Authors
JME Practical Bioethics: Open for submissions shortly
Editorial policy
JME Practical Bioethics adheres to the highest standards concerning its editorial policies on publication ethics, scientific misconduct, consent and peer review criteria. To view all BMJ Journal policies please refer to the BMJ Author Hub policies page.
More information on copyright and authors’ rights.
Copyright and authors’ rights
As an open access journal, JME Practical Bioethics adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access. Articles are published under an exclusive licence or non-exclusive licence for UK Crown employees or where BMJ has agreed CC BY applies. For US Federal Government officers or employees acting as part of their official duties, the terms are as stated in accordance with our licence terms. Authors or their employers retain copyright. Such open access articles can be reused under the terms of the relevant Creative Commons licence to facilitate reuse of the content. Please refer to the JME Practical Bioethics Author Licence.
When publishing in JME Practical Bioethics, authors choose between two licence types – CC-BY-NC and CC-BY (Creative Commons open access licences require payment of an article processing charge). As an author, you may wish to post your article in an institutional or subject repository, or on a scientific social sharing network. You may also link your published article to your preprint (if applicable). What you can do with your article, without seeking permission, depends on the licence you have chosen and the version of your article. Please refer to the BMJ author self-archiving and permissions policies page for more information.
Preprints
Preprints foster openness, accessibility and collaboration by allowing authors to make their findings immediately available to the research community and receive feedback on an article before it is submitted to a journal for formal publication.
BMJ fully supports and encourages the archiving of preprints in any recognised, not-for-profit server such as medRxiv. BMJ does not consider the posting of an article in a dedicated preprint repository to be prior publication.Preprints are reports of work that have not been peer-reviewed; Preprints should therefore not be used to guide clinical practice, health-related behaviour or health policy. For more information, please refer to our Preprint policy page.
Article transfer service
BMJ is committed to ensuring that all good quality research is published. Our article transfer service helps authors find the best journal for their research while providing an easy and smooth publication process. If authors agree to transfer their manuscript, all versions, supplementary files and peer reviewer comments are automatically transferred; there is no need to resubmit or reformat.
Authors who submit to JME Practical Bioethics and are rejected will be offered the option of transferring to another BMJ Journal, such as BMJ Open. Please note that the article transfer service does not guarantee acceptance but you should receive a quicker initial decision on your manuscript.
Contact the Transfer Editor at transfers@bmj.com
Peer review
JME Practical Bioethics operates double anonymised peer review whereby the names of both the reviewer and the author are anonymous to each other. All submissions are reviewed by at least one reviewer. If there is uncertainty about acceptance after review, papers are reviewed by the editors. For more information on the peer review process, please consult the BMJ Author Hub – the peer review process.
Anonymised manuscript This should be free from:
- Any author names, institution or contact details
- Acknowledgements
- Declarations of interest
- Statements of ethical approval with all references to your institution replaced with "[redacted for peer review]"; e.g. “This research was approved by the University of North Carolina Institutional Review Board” becomes “This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of [redacted for peer review].” This statement should appear in the methods section of your manuscript.
Conflicts of interest
Authors are asked to declare any competing interests on submission to the journal. Associate editors are also asked to declare any potential conflict of interest when handling a paper, such as authorship by an author in the same institution or other relationships where there may be an appearance of a conflict of interest.
Article processing charges
JME Practical Bioethics is an open access journal and levies an Article Processing Charge (APC) of £1948 GBP (exclusive of VAT for UK and EU authors). There are no submission, colour or page charges.
Waivers and discounts
BMJ journals offer waivers for the full Article Processing Charge (100% discount of the APC) where all authors are based in low-income countries.
Requests for waivers should be made before or during initial submission**. If an article reports funding from a funder with an open access mandate or policy that covers paying APCs, BMJ expects that the APC will be paid.
Visit our author hub to learn more about our waivers policy and how to request one.
You might be eligible for institutional funding. A number of institutions have open access agreements with BMJ which can either cover the whole cost of open access publishing for authors at participating institutions or can allow authors to receive a discount of the Article Processing Charge (APC).
