What does The BMJ publish?

The BMJ''''''''s mission is to lead the debate on health, and to engage, inform, and stimulate doctors, researchers and other health professionals in ways that will improve outcomes for patients. We aim to help doctors to make better decisions.

To achieve these aims we publish original research articles, review and educational articles, news, letters, investigative journalism, and articles commenting on the clinical, scientific, social, political, and economic factors affecting health. We are delighted to consider articles for publication from doctors and others, and from anywhere in the world.

We can publish only about 7% of the 7000-8000 articles we receive each year, but we aim to give quick and authoritative decisions. For all types of article the average time from submission to first decision is two to three weeks and from acceptance to publication eight to 10 weeks. These times are usually shorter for original research articles. We reject about two thirds of all submissions without sending them for external peer review, but many authors tell us they appreciate quick decisions that allow them to submit their work elsewhere without delay.

We also audit the performance of The BMJ''''''''s research articles, using a wide range of indicators to assess their impact on readers and their dissemination to the wider world.

Open access

All research papers in The BMJ are published with open access. Moreover, The BMJ immediately fulfils the requirements of the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and other funding bodies by making the full text of publicly funded research freely available to all on bmj.com and sending it directly to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine''''''''s full text archive.

The BMJ''''''''s default licence for open access publication of research is the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). But where the funder requires it the author can select the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence during the submission process (funders who mandate CC BY include the Wellcome Trust, RCUK, and MRC).
To support open access publishing we ask authors of all research papers to pay an open access fee of £3000 (excluding VAT) on acceptance of their paper. We offer discounts and waivers for authors of unfunded research. Consideration of research articles is not related to ability to pay the fee, and we ask authors not to discuss with editors any issues concerning payment at any stage of the peer review process. Any communications related to fees are handled by administrative staff not involved in decisions about manuscripts.

The BMJ occasionally publishes other types of (non-research) article arising from work funded by a funder who mandates open access publication, and the above policy applies to these too.

For articles not published with open access, The BMJ''''''''s publication licence allows each author to post their article''''''''s URL (provided above) on either their own or their employer''''''''s website, thereby giving users free access to the full text of the article on bmj.com. Authors will need to use the toll free link to ensure visitors have free access to the article.

Alternatively, authors can post the full text of their published article on their own website or their employer''''''''s website.