Editorial Policies

Peer review

Screening

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Model

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.A request for double-blind review is made at submission. For double-blind review, remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, funding details, institution names, and other identifying information from the reviewer manuscript. Provide identifying information separately in the title-page file or submission form.

Reviewers

Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.Reviewers are selected for subject expertise in the manuscript's area of clinical microbiology.

Decisions

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Independence and competing interests

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role, and independent of the author's institution, funding or country.Article processing charges are invoiced after acceptance and play no part in the decision. Article processing charges

Competing interests

Authors, editors and reviewers declare competing interests, financial and non-financial.Authors declare funding sources and any relationship that could be seen to influence the work.

Recusal

An editor or reviewer who holds a competing interest in a manuscript stands aside from it.

Editor-authored manuscripts

A manuscript from an editor or board member is assigned to an editor who is not its author and who holds no interest in it, and is reviewed to the same standard as any other submission.

Confidentiality

A manuscript under consideration is confidential to the people handling it and is not shared or discussed outside that process.After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.

Authorship and originality

Authorship

Authorship follows ICMJE criteria: substantial contribution, approval of the final manuscript, and accountability for the work.Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors.

Originality

Manuscripts must be original, not under consideration elsewhere, and not previously published.Submissions are screened for textual overlap. Redundant or duplicate publication is grounds for rejection or retraction.

Research misconduct

Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism and image manipulation are investigated under COPE guidance, with notification to the authors' institutions where warranted.

Ethics, consent and biosafety

Clinical microbiology may involve human participants, clinical material, animal research and other laboratory systems. Apply the requirements below according to the study design.

Ethical approval

Studies involving human participants, human material or identifiable data require approval from a named ethics committee, with the approval reference reported.

Informed consent

Consent is required where participants are identifiable or where the study design requires it. Case reports require the patient's consent to publication.Specimens, images and case detail must not allow a patient to be identified.

Clinical trials

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

Animal research

Studies involving animals require ethical approval and report against the ARRIVE guidelines.

Biosafety

Work with pathogens must state the containment level and the approvals under which it was carried out.Where work could raise dual-use concerns, authors should raise this with the editorial office before submission.

Data and reproducibility

Data availability

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.The statement says where the data are, or why they cannot be shared.

Sequence and molecular data

Sequence data should be deposited in a public repository and the accession numbers reported in the manuscript.

Reporting standards

Diagnostic accuracy studies report against STARD; observational studies, including surveillance and prevalence work, against STROBE; systematic reviews against PRISMA; trials against CONSORT; case reports against CARE.The journal references the EQUATOR Network collection of reporting guidelines.

Methods detail

Methods must be reported in enough detail for another laboratory to repeat the work, including instruments, reagents, standards and versions.

Use of AI

Authors

Use of generative AI in producing a manuscript must be disclosed, stating the tool and what it was used for. AI cannot be an author, because it cannot take responsibility for the work.

Reviewers

Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Editors

Editors are held to the same confidentiality requirement when handling manuscripts.

Corrections and retractions

Correction

A published article found to contain an error that does not undermine its conclusions is corrected, with a notice linked to the article.

Retraction

Work whose findings cannot stand is retracted following COPE guidance. The article remains available and clearly marked, so the record stays complete.

Expression of concern

Where a serious concern is raised and cannot yet be resolved, an expression of concern is published and linked to the article.

Permanence

Notices stay attached to the record. Published articles are not removed.

Appeals and complaints

An author who believes a decision rests on a factual error or a misunderstanding may appeal by writing to the editorial office with the specific points at issue. An appeal is considered by an editor who did not take the original decision.

Complaints about the conduct of an editor, a reviewer or the journal are addressed to the editorial office and handled under COPE guidance. A complaint about an editor is not handled by that editor.

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