Authorship
Name change policy
Peer review process
Ethics policy and informed consent
Prior publication
Funding acknowledgements
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Corrections, retractions, editorial expressions of concern
Corrections policy
Commentaries, responses and rejoinders
Complaints and appeals procedure
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. This section might include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or any sort of general support in performing research.
Biolife Publisher strictly follows COPE guidelines and in accordance with the guidelines requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submitted manuscripts or published articles. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors confirm and agree with the proposed changes.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Biolife Publisher supports authors who have changed their name for personal reasons, including but not limited to marriage or divorce, religious conversion, and gender identity change, and would like past Biolife Publisher publications to reflect this change. Authors should contact the journal to request updates to their published records. Biolife Publisher staff will treat such requests confidentially and work with authors to ensure changes are made quickly and accurately.
Unfortunately, due to the complexity and interconnectivity of the citation network across publishers, we cannot update citations for papers in which a name change has been made.
The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. International Journal of Infection utilizes a single-blind peer review process in which the reviewer’s name and information are withheld from the author. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible while maintaining rigour. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor, who then makes the final decision.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor / Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
Please follow the guidelines on our "instructions for referees" page.
Research Ethics and Patient Consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.
All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The journal has adopted the Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare for Veterinary Journals published by the International Association of Veterinary Editors.
International Journal of Infection conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
The relevant reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. Resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.
Biolife Publisher follows the COPE Guidelines in addressing potential redundant publication.
If a substantial portion of a manuscript has been previously published, the manuscript will generally not be acceptable for publication. However, there are certain circumstances where material that has been publicly distributed may be considered for publication.
International Journal of Infection requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. All research articles should have a funding acknowledgement statement included in the manuscript in the form of a sentence under a separate heading entitled ‘Funding’ directly after the Acknowledgements and Declaration of Conflicting Interests, if applicable, and prior to any Notes and References.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The International Journal of Infection policy requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors, enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.
In an effort to better serve our researchers, librarians, and others in the academic community, Biolife Publisher believes clarity in the publishing record is a critical component of information distribution.
Because articles can be read and cited as soon as they are published (including AOP publications), any changes thereafter could potentially impact those who read and cited the earlier version. Biolife Publisher provides authors with an opportunity to review article proofs prior to publication or AOP with the express goal of ensuring accuracy of the content. Publishing an erratum or corrigendum increases the likelihood readers will find out about the change and also explains the specifics of the change.
Biolife Publisher takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism and other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. In the rare cases where a breach of publication ethics or copyright infringement are discovered, Biolife Publisher reserves the right to take appropriate action to correct the academic record, including but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum; publishing an expression of concern linked to the article; retracting the article and publishing an accompanying retraction notice; or removing an article for legal reasons and replacing the removed article with a notice.
Commentaries, Responses and Rejoinders
International Journal of Infestion allows short commentaries on published articles and author responses (or rebuttals). These are generally limited to one direct commentary on an article published in the journal, an author response to the commentary, and a rejoinder by the commentator.
Complaints and Appeals Procedure
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact Biolife Publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern.
Biolife Publisher will acknowledge receipt of the complaint and it will be investigated.
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)
International Journal of Infection allows the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to a moderate extent and only under the condition that such usage respects high standards of copyright protection, confidentiality, and data security.
Authors are accountable for the originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their submissions, and for ensuring that the content of their submissions meets the required standards of rigorous scientific and scholarly assessment, research and validation. If authors intend to use an AI tool, they should ensure that the tool is appropriate and robust for their proposed use, and that the such tool provides sufficient safeguards and protections, such as those regarding intellectual property rights, confidentiality, and security.