Author Guidelines for British Journal of Pharmacology

Useful links

Author Guidelines: PDF
Ethics Policy
Submission website
BJP reporting policies
Approved Abbreviations List
Declaration of Transparency and Scientific Rigour: CHECKLISTS
How to Link to the Guide to Pharmacology

Sections

1. Submission
2. Aims and Scope
3. Manuscript Categories and Requirements
4. Preparing the Submission
5. Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations
6. Author Licensing
7. Publication Process After Acceptance
8. Post Publication
9. Editorial Office Contact Details
10. Transfer to other British Pharmacological Society (BPS) Journals
    
    

1. SUBMISSION

Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium.

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjp

The submission system will prompt corresponding authors to use an ORCID iD (a unique author identifier) to help distinguish their work from that of other researchers. Click here to find out more.

Click here for more details on how to use ScholarOne.

For help with submissions, please contact BJPedoffice@wiley.com.

2. AIMS AND SCOPE

The British Journal of Pharmacology is a broad-remit journal giving leading international coverage of all aspects of experimental pharmacology. The journal publishes high-quality original research, authoritative reviews, mini reviews, letters to the Editor and commentaries.

Review articles are normally commissioned, but consideration will be given to unsolicited contributions. Reviews can be standalone or part of a themed issue.

BJP also publishes the Concise Guide to Pharmacology, which is a snapshot in time of the BPS/IUPHAR Guide to Pharmacology database and published biennially.

Commentaries are invited by the Editor-in-Chief on articles published in the journal.

Letters to the Editor are acceptable where they are a comment on a paper published in the journal or relate to current issues pertinent to the field of pharmacology.

BJP does not publish work on the actions of biological extracts of unknown chemical composition (e.g. unpurified and unvalidated) or unknown concentration. Papers that involve investigations on tobacco, smoking, alcohol, cocaine and other substances of abuse, whether directly or in the context of their use to generate a disease model (e.g. smoking for pulmonary disease), will be considered on scientific merit (which includes ethical justification) and relevance to pharmacology.

3. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS

Minimise the use of abbreviations throughout your manuscript. BJP has an Approved Abbreviations List, which you should use where possible; for abbreviations not on this list, please define on first use. Please keep non-approved abbreviations to a minimum.

i. Research Papers

Description: The scope should be pharmacological, i.e. focus on drugs and/or drug targets by characterising novel effects or mechanisms, or by validating new analytical approaches, methods or models and must constitute a significant contribution to pharmacological knowledge. BJP welcomes translational and systems pharmacology approaches to drug discovery and validation. Papers that reassess pharmacological concepts based on earlier results, and purely theoretical papers, will be considered. Papers describing new methods in pharmacology that embody new principles are also welcome.
Word limit: 4,000 words, excluding abstract, Methods, references and figure legends.
Abstract: 250 words; must be structured, under the following sub-headings: Background and Purpose, Experimental Approach, Key Results, Conclusion and Implications. Minimise abbreviations and do not include any references.
Methods: Should be fully transparent with sufficient detail to enable replication by others. There is no word limit.
Discussion and Conclusions: 1,500 words.
References: Ideally, no more than 60 references, with a focus on primary publications.
Title: 160 characters (including spaces).
Keywords: Supply between 3 and 7.
Figures/Tables: Total of no more than 10 figures and tables (excluding supporting files).
Bullet point summary: Supply three bulleted sections, entitled ‘What is already known’, ‘What this study adds’ and ‘ Clinical significance’, in this order. Each heading must have at least one bullet point, but no more than two. Each bullet point should have a maximum of 15 words.

ii. Review Articles

Description: Reviews are comprehensive analyses of the pharmacological literature.
Authors of unsolicited reviews must submit them directly to ScholarOne, following the standard submission procedure.
Word limit: 6,000-8,000 words excluding abstract, references and figure legends. (Please cite word count on your manuscript).
Title: Up to 160 characters (including spaces).
Abstract: Up to 150 words; must be non-structured.
References: Up to 150 references.
Structure: Authors should break up their reviews into headed sections.
Figures/Tables: There should be a minimum of two figures one of which should illustrate the major findings/pathways discussed. There should be a total of no more than 5 figures and tables (combined). The use of explanatory figures in the form of cartoons, flow diagrams, etc., is encouraged. Professional assistance can be provided – please contact the editorial office.
Abbreviations: Use the approved abbreviations list.

