Each article is first assessed by two of the Editors-in-Chief and, if it is judged suitable for IJIC, it is sent to two or three external referees for a double blind peer review. IJIC uses three different review forms (for example: Research and Theory, Integrated Care Cases, Policy papers) all of which apply scientific criteria and take account of the purpose of the article and its merits for integrated care. Based on the recommendations of the reviewers, the editors then decide whether the paper should be accepted as is, revised or rejected. In case of revisions, a final decision on publication will be made after resubmission.

 

 

 

 

A very common reason for the editors and reviewers to reject well written papers is that they do not fit the aims and scope of the journal. Please read the section focus and scope of the IJIC under Editorial Policies section of this website and use our quick Author Checklist to find out if your paper is a good fit for our journal.

 

Members of the editorial team/board are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review. A competing interest must also be declared within the submission and any resulting publication.

Reviewers are asked to provide comment on the below topics and guidelines:

• Content
• Structure and argument
• Methods
• Results & conclusions
• Depth of knowledge and referencing
• Figures/tables
• Language
• Ethical approval
• Data availability

The use of open Artificial Intelligence (AI) models - e.g. ChatGPT - are prohibited when completing the peer review, due to concerns over the sharing of data that is not publicly available. ​​Local models which do not upload information back into training datasets, or self-built models, are  permitted to help guide the peer reviewer, however, the reviewer takes responsibility for the review feedback provided and will be accountable for the content that they submit. The reviewer must declare any use of local AI models. The reviewer should not rely on AI when formulating their opinion of the article and recommendation to the editor. See our full AI policy for further guidance.

Reviewers must all agree to adhere to the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for peer reviewers. All correspondence and associated files/data linked to the submission must remain confidential, unless otherwise authorised by the journal. All reviews should be provided in a courteous and respectful format.

Preprints and Prior Publication

The journal is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. The journal accepts papers that have been published within formal conference proceedings, provided that the paper provides substantially more data, analysis and/or discussion than the original conference paper. If the paper was presented but not formally published, then more overlap is permitted. The accepted manuscript may also be uploaded to an open platform, under a CC BY licence.

The journal allows authors to deposit draft versions of their paper into a suitable preprint server, on condition that the author agrees to the below:

• The author retains copyright to the preprint and developed works from it, and is permitted to submit to the journal.
• The author declares that a preprint is available within the cover letter presented during submission. This must include a link to the location of the preprint.
• The author acknowledges that having a preprint publicly available means that the journal cannot guarantee the anonymity of the author during the review process, even if they anonymise the submitted files (see review policy).
• Should the submission be published, the authors are expected to update the information associated with the preprint version to show that a final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.

AI Policy

The journal follows the publisher's AI Policy regarding use of AI at any stage of the publishing process.

Authorship

All listed authors must qualify as such, as defined in our authorship guidelines, which have been developed from the ICMJE definitions. All authors must have given permission to be listed on the submitted article.

COPE

The journal is a registered member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and is committed to following COPE guidelines.

ORCID

The journal strongly recommends that all authors submitting a paper register an account with Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID). Registration provides a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account that enables accurate attribution and improves the discoverability of published articles, ensuring that the correct author receives the correct credit for their work. As the ORCID remains the same throughout the lifetime of the account, changes of name, affiliation, or research area do not affect the discoverability of an author's past work and aid correspondence with colleagues.

The journal encourages all corresponding authors to include an ORCID within their submitting author data whilst co-authors are recommended to include one. ORCID numbers should be added to the author data upon submission and will be published alongside the submitted article, should it be accepted.

Reproducibility

Open Data

The journal strongly encourages authors to make all data associated with their submission openly available, according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Data should be cited and referenced within the manuscript and should be linked to from a Data Accessibility Statement, which must describe how the data underlying the findings of the article can be accessed and reused. If data is not being made available with the journal publication (e.g. legal constraints) then a statement from the author should be provided within the submission to explain why. Data obtained from other sources must be appropriately credited. All data should be curated in a format that allows easy understanding and analysis (e.g. sensible column headers, descriptions in a readme text file). This will help ensure its reuse potential.

Structured Methods

As the traditional Materials and Methods section often includes insufficient detail for readers to wholly assess the research process, the journal encourages authors to publish detailed descriptions of their structured methods in open, online platforms such as protocols.io. By providing a step-by-step description of the methods used in the study, the chance of reproducibility and usability increases, whilst also allowing authors to build on their own works and gain additional credit and citations.

Open Code

If research includes the use of software code, statistical analysis or algorithms then we also recommend that authors upload the code into Code Ocean, where it will be hosted on an open, cloud-based computational reproducibility platform, providing researchers and developers with an easy way to share, validate and discover code published in academic journals.

For more information on how to incorporate open data, protocols.io or Code Ocean into a submission, please visit our reproducibility page.

Competing Interests, Funding and Ethics 

To ensure transparency, authors, reviewers and editors are required to declare any interests that could compromise, conflict or influence the validity of the publication. For further guidance, see our full competing interests guidelines.

In addition, authors are required to specify funding sources and detail  requirements for ethical research in the submitted manuscript, ensuring that ethical approval and consent statements are detailed within the manuscript (see Author Guidelines). All authors must confirm that they fit the definition of an author (see Authorship Guidelines), during submission.

Corrections and Retractions

In accordance with guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (where applicable), the Press handles different kinds of error. All articles have their proofs checked prior to publication by the author/editor, which should ensure that content errors are not present. Please contact the journal if you believe an article needs correcting.

Post-publication changes to the publication are not permitted unless in exceptional circumstances. If an error is discovered in a published article then the publisher will assess whether a Correction paper or Retraction is required. Visit our Correction Policy page for more information.

Complaints & Misconduct

Appeals, complaints, or allegations of misconduct will be taken with utmost seriousness, regardless of whether those involved are internal or external to the journal, or whether the submission in question is pre- or post-publication. If an allegation is made to the journal, it must also be passed on to the publisher, who will follow guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on how to address the nature of the problem.

Should an individual wish to submit an appeal, complaint or raise an issue of potential misconduct regarding the journal or its content, they should first read the full Appeals, Complaints, and Misconducts policy and then contact that editor in chief and/or the publisher to explain their concerns.

Expected behaviour

The journal does not tolerate abusive behaviour or correspondence towards its staff, academic editors, authors, or reviewers. Any person engaged with the journal who resorts to abusive behaviour or correspondence will have their contribution immediately withdrawn and future engagement with the journal will be at the discretion of the editor and/or publisher.