Article Types      
      Abstract
      Brief Report
      Editorial
      Methods Paper
      Research Article
      Discussion
      Review Article
Article Requirements
      Title Page
      Abstract
      Second-Language Abstracts
      Figures and Tables
      Supplementary Material
      Acknowledgements
      Author Contribution Statement
      Funding Statement
      Conflicts of Interest Statement
      Ethics Statements
      Data Availability Statement
      References
Policy on prior publication
LaTeX
Overleaf
English language editing services
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Author Affiliations
Artificial Intelligence

Article Types

Abstract

This article type will always be used for specific conferences and authors should use their recommendations. 

Brief Report

Brief reports are detailed descriptions of novel research results in a short format. They can include small contributions, such as a single case study; we also encourage replication/validation studies as well as null/negative results. The typical article word count is around 2000 words, however shorter and longer papers are welcome if the content is justified.

Papers should be organised into the following sections:

• Abstract 
• Introduction 
• Methods 
• Results 
• Discussion and Conclusions 
• Acknowledgements
• Author contribution statement (CRediT)     
• Funding statement
• Conflicts of interest statement
• Ethics statement
• Data availability statement
• References

Editorial

Editorials are invitation-only and prepared by Guest Editors.

Methods Paper

Methods papers are detailed descriptions of a method, including all the technical details necessary for its reproducibility. The typical article word count is 2000 - 4000 words, however shorter and longer papers are welcome as long as the content is justified.

Methods papers should be organised into the following sections:

• Abstract 
• Introduction 
• Methods 
• Discussion and Conclusions 
• Author contribution statement (CRediT)     
• Funding statement
• Conflicts of interest statement
• Ethics statement
• Data availability statement
• References

Research Article

Research Articles are detailed descriptions of novel research results in their various forms. They tend to be more extensive papers than brief reports, describing multiple experiments or lines of enquiry; we also encourage replication/validation studies as well as null/negative results. The typical article word count is 2000 - 5000 words, however shorter and longer papers are welcome if the content is justified.

Papers should be organised into the following sections:

• Abstract 
• Introduction 
• Methods 
• Results 
• Discussion and Conclusions 
• Author contribution statement (CRediT)     
• Funding statement
• Conflicts of interest statement
• Ethics statement
• Data availability statement
• References

Discussion

A Discussion can be a challenging view on an in scope topic or a highlight of missing research. 

Discussion papers should be organised into the following sections:

• Abstract 
• Impact statement: a short summary on the wider beneficial use of the research presented in your article. This statement should give a broader perspective on the contribution this research is making to the field. The reported impact can be local, regional, or international in its reach. Impact statements should not exceed 300 words and be comprehensible to a broad, potentially non-academic audience.
• Introduction 
• Main text with section headings as needed 
• Conclusion 
• Author contribution statement (CRediT) 
• Funding statement
• Conflicts of interest statement
• Ethics statement
• Data availability statement
• References

Review Article

A review of existing literature that addresses an in scope topic.

Review articles should be organised into the following sections:

• Abstract 
• Impact statement: a short summary on the wider beneficial use of the research presented in your article. This statement should give a broader perspective on the contribution this research is making to the field. The reported impact can be local, regional, or international in its reach. Impact statements should not exceed 300 words and be comprehensible to a broad, potentially non-academic audience.
• Introduction 
• Main text with section headings as needed 
• Conclusion 
• Author contribution statement (CRediT) 
• Funding statement
• Conflicts of interest statement
• Ethics statement
• Data availability statement
• References

Article Requirements

Authors should note the following:

• Articles should be submitted in a Word document or in a LaTeX file (see below for template).
• Articles can be submitted in either American or British English.
• All articles submitted must contain line numbers. Up to three levels of headings are allowed. Please indicate what level each heading should be.   
• S.I. units should be used throughout in text, figures and tables.
• Authors should spell out in full any abbreviations used in their manuscripts the first time that they use it. Foreign quotations and phrases should be followed by a translation.
• Authors should provide 3 to 5 keywords for their manuscripts, except for Questions, where keywords are optional.
• Footnotes are not accepted in the manuscripts. Endnotes should be used instead. Note markers in body text are superscript numerals. Each note should end in a period.
• Dashes: En dashes should be used, with one letter space on each side.
• The order of parentheses should be ([ ]).