iii. Invited Minireviews

Description: Focus on hot and emerging topics, commissioned only.
Word limit: 2,000 words, excluding abstract, references and figure legends.
Abstract: Up to 150 words, unstructured.
References: Up to 30.
Figures: No more than two (one of which should summarise the major findings discussed).
Tables: No more than one
Titles: Up to 85 characters.

iv. Invited Commentaries

Description: Commentaries on BJP published research are invited only. They should contain no new or unreviewed data.
Word limit: 1,200 words, excluding references.
Abstract: There should be no abstract, no structuring.
References: Maximum of 5 references.
Figures/Tables: None

v. Letters to the Editor

Description: Letters should contain no new or unreviewed data. Any correspondence is limited to specific comments or responses relating to a recent BJP paper and current issues of importance to pharmacology. Where the letter relates to a recent BJP paper the authors will be invited to reply.
Word limit: 800 words, excluding references.
Abstract: No abstract.
References: Up to 5 references.
Figures/Tables: None.

4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION

Manuscript Preparation in Detail - Research Papers

Abstract

The abstract must be structured, under the following sub-headings: Background and Purpose: This must indicate why the study was performed and what question it was intended to answer.

Experimental Approach: This should state in outline what experimental methods were used. Details on media, buffers, drug concentrations, time points, statistics, etc., should not be given unless they are important in relation to the question that was addressed.

Key Results: The main results relevant to the question addressed should be summarised without quantitative elaboration (for example, ‘Drug X increased coronary blood flow by 25%, whereas drug Y had no effect’, rather than ‘Coronary blood flow after drug X (10µmol min-1 i.v. for 15 minutes) was increased from 19.4±3.2 ml min-1 (means ± sem n = 6) to 26.2±4.1 ml min-1 (n=6). The effect was statistically significant (0.01 <p<0.05). After drug Y…’ etc.

Conclusion and Implications: As well as summarising the main implications that follow from the results, and mentioning important shortcomings and caveats, this paragraph must clearly state in what ways the work has advanced understanding in the field.

Introduction

In the Introduction state the background to your work and its purpose. State your hypothesis and questions asked. Provide only essential background. 500 words are generally more than sufficient. Where previous work is cited, cite primary papers where possible.

Methods

To facilitate complete transparency, ‘Methods’ are not included in the word count of Research Papers.

Your methods must be described in sufficient detail to allow the experiments to be interpreted and repeated by an experienced investigator. Where published methodologies are used, references should be given, together with a brief outline: any references must provide the full description and not be a signpost to another reference. If this is a problem please provide the full description of the method in your own manuscript.

For experimental studies, the methods should be presented in sections and should cover

• Test systems used (animal preparations, isolated tissues, cultured cells, in vitro systems, etc.) and the measurements made (with technical details) for each system

• Where animals have been used as a test system the Journal has strict requirements for the reporting of experiments involving animals or animal tissue (adherence to ARRIVE and BJP guidelines should be stated in this section; see details below).

• We encourage authors to show examples of typical Westerns/PCRs/immunohistochemistry with associated quantitative data where such experimentation has been conducted. However, where these methods have been used, authors should also provide a single PDF of all original Western blots, immunohistochemical images used for each data set for review purposes only. For each data set the gel/blot images should be provided and labelled according to figure number.  This single PDF should be uploaded as supporting material. These images will not be published.

• Experimental protocols and design (adherence to BJP guidelines) should be stated (see below for guidance)

• Data and statistical analysis (adherence to BJP guidelines) should be a distinct subheading and include a priori sample size estimations where done.

• Materials. This should be sufficiently detailed to enable others to acquire and prepare as used in your method. For antibodies and cell lines RRID numbers should be provided (see later).

Experimental design and analysis

For all studies, experimental design, data analysis and statistical procedures should be consistent with the principles explained in the editorial Experimental design and analysis and their reporting: new guidance for publication in BJP and the major points detailed below. (For a precise bullet list, please see the Declaration of Transparency and Scientific Rigour: Checklist for Design & Analysis)

Authors should ensure that for each test system used that the following information is provided within the Methods section. Authors should follow the guidance provided.

Group sizes

• Explain how you have determined/designed group sizes. These should be equal by design, and any variation owing to experimental losses or violation of predetermined exclusion criteria must be explained.