Visit BMJ’s open access agreements page to find out whether your institution is a member and what discounts you may be entitled to.
**Please note that applications for waivers or discounts should be made during initial submission and not after an article has been accepted. Editors are not involved in this process and the ability to pay has no bearing on editorial decisions. Payment will not be required unless your article is accepted. Accepted articles will not be published until payment has been received. BMJ does not refund APCs once paid.
Data Sharing
JME Practical Bioethics adheres to BMJ's Tier 2 data policy. We strongly encourage that data generated by your research that supports your article be made available as soon as possible, wherever legally and ethically possible. We also require data from clinical trials to be made available upon reasonable request. To adhere to ICMJE guidelines, we require that a data sharing plan must be included with trial registration for clinical trials that begin enrolling participants on or after 1st January 2019. Changes to the plan must be noted in the Data Availability Statement and updated in the registry record. All research articles must contain a Data Availability Statement. For more information and FAQs, please see BMJ's full Data Sharing Policy page.
Rapid responses
A rapid response is a moderated but not peer reviewed online response to a published article in JME Practical Bioethics; it will not receive a DOI and will not be indexed. Find out more about responses and how to submit a response.
Submission guidelines
Please review the below article type specifications including the required article lengths, illustrations, table limits and reference counts. The word count excludes the title page, abstract, tables, acknowledgements, contributions and references. Manuscripts should be as succinct as possible.
For further support when making your submission please refer to the resources available on the BMJ Author Hub. Here you will find information on writing and formatting your research through to the peer review process and promoting your paper. You may also wish to use the language editing and translation services provided by BMJ Author Services. For guidance on how writing informative titles, please view this blog post from the London School of Economics and Political Science.JME Practical Bioethics does accept footnotes at the end of each page which should be denoted in superscript Roman numerals. There should be no more than around 30 words per footnote.
Original research - extended essay
Original research - extended essays employ in-depth philosophical analysis in order to address an important policy- or practice-related normative question. Predominantly empirical papers will not be considered in this category.
Word count: up to 8,000
Abstract: up to 350 words (unstructured)
Tables/Illustrations: up to 5
References: up to 50
Editorial
Editorials are commissioned only articles. “Guest Editorials” are invited by the editors and they address important and current ethical issues. The positions they present are not necessarily those of the editorial team.
Word count: up to 1,000
Abstract: Not required
Tables/illustrations: up to 2
References: up to 5
Commentary
Commentaries are commissioned only articles.
Word count: up to 1,000
Abstract: Not required
Tables/illustrations: up to 2
References: up to 5
Short report
Short reports include summarised Original research arguments or results of empirical studies that can be stated succinctly.Word count: up to 1,500
Abstract: up to 350 (unstructured)
Tables/Illustrations: up to 2
References: up to 25
Response
Response articles are responses to articles previously published in the JME Practical Bioethics. They may be peer-reviewed at the editors' discretion, peer-reviewed responses will be reviewed on a fast track for timely publication. This may include responses from authors who have been criticised in the Journal.
Word count: 1,500 words
Abstract: up to 350 (unstructured)
Tables/Illustrations: up to 5
References: up to 10
Current controversy
This article should cover some current news item, legal case or recent advance of ethical significance, together with identification and some analysis of ethical issues involved. Articles in this category undergo peer review, though where they discuss urgent issues the review process may be fast-tracked to ensure early publication.
Word count: up to 4,000 words
Abstract: up to 350 words (unstructured)
Tables/Illustrations: up to 5
References: up to 25
Supplements
The BMJ Publishing Group journals are willing to consider publishing supplements to regular issues. 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.
- 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.
When contacting us regarding a potential supplement, please include as much of the information below as possible.
- Journal in which you would like the supplement published
- Title of supplement and/or meeting on which it is based
- Date of meeting on which it is based
- Proposed table of contents with provisional article titles and proposed authors
- An indication of whether authors have agreed to participate
- Sponsor information including any relevant deadlines
- An indication of the expected length of each paper Guest Editor proposals if appropriate