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About

Aims and scope

Diagnostic and Prognostic Research encompasses diagnostic and prognostic research addressing studies on the evaluation of medical tests, markers, prediction models, decision tools and apps. Diagnostic and Prognostic Research provides a platform for disseminating empirical primary studies, systematic reviews (including meta-analyses) as well as articles on methodology, protocols and commentaries addressing diagnostic and prognostic studies. The journal ensures that the results of all well-conducted diagnostic and prognostic research are published, regardless of their outcome.

Open access

All articles published by Diagnostic and Prognostic Research are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BMC license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Diagnostic and Prognostic Research therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1690.00/$2490.00/€1990.00 for each article accepted for publication, plus VAT or local taxes where applicable.

If the corresponding author's institution participates in our open access membership program, some or all of the publication cost may be covered (more details available on the membership page). We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

For more information on APCs please see our Journal Pricing FAQs

Indexing services

All articles published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research are included in:

  • DOAJ
  • Google Scholar
  • PubMed
  • PubMed Central

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

We are working closely with relevant indexing services including Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) to ensure that articles published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research will be available in their databases when appropriate.

Peer-review policy

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help Editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Diagnostic and Prognostic Research operates an open peer-review system, where the reviewers' names are included on the peer review reports for authors. In addition, if the article is published, the named reviewer reports are published online alongside the article under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. Previous versions of the manuscript and all author responses to the reviewers are available by contacting info@biomedcentral.com.

The benefit of open peer review is that it increases transparency. The peer reviewers and Editors are fully accountable for the decisions made, bias is reduced as reviewer reports are named, published reports can serve an educational purpose in helping facilitate training and research into peer review, and reviewers can get credit for their work.

Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or more experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Diagnostic and Prognostic Research should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research

Articles in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Diagn Progn Res [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Diagn Progn Res  2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

Diagnostic and Prognostic Research's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. 

Speed of publication

Diagnostic and Prognostic Research offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Diagnostic and Prognostic Research’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Diagnostic and Prognostic Research you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work (for further details, see the BMC license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.

Annual Journal Metrics

  • Speed
    45 days to first decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    51 days to first decision for reviewed manuscripts only (Median)

    Usage
    152,139 Downloads (2022)
    482 Altmetric mentions (2021)