• BJP accepts the use of post-hoc statistical tests designed to identify outliers within datasets. These tests should be appropriate for the type (distribution) of data being analysed. Examples of such tests include Grubb’s or ROUT outlier tests. Where outliers are identified a clear indication of number of data points excluded must be provided with a robust explanation for the type of test used.

• Authors should provide the exact group size (n) for each experimental group/condition, not a range; and n refers to independent values, not replicates. Data subjected to statistical analysis should have a group size (n) ≥ 5. If n is less than 5 anywhere in the study, please provide an explanation, and please do not undertake statistical analysis of the dataset.

Randomisation

• Please state whether animals or human subjects were randomised for treatment. If randomisation was not carried out, state that randomisation was not used, and please supply an explanation for why not.

Blinding

• Please state whether the operator and/or data analysis were blinded. If blinding was not undertaken, or not feasible, please state why.

Normalisation

• When normalisation is employed (e.g. expression of values as ‘% of baseline’ or ‘fold mean control’) please provide a valid scientific justification (i.e. to control for unwanted sources of variation).

• If employing normalisation that generates control or baseline values with no variance (standard deviation = 0), please explain with a valid scientific justification and do not subject such data to parametric statistical analysis.

• Please explain any data transformation (such as log transformation) with a valid scientific justification (i.e. to generate a Gaussian-distributed data set amenable to parametric analysis).

Data and Statistical analysis

• A sub-section headed 'Data and Statistical Analysis' is mandatory in all manuscripts and should be inserted in to the Methods section as a sub-heading and include the statement that ‘the data and statistical analysis comply with the recommendations on experimental design and analysis in pharmacology (Curtis et al., 2018).’

• Provide details of any statistical package or program employed, including manufacturer and model number and details of which tests (and which options) and which program(s) (with full version number) were used.

• If an experiment (e.g. assay) is undertaken in duplicate, triplicate etc., please state that technical replicates were used to ensure the reliability of single values. This reliability can be quoted as a coefficient of variation. In data analysis and data presentation use the single values (i.e. 5 samples each run in triplicate is n=5 not n=15).

• When comparing groups, and if a level of probability (p) is deemed to constitute the threshold for statistical significance, define this here in the ‘Data and Statistical Analysis’ sub-section of the Methods, and do not vary it later in Results (by presentation of multiple levels of significance). Thus, if p<0.05 is defined by the authors as threshold, p<0.01 etc. should not appear in the results. However, setting p at a lower value such as p<0.01 or 0.001 is acceptable (and considered good practice), provided that this is defined as constituting statistical significance, and is not varied. It is not necessary to state the exact level of p.

• Studies employing animals, animal tissues or primary cultures from animal tissues must provide additional detail covering the requirements for reporting experiments involving animals or animal tissue, as detailed below.

• Exceptions to these guidelines will be considered (e.g., normalised data analysed parametrically without a preceding ANOVA arising from unbalanced experiments with low n in treatment groups) for a result where a full description of the intended experimental design and analysis have been published in a date-stamped, peer-reviewed preclinical registry together with a priori sample size calculations for each group involving adequate power (e.g. Registered Reports; https://cos.io/rr/).

• The rationale for the above can be found at Curtis et al., 2018. For help with designing in vivo experiments, please see the NC3Rs Experimental Design Assistant. For help with statistical analysis of your in vivo experiments, please see InVIvoStat, a powerful, free to use, statistical software package.

Requirements for reporting experiments involving animals or animal tissue

• This information is required only if animals, animal tissue or primary cultures are involved. It allows you to comply with BJP Policy on reporting experiments involving animals and with  the principles of ARRIVE and the United States NIH. Please ensure that this section contains the details described as follows.

Validity of animal species or model selection

• Provide a scientific justification for the animal species and each model selected for study. For instance, ‘this model of pain in rats replicates aspects of the human pain pathway (reference)’ (refer to review on pain models).

Ethical statement

• Make a statement of ethical approval for experimentation that will be recognised worldwide. Indicate the nature of the ethical review permissions, and national or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals, that cover the research. Include application approval numbers and web addresses of the approving organisations, if available.

• For further details, please see the journal's Ethics Policy.

Animals

• Please note source, species, strain, sex, age range, weight and any additional data that are relevant to the study.

Housing and husbandry

• Standard animal housing and care does not need to be explained in detail as long as these meet the standards required by relevant local guidance or law.

