hospital
New York, USA
C Raina MacIntyre
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
Kevin Marsh
Centre of Geographical Medicine Research Coast
Kilifi, Kenya
Irwin Nazareth
University College London,
London, UK
Purvish M Parikh
AmeriCares India
Mumbai, India
Deven Parmar
Karmic Lifesciences
Mumbai, India
Ian Pavord
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
Leicester, UK
Constantin Polychronakos
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
David J. Rowbotham
Leicester Royal Infirmary
Leicester, UK
Adolfo Rubinstein
Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Richard Saitz
Boston University
Boston, USA
Arun D. Singh
Cleveland Clinic
Ohio, USA
Lesley Stewart
University of York
York, UK
Martin Stockler
University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
Kiyoshi Takeda
Osaka University
Osaka, Japan
Toshihiro Tanaka
RIKEN
Yokohama, Japan
Roland Valori
Gloucester NHS Trust
Gloucester, UK
Andrew Vickers
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre
New York, USA
Hywel Williams
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
Janet Wilson
Newcastle University
Newcastle, UK
Yangfeng Wu
The George Institute
Beijing, China
Statistical Advisory Board
Victoria Allgar
University of York
York, UK
Peter Baade
Cancer Council Queensland
Queensland, Australia
Adrian Barnett
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland, Australia
Alan Batterham
Teesside University
Middlesbrough, UK
Robin Christensen
Copenhaged University Hospital
Copenhagen, Denmark
Stephen-Mark Cooper
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Cardiff, UK
Helen Dakin
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK
Andrew Hinde
University of Southampton
Southampton, UK
Fowzia Ibrahim
King's College London
London, UK
Yannan Jiang
University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand
Le Kang
US Food and Drug Administration
Maryland, USA
Bernet Kato
Imperial College London
London, UK
Jake Olivier
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
Timothy Pickles
Cardiff University,
Cardiff, UK
Avinesh Pillai
University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand
Yana Vinogradova
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
Peter Watson
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
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