Title Page

The title page should include:

• The title of the article, which should be short but informative and accurately reflect the content.
• Authors’ names and contact details: authors should list their first name and last name in full, plus any other initials. You should indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address. Please also list a brief affiliation for each author (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names. For affiliations, the country is required and there should be no street addresses. For US-based authors, states must be 2 letter postal codes not spelled out, and there should be no zip codes. Please refer to Author Affiliations for more information.
• Word count, including all text but excluding tables, figures and references.

Abstract

Abstracts should summarise the background, findings, and implications of the work. 

Figures and Tables

Tables should be supplied as separate, editable files, with the exception of authors using LaTeX (in which case tables can be embedded with the usual 'table' and 'tabular' environments). Resolution: halftone images must be saved at 300 dpi at approximately the final size. Line drawings should be saved at 1000 dpi, or 1200 dpi if very fine line weights have been used. Combination figures must be saved at a minimum of 600 dpi. Cambridge recommends that only TIFF, EPS, or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. For more detailed guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Supplementary Material

If you wish to use a repository for your research materials, please ensure that it follows repository best practices, in particular that it provides a DOI and that this is correctly referenced in your paper. We do not recommend sharing research materials as supplementary material to a paper.

Editors will be checking this and may ask you to make best efforts to deposit your research materials in a community recognized repository. If you are submitting a dataset, poster, presentation, video, image or audio file, we strongly advise that you provide detailed metadata that allows any reader to understand the content. We advise following these suggestions. We recommend applying the license that most suits your objective to each research material. Most repositories will provide you with a choice. The journal will not check these or enforce it. 

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice and/or support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the Financial Support section (see below).

Author Contribution Statement

Authorship should be based on the following principles, as outlined in the Cambridge University Publishing Ethics Guidelines:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In the process of submitting the article through the ScholarOne system, the corresponding author is prompted to provide further details about contributions to the article using the CRediT taxonomy. People who have contributed to the article but do not meet the full criteria for authorship should be recognised in the acknowledgements section; their contribution can be described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy. 

Our default position is that the corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors, and we expect the corresponding author to confirm this at the beginning of the submission process.

Funding Statement

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."

Conflicts of Interest Statement

Authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration in their manuscript.

• Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
• Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work.
• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”.

Ethics Statements

This journal follows the COPE guidelines regarding ethics and as such requires that you include an Ethics Statement detailing relevant approvals such as IRB, the ethical treatment of human and animal research participants and informed consent as appropriate to the study. Further details can be found on our Publishing Ethics Page. 

Data Availability Statement

In this journal we only accept a variation of one of the data availability statements from the table below:

References

References in text should follow the Cambridge A citation style. Find here Endnote style and find here Zotero style.

At the end of the article, references should first be listed alphabetically, with a full title of each article, and the first and last pages. Journal titles should be given in full.

Accuracy of references is the responsibility of the author(s). References must be checked against the text to ensure (a) that the spelling of authors' names and the dates given are consistent and (b) that all authors quoted in the text (in date order if more than one) are given in the reference list and vice versa.

Please note that the DOI of the cited article must be included in the reference, the correct format being: https://doi.org/10.1017/btd.20...

Exceptions exist for cited material that does not currently have a DOI.

See below for an example of how the references should be written:

Scott, J. (2023). Living textiles. Research Directions: Biotechnology Design, 1, e6, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1017/btd.2022.7

LaTeX

The LaTex template files for submission can be found in the link below:

LaTex template files for submission

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

Please see further guidance here.