• Provide details of non-standard housing (type of facility e.g. specific pathogen free [SPF]; type of cage or housing; bedding material; number of cage companions; tank shape and material etc. for fish).

Experimental procedures

• Provide details, as appropriate, of behavioural tests, anaesthesia and analgesia, surgical procedures, how the animal was killed and, if there is recovery following surgery, the methods of asepsis and post-operative care. Include welfare-related assessments, measurements and interventions (e.g. humane end points) that were carried out prior to, during, or after the experiment.

Materials

• Finally, please ensure your Methods section contains a Materials sub-section. Provide the suppliers of drugs and other chemicals, reagents and other materials.

• For new compounds, the synthesis and physicochemical characteristics of the compound(s) must be summarised here unless these have already been published in another journal or in a patent.

• Please note BJP will not consider manuscripts concerning or using compounds of undisclosed structure or undefined mixtures of compounds e.g. plant extracts.

• Where antibodies and cell lines have been used please provide RRID designation (see later).

Results

In this section, please do not repeat numerical values of any data presented in tables or figures. Each value should be shown EITHER in the Tables OR Figures OR in the text, NOT both. When a change is considered statistically significant, there is no need to show p<0.05 etc. in the text, as this level will have already been given in the Methods section (data analysis) and ONLY ONE VALUE of p should be used throughout the manuscript.

Do not interpret, compare or discuss the data reported in the Results section; it is more appropriate to do this in the Discussion and Conclusions.

Discussion and Conclusions

Please note this section should be no more than to 1,500 words and Senior Editors will ask for justification when this limit is exceeded.

Explain how your hypothesis or initial questions have been addressed by your results and why this is important.

Make a statement concerning the possible clinical relevance of the study.

If your study has any implications for the 3Rs (replacement, refinement or reduction), please make a statement on this in the Discussion, e.g. ‘When used in signalling assays, the above procedure results in one rat pup yielding approximately 8 data points for neurons and 24 data points for glia. This is a significant enhancement over previous studies examining cAMP signalling, where approximately two rat pups have yielded a single data point for trigeminal ganglia-derived neurons’ (Walker et al., British Journal of Pharmacology. 2014)

Manuscript Submission in Detail - Research Papers

The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: main text file; tables; figures, graphical abstract files; appendices; supporting information. Cover letters are not mandatory; however, they may be supplied at the author’s discretion (but should be uploaded as a separate document).

Your Submission: Main Text File - Check List

The text file should be presented in the following order:

I. Title (no more than 160 characters)

II. A short running title of less than 70 characters of less

III. The full names of the authors

IV. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was carried out (include the author’s present address if different from where the work was carried out)

V. Word count (excluding figure legends and references).

VI. Acknowledgements

VII.Conflict of interest statement

VIII. Abstract

IX. Keywords

X. Main text

XI. References

XII. Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes)

XIII. Figure legends

Your Submission: Main Text File

- Detail

Title. The title should be short and informative, containing major keywords related to the content. It must clearly indicate the subject matter of the paper, why the work is important and any assertions it contains must be justified by the results presented in the paper The title should not contain abbreviations, cumbersome technical terms or technical details  (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips).

Abstract. Should convey clearly the key messages of the work, and why the work is important.

Authorship. Please refer to the journal’s Authorship policy outlined in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below.

Acknowledgements. Contributions from individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgements section. Financial and material support should also be cited. Giving thanks to anonymous reviewers is not appropriate. See more below.

Conflict of Interest Statement. Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. See ‘Conflict of Interest’ section in Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations for details on what to include in this section. Authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.

Keywords. Please provide at least three keywords, and up to seven. Keywords should be supplied for all article types and must be selected as follows: 1) Use one major indexing term, one crosscutting term and one additional term; 2) the remainder should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. Any RIIDs cited in a research paper will be captured through Al and added as keywords during production.

Follow the APA style. Submissions are not required to reflect the precise reference formatting of the journal (use of italics, bold etc.); however, it is important that all key elements of each reference are included. Please see below for examples of reference content requirements.

In the text, give the author’s name followed by the year in parentheses: Smith (2000). Where there are more than 2 authors, cite the first two authors, followed by ‘et al.’. If several papers by the same authors and from the same year are cited, a,b,c etc. should be inserted after the year of publication.

