Manuscripts should be submitted online as a word document via https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjpsych. Authors may track the progress of their manuscript(s) at any time via the submission website. For assistance with online submission, please email bjp@rcpsych.ac.uk or call + 44 208 618 4267.
Please ensure that your manuscript includes all required statements before submitting to the journal. In addition to uploading your manuscript files, you will also be asked to provide a relevance statement and indicate whether your article should be considered for fast-track assessment. More details on these requirements and other manuscript preparation instructions can be found on our Preparing your materials page.
The journal submission platform maintains the manuscript information, audit trail and correspondence indefinitely once a final decision has been made, whether reject or accept. Manuscript files are maintained with the record for 12 months following the final decision before being archived, and archived files are kept for two years before being deleted.
ORCID
We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.
If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
Licence to publish
Before Cambridge can publish your manuscript, we need a signed licence to publish agreement. Under the agreement, certain rights are granted to the journal owner which allow publication of the article. The original ownership of the copyright in the article remains unchanged. For full details see the publishing agreement page.
Keywords
During the ScholarOne submission process, authors are asked to select five keywords. The keywords will be used to ensure the submission is assessed by editors and reviewers with the most appropriate expertise. They will also be included with the published article. For further guidance, please visit: writing an effective abstract and selecting keywords.
Appeals & Complaints
If an author believes their manuscript has been incorrectly rejected, an appeal letter can be submitted by responding to the decision email directly or contacting bjp@rcpsych.ac.uk.
To have an appeal considered, please provide full details regarding your reasoning for the appeal letter. All appeals are reviewed and discussed during the monthly Senior Editorial Committee meeting with a final decision communicated to the author via email. We can consider only one appeal per manuscript.
Please direct all complaints to the Editor-in-Chief or the editorial office at bjp@rcpsych.ac.uk.