Journals policies and procedures
Editorial Team
The Editorial team consists of the Editor-in-Chief, three Deputy Editors, the Editorial Office Team and the Editorial Board (consisting of the Associate Editors).
Review Procedure
Except where clearly stated to the contrary, all submitted manuscripts are externally peer reviewed. Human Reproduction uses a single-blind peer review system: review teams are aware of the authors' identities but not vice-versa. Upon submission, each manuscript is evaluated by the Editor-in-chief and is then allocated to an Associate Editor according to the specific subject area. The Editor-in-chief or Associate Editors may recommend that papers, which they consider would have only a limited chance of acceptance following full peer review, are rejected without further review. ‘Pre- review’ rejection decisions are normally returned to authors within two weeks of submission. Expert reviewers are selected by the Associate Editors in conjunction with the Editorial Office. The reviewers' reports are considered by the Associate Editor who provides a summary report and a recommendation regarding publication. The final decision is taken by the Editor-in-Chief (sometimes in collaboration with the journal’s Deputy Editors) and Managing Editor. Due to the considerable competition for publication in the journal, papers classified by the reviewers and Associate Editors as having only a low or medium priority for publication will not normally be published. Articles submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editors or Associate Editors will be considered completely independently of these people.
Due to their inherent differences, reviewing of Opinions and Debates differs from that of other articles. Two (or more) ‘opinion leaders’ are asked to consider the ‘quality and clarity’ of the presented argument (i.e. is it expressed clearly and concisely and based on sound clinical / scientific evidence or reasoning?) as well as the article’s appropriateness for the readership. Final decisions are made at weekly editorial team meetings involving the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editors and Managing Editor.
Case reports are considered for review only if they are of sufficiently high originality and importance, both of which are assessed by the Deputy Editors and Editor- in-Chief.
Timeline of Review
New manuscripts submitted to Human Reproduction are thoroughly reviewed. A first decision is sent to Authors by email in four weeks on average.
Appeals
Peer review is imperfect, being based on a blend of evidence and opinion and, inevitably, mistakes occur. If an author has valid reasons for dissatisfaction with the review process and believes significant errors in process or judgment have been made, the journal will consider an appeal. Letters of appeal, clearly stating the major reasons, should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief (editorial@humanreproduction.co.uk) who will call upon the advice of the manuscript’s Associate Editor and the Journal’s Deputy Editors. Ultimately, an editorial meeting will reach a recommendation of whether to uphold the original decision or permit resubmission.
The journal will not consider appeals unless a clear error in process or judgment has occurred; simply addressing reviewers’ comments on rejected manuscripts is not sufficient and these ‘appeals’ will not be considered.
Supplementary Data
If you are supplying supplementary data with your paper, it will need to be peer-reviewed and go through the production process. Thus, it will be copyedited, typeset and require proof checking alongside your article. You will need to review your author query notes once you receive proofs to comment on.
Once revisions have been applied, readers will be able to access the supplementary data directly from both the html and PDF versions of your published paper.
Ethics of Scientific Publishing
Please note that all three ESHRE journals are members of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) and adhere strictly to COPE guidelines on good publication practice (see Human Reproduction 2001, pp. 1783 1788 and Human Reproduction 2006, pp.2463 2465).
Submission of a paper implies that it reports unpublished work and that it is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. If previously published tables, illustrations or text are to be included, then this should be clearly indicated in the manuscript and the copyright holder's permission must be obtained (where necessary). Copies of such permission letters should be enclosed with the paper. Previously published material can be cited in a later review or commentary article, but it must be expressly indicated using quotation marks if necessary.
Republication of an English language translation is (under certain circumstances) acceptable, provided that full and prominent disclosure of the original source is made.
Failure to comply with these guidelines will be considered a double publishing offence and treated appropriately.
Plagiarism
A proportion of manuscripts submitted to the ESHRE Journals are routinely screened with iThenticate anti-plagiarism software in an attempt to detect and prevent plagiarism. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose part or all of the text has been previously published. Prior to final acceptance any manuscript that has not already been screened will be put through iThenticate. Please follow this link for more information about iThenticate.
Plagiarism of text from a previously published manuscript by the same or another author is a serious publication offence. Small amounts of text may be used, but only where the source of the material quoted is clearly acknowledged. Wherever verbatim text is used, this must be clearly indicated by the use of quotation marks. Verbatim use of text must be kept to a minimum.
Fraudulent data or data stolen from other authors is also unethical and will be treated accordingly. Any alleged offence is considered initially by the Editorial Team (comprising the Editors-in-Chief of HR, HRU, HRO and MHR; the Deputy Editors of HR and members of the Editorial Office) and later by the ESHRE Publication Committee.
The ESHRE Journals reserve the right to reject papers on this basis alone, to bar authors from advisory positions on the journal or from membership of ESHRE, and to publish details of any transgression both in the printed and online versions of the journal. Other sanctions as recommended by COPE (such as informing the author's institutional head, publishing a notice of retraction etc) may also be considered.
Right to request full, anonymised datasets
It is a requirement of submission that authors agree to the provision of full, anonymised datasets, in response to fair requests from the journal’s Editorial Team, to address issues relating to data integrity or other ethical aspects.
All submitted material will be handled in confidence, except for the purposes of review and in order to investigate potential misconduct.
Ethics of Studies Involving Humans and Animals
The editors draw the authors' attention to the Declaration of Helsinki for Medical Research involving Human Subjects. In addition, when reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed
Studies involving humans and animals, or human or animal material should have appropriate ethical approval and, where relevant, the patients' written informed consent. The editors reserve the right to refuse publication where the required ethical approval/patient consent is lacking.
Animal studies should be reported in accordance with the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines. These guidelines have been assembled by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (N3R) with input from researchers, statisticians and publishers to provide a 20-point checklist for the reporting of animal studies. The guidelines can be downloaded from here. Further information is on the N3R website.
Registration of Clinical Trials
Human Reproduction supports the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in calling for the registration of all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) at their inception, before the first patient is enrolled in the study. In accordance with this, authors of RCTs are required to register their trials with one of the ICMJE recognised trial registries: this must be done before enrolment of the first patient. Upon submission, authors of trials are asked to provide evidence in the form of a trial registry number, the date of trail registration and the date of the first patient enrolment. These two dates and the unique identifier will be published at the end of the abstract in accord with ICMJE recommendations.
Trials that are submitted without this information will not enter the review process until missing information is provided. Unregistered trials will not be considered for review.
Statistics
Inadequate or incorrect statistical analyses frequently cause rejection or delays in the review of manuscripts. Where appropriate, authors should seek advice from a professional statistician before the manuscript is submitted. In addition to the normal peer review procedure outlined above, all RCTs submitted to the journal are sent to members of a team of professional medical statisticians/methodologists for reviewing.