In the reference list, references should be listed in alphabetical order. Each reference should include up to 6 authors, and then three ellipsis followed by the last author's name if there are 7 or more authors.

BJP does not allow references to unpublished data.

Journal Article.

Author, A. (Publication Year). Article title. Periodical Title, Volume(Issue), pp.-pp.

For example

Nevin, A. (1990). The changing of teacher education special education. Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, 13(3-4), 147-148.

Jameson, J. (2013). E-Leadership in higher education: The fifth “age” of educational technology research. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(6), 889-915. DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12103

Book.

Author, A. (Year of Publication). Title of work. Publisher City, State: Publisher.

Website.

Author, A. (Year)Title. Retrieved from URL

For example

Simmons, B. (2015). The tale of two Flaccos. Retrieved from http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-tale-of-two-flaccos/

Tables.

Should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. They should be self-contained and should complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: a, b, c etc., should be used (in that order) and * should be reserved for p-values. Statistical measures such as SD or sem should be identified in the headings.

Separate and Additional Files

Tables. Tables should be submitted as separate files.

Appendices. Will be published after the references. For submission they should be supplied as separate files but referred to in the text.

Supporting Information. Information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information. Information that aids interpretation such as demonstrations of selectivity of an antibody, demographic data of animal or human cohort, typical Western blots or immunohistochemical images should be submitted as supporting information, with an explanation of why it is considered supporting, rather than essential to the paper. Please state the number of figures and tables submitted as supporting information.

Note: if data, scripts or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.

General Style and Formatting Points. Be succinct. Stay ‘on topic’. Avoid unsubstantiated speculation. Don’t assume mechanisms when using drugs as tools – selectivity is concentration-dependent. Use correct, clear, plain English.

Authors may submit in UK or US spelling, but it will be converted to British spelling during the publication process.

Footnotes are not allowed - any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Numbers. Numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit (8mmol/l); age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 dogs, 9 cats, 4 gerbils).

Trade Names. Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name and the name and location of the manufacturer in parentheses.

For new compounds, the synthesis and physicochemical characteristics of the compound(s) must be summarised unless these have already been published in another journal or in a patent.

Pharmacological Nomenclature

Nomenclature used in your article must follow that of the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY. Should your manuscript be accepted, the key pharmacological targets discussed in your manuscript will be highlighted in your published article. Apply linking to these ligands and targets within the body of your manuscript. You will also be asked to provide a simple list of ligands and targets you have hyperlinked so that the press editors can check you have included all major targets. This list will not be published.

You will also be asked to supply a ‘Nomenclature of Targets and Ligands’ statement (the nature of which will depend on your article). You are not required to supply these items at submission - this will be requested should your manuscript be accepted, and you will be given full and clear instructions by the editorial office.

Resource Identification Initiative

The journal supports the Resource Identification Initiative, which aims to promote research resource identification, discovery and reuse. This initiative, led by the Neuroscience Information Framework and the Oregon Health & Science University Library, provides unique identifiers for antibodies, model organisms, cell lines, and tools including software and databases. These IDs, called Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs), are machine-readable and can be used to search for all papers where a particular resource was used and to increase access to critical data to help researchers identify suitable reagents and tools.

Authors of research articles are asked to use RRIDs to cite the antibodies and cell lines used in their research where applicable in the text, similar to a regular citation or Genbank Accession number. For antibodies, authors should include in brackets the vendor, catalogue number, and RRID in the text upon first mention in the Methods section. If a RRID is not available then authors should also include a full citation in the reference section demonstrating validation unless validation is provided within the manuscript.

Example Citations:

Antibodies: Wnt3 was localized using a rabbit polyclonal antibody C64F2 against Wnt3 (Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 2721S, RRID: AB_2215411)

Cell lines: Experiments were conducted in PC12 CLS cells (CLS Cat# 500311/p701_PC-12, RRID:CVCL_0481)

To Obtain RRIDs:

1)      Use the Resource Identification Portal, created by the Resource Identification Initiative Working Group.

2)      Search for the research resource (please see the section titled “Search Features and Tips” in ABOUT for more information).

3)      Click on the “Cite This” button in ABOUT to obtain the citation and insert the citation into the manuscript text.

If there is a resource that is not found within the Portal, authors are asked to register the resource with the appropriate resource authority. Information on how to do this is provided in the “Resource Citation Guidelines” section of the Portal.

If any difficulties in obtaining identifiers arise, please contact rii-help@scicrunch.org for assistance.

