Submissions

Author Guidelines

The submission portal is scheduled to open on 29 June 2024!

Authors are invited to make a submission to this journal. All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected.

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

Before submitting, please ensure that the study design and research argument are structured and articulated properly. The title should be concise and the abstract should be able to stand on its own. This will increase the likelihood of reviewers agreeing to review the paper. When you're satisfied that your submission meets this standard, please follow the checklist below to prepare your submission. An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet minimum standards of quality.

BEST-LMIC follows the ICMJE recommendation that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement 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.

All submissions MUST include an author contribution statement describing the cntribution of each author.  Examples of author contribution statements can be found here.  The author contribution must include the statement that all coauthors provided input to the manuscript and have reviewed and approved the final version.

When the work is a result of a team effort, the sequence of authors should be agreed upon by the co-authors (should be consistent with author contribution statement).  The first author should be the primary contributor, making significant intellectual and experimental contributions to the work.  The last author, often referred to as the senior author, is usually the principal investigator or a senior researcher who supervised and guided the project (for student papers this position will be reserved for the advisor/supervisor).

Reviewers will not see the names of the authors, nor with the authors know the names of the reviewers.  When submitting your manuscript you will enter the title, authors' names and affiliations and the abstract into the system, and then upload you manuscript in Microsoft word format.  The manuscript should NOT contain the names of the authors, as it will be shared with the reviewers in the form it was submitted.

When entering author detail there is a provision to enter and ORCID ID for each author.  All coauthors should visit the ORCID website and register to be issued an ORCID ID prior to starting the submission process.  

Before you start your submission we suggest that you watch this short video (in preparation) explaining the submission process step by step.

References should follow the Vancouver Style, with reference number in superscript.