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Submission guidelines

Flexible format submissions

To facilitate the submission process, we are flexible with regard to the format, style and length of initial submissions. If it is more convenient to the authors, manuscripts can be uploaded as a single Microsoft Word file with high resolution figures, figure legends and supplemental information included. The cover letter should be provided separately during the submission process. Please refer to the submissions criteria regarding our policy on data.

Journal-specific formatting is required only once manuscripts have completed one round of peer review.

Graphical abstracts

A graphical abstract image can be uploaded during submission (after peer review). This is a picture which will appear underneath the Abstract on the website. It should be relevant to the topic covered and serve to attract readers' attention to the article. The graphical abstract image may be one of the images included in the article or any other image the authors feel to be appropriate. Please see here for instructions on file type and figure size/ resolution.


Our 3-step submission process

  1. Before you submit

    Now you’ve identified a journal to submit to, there are a few things you should be familiar with before you submit.

  2. Ready to submit

    To give your manuscript the best chance of publication, follow these policies and formatting guidelines.

  3. Submit and promote

    After acceptance, we provide support so your article gains maximum impact in the scientific community and beyond.

    Please note that manuscript can only be submitted by an author of the manuscript and may not be submitted by a third party. 

Submit manuscript

Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    3.0 - 2-year Impact Factor
    3.2 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.148 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    1.237 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2023 Speed
    7 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    131 days submission to accept (Median)

    2023 Usage 
    4,093,320 downloads
    5,053 Altmetric mentions