Author Support

BJP employs Press Editors and Copy Editors, who provide a free language and copy-editing service to improve the quality of all manuscripts that are acceptable for publication on scientific grounds.

Manuscript Preparation Tips: Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimisation.

Editing, Translation and Formatting Support: BJP employs Press Editors and Copy Editors, who provide a free language and copy-editing service to improve the quality of all manuscripts that are acceptable for publication on scientific grounds. A further service is also available to authors: Wiley Editing Services. This service can greatly improve the chances of a manuscript being accepted. Offering expert help in English language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure preparation, Wiley Editing Services ensures that the manuscript is ready for submission.

Video Abstracts

A video abstract can be a quick way to make the message of your research accessible to a much larger audience. Wiley and its partner Research Square offer a service of professionally produced video abstracts, available to authors of articles accepted in this journal. You can learn more about it by clicking here. If you have any questions, please direct them to videoabstracts@wiley.com. A collection of previously published abstracts can be found here.

5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Editorial Review and Acceptance Policy

Tips for authors on how to navigate the peer review process can be found here.

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are single-blind peer reviewed. Papers will only be sent to review if the Senior Editors determine that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

Wiley's policy on confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Once submitted, a manuscript will first be checked by the Editorial Office to ensure all elements have been submitted. If any required documentation is absent, the Editorial Office will return the manuscript to the author and request any missing information or material.

Manuscripts are then given a first review by a Senior Editor (triage), who may return the manuscript to the authors to avoid delay if (s)he judges that it is out of scope or has little chance of being accepted after review. Otherwise it will be sent for review, usually by an Editor and three referees.

The referees’ comments and Editor’s recommendation will be reviewed by the appropriate Senior Editor, who will communicate the decision to the corresponding author. This process takes one month on average from submission to the initial decision, but can take longer.

Authors may be asked to revise their manuscript before a final decision is made.

Once your paper is accepted, you will be asked by the editorial office to send any outstanding essential material. This will include a request that you apply hyperlinking within the body of your manuscript (just to the main ligands and targets discussed in your article). You will be supplied with full instructions.

Submission Policy

Submission of a manuscript to BJP will be taken to indicate that

• the content of the manuscript is original and that it has not been published or accepted for publication, either in whole or in part, other than as short abstracts, communications or conference proceedings;
• no part of the manuscript is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere;
• all authors have seen and approved the final version of the submitted paper;
• authors have, if necessary, obtained permission to publish from their employers or institutions;
• approvals are held from any persons acknowledged, or cited as having provided personal communication;
• permission has been obtained to use any copyrighted material, such as reproducing a figure from another article, in print and electronic forms, and that the source of the material has been acknowledged; and images have not been manipulated outside the CLIP principles.

Authorship Policy - Research Papers

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.

Additional Authorship Options. Joint first or senior authorship: In the case of joint first authorship, a footnote should be added to the author listing, e.g. ‘X and Y should be considered joint first author’ or ‘X and Y should be considered joint senior author.'

Policy on Pre-Publication in Preprint Servers.

The journal will consider articles previously available as preprints on non-commercial servers such as bioRxiv, psyArXiv, SocArXiv, etc, as long as authors have retained copyright of their articles during the preprint process. Authors may also post the submitted version of their manuscript to non-commercial servers at any time. Authors should update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. Allowing submission under such circumstances does not guarantee that an article will be sent out for review or that it will be accepted for publication in BJP.

Data Sharing Policy

This journal encourages data sharing (please see the recent BJP guidelines editorial on this issue), unless this is prevented by ethical, privacy, or confidentiality matters. The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper. If the study includes original data, at least one author must confirm that he or she had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Please review Wiley's policy here.

Where can I archive my data?

Research data can be submitted to discipline-specific, community-recognized repositories or to general-purpose repositories.

But choosing where to publish your datasets can be problematic and time consuming, so we recommend that you visit re3data.org for an extensive catalogue of registered and certified data repositories.

Some funders have designated archives set up for researchers to deposit their data. Check our Author Compliance Tool to see your funder’s data sharing policy.

If your funder does not have specific data repository recommendations, you could consider generalist repositories such as Dryad, FigShare, or Zenodo.

Data Protection Policy

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for BJP, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognise the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more at https://authorservices.wiley.com/statements/data-protection-policy.html.

