European Respiratory Society research journals manuscript submission guidelines

Before submitting a manuscript to the ERS research journals (the European Respiratory Journal and ERJ Open Research), please read these guidelines carefully. Adherence to the guidelines will help to ensure smooth and prompt peer review. The other ERS journals (European Respiratory Review and Breathe) have their own specific manuscript preparation guidelines.

All submissions to the ERS research journals are handled via the ScholarOne Manuscripts platform, which provides detailed instructions about the submission process. If you experience problems or require any further assistance, please contