The BMC-series journals

The BMC series is a collection of high-quality, peer-reviewed journals covering all areas of biology and medicine, focusing on the needs of the research communities which they serve.

The BMC series:

Offers an efficient and fair peer review service
Provides a home for all publishable research within the series
Innovates in approaches to peer review and publication
Promotes transparency and open research
Partners with our authors, editors and reviewers to make scientific knowledge widely available

Publish with the BMC series to make connections across the research community.

The journals

The subject-specific journals

Most of the journals in the BMC series focus on a subject or discipline, such as BMC Evolutionary Biology or BMC Public Health. The full list of the 63 subject journals currently in the series can be found below. Each journal has a professional Editor who is the main point of contact and has overall editorial responsibility for the journal, working closely with a group of senior academics, the Section Editors.

The BMC-series subject-specific journals do not make editorial decisions on the basis of the interest of a study or its likely impact. Studies must be scientifically valid; for research articles this includes a scientifically sound research question, the use of suitable methods and analysis, and following community-agreed standards relevant to the research field. Specific criteria for other article types can be found in the submission guidelines.

The flagships

BMC Biology and BMC Medicine are highly selective journals, publishing articles of special importance and broad interest. Their editorial threshold and structure are different from the other journals in the series and they are run by separate editorial teams. The Chief Editor for each journal, found on the ‘Editorial Team’ page, has overall responsibility for the journal. Contact details can be found on each journal site.

BMC Research Notes

BMC Research Notes publishes scientifically valid research outputs that cannot be considered as full research or methodology articles. The journal supports the research community across all fields of biology and medicine by providing an open access forum for sharing data and useful information; this includes, but is not limited to, updates to previous work, additions to established methods, short publications, null results, case series and data management plans. BMC Research Notes is overseen by a professional Editor.

BMC Proceedings

BMC Proceedings publishes proceedings of conferences, including both peer-reviewed full-length articles and collections of meeting abstracts across all areas of biology and medicine. Each collection is published as a supplement and is handled by a Supplement Editor, in line with the standards required for the BMC series. Oversight for the journal is provided by a professional Editor.

The people

Editors and Editorial Boards on the subject-specific journals

Each of the subject-specific journals in the BMC series has a professional Editor employed by BioMed Central. The Editors all have scientific backgrounds, most with PhD and post-doc experience. To find the Editor of a journal, please see the journal homepage.

The Editors work closely with academics across the research community. Each journal is divided into subject sections with one or more Section Editors overseeing each section. The Section Editor is a senior academic who works with a team of academic Associate Editors on peer-review, editorial decision making and developing the journals.

Diana Marshall, Publisher, BMC series

Diana is responsible for the strategic development of the BMC-series journals and has overall responsibility for the subject-specific journals, BMC Research Notes and BMC Proceedings. Diana also manages the Editorial team working on the journals. Before joining BioMed Central in 2008, Diana gained a PhD in plant biology from the University of Cambridge.

If you have a concern or question which cannot be resolved with the individual journal Editor or which is about the BMC series as a whole, then please do contact Diana.

Diana can also be found on Twitter: @DrDiMarshall

Caroline Black, Associate Publishing Director

Caroline has overall responsibility for the BMC-series journals and BioMed Central’s Research Integrity Group. Previously she was Managing Director of Portland Press and Group Head of Publishing for the Biochemical Society, and has also held senior positions at Mac Keith Press, Blackwell Publishing, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and Thomson Science.

Reviewer discount

If you review for a journal in the BMC series then you are entitled to a 15% discount on the article processing charge for your next submission to the BMC series. This discount must be claimed within 1 year of completing your review and discounts cannot be combined.