Publishing & Research Ethics Policies

• Please see BJP’s full Publishing & Research Ethics Policy.
• Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines here.

Conflicts of Interest Policy

The journal requires that all authors, for all article types, disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to the following: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Funding Acknowledgement Policy

All authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/.

For papers where no conflicts of interest or funding are declared, a default statement will be added to that paper.

6. AUTHOR LICENSING

If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper.

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or OnlineOpen under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence.

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons Licence options offered under OnlineOpen, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC licence be used; to check this please click here.)

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.

Open Access fees: Authors who choose to publish using OnlineOpen will be charged a fee. A list of Article Publication Charges for Wiley journals is available here.

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Linking to the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY

When your article is accepted for publication, you will be contacted by the Editorial office to complete a number of tasks required before your article can move into publication. One of these is to apply linking within your article to the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology, for all key ligands and targets. Full instructions will be provided at submission. The aim of this process is to ensure that the IUPHAR approved nomenclature is used for all targets and ligands to facilitate reproducibility and transparency and to encourage use of nomenclature agreed by the international pharmacological community.

Accepted Article Received in Production

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication licence at this point.

Accepted Articles

The journal offers Wiley’s Accepted Articles service for all manuscripts. This service ensures that accepted ‘in press’ manuscripts are published online shortly after acceptance, prior to copy-editing or typesetting. Accepted Articles are published online a few days after final acceptance and appear in PDF format only. They are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked and are indexed by PubMed. After the final version article is published (the article of record), the DOI remains valid and can still be used to cite and access the article.

Accepted Articles will be indexed by PubMed; submitting authors should therefore carefully check the names and affiliations of all authors provided in the cover page of the manuscript so it is accurate for indexing. Subsequently, the final copyedited and proofed articles will appear in an issue on Wiley Online Library; the link to the article in PubMed will update automatically.

Simultaneous to Accepted article publication, the accepted manuscript is re-formatted into the journal style and then the language and scientific content are checked by a Press Editor. The paper is then typeset.

Proofs

Return of proofs via e-mail is possible in the event that the online system cannot be used or accessed.

Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during the editorial process – authors should check proofs carefully.

Early View

The journal offers rapid publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View (the Online Version of Record) articles are published on Wiley Online Library before inclusion in an issue. Note there may be a delay after corrections are received before the article appears online. Once the article is published on Early View, no further changes to the article are possible. The Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations.

8. POST PUBLICATION

Access and Sharing

When the article is published online: 

• The author receives an email alert (if requested).

• The link to the published article can be shared through social media.

• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).

• The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to the article.

Full information for authors on sharing content can be found here.

Print copies of the article can be ordered from www.sheridan.com/wiley/eoc.

Promoting your article

To find out how to best promote an article, click here.

Measuring the impact of an article

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.

9. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

bjpedoffice@wiley.com.

10. TRANSFER TO OTHER BRITISH PHARMACOLOGICAL SOCIETY (BPS) JOURNALS

Cascade Option to Pharmacology Research & Perspectives

BJP provides the option of cascading a rejected paper to Pharmacology Research & Perspectives (PR&P) if deemed to be suitable. PR&P is the Open Access journal jointly owned by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and the British Pharmacological Society (BPS).

The rejection rate of BJP is high. Quality papers are rejected on the basis of novelty or perceived potential impact, or are studies deemed out of scope, or which show negative results. This is where PR&P has a role to play in getting those papers to the pharmacological community. The publication of negative results and confirmatory studies represents a contribution to the scientific literature often overlooked by other quality journals.

Referred papers need to be well-conceived, scientifically sound studies; only the best of the rejected papers are therefore offered a transfer.

How it works: Where good-quality research deserving of publication is rejected by BJP, the paper is referred to PR&P. This is undertaken by a ‘reject with referral’ decision. Text in the rejection letter explains that the manuscript has been rejected with a recommendation to progress to PR&P without guaranteeing a specific outcome. At this point, the author decides whether to accept the referral and to transfer the paper to PR&P.

Cascade Option to BJCP

The Senior Editors of BJP might consider that a submitted manuscript is out of scope and more suitable for consideration by its sister journals British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP). If so, the Senior Editors will offer authors the opportunity to transfer the manuscript to the BJCP editorial office, with no need to reformat the manuscript.

These Author Guidelines were last updated on 30^th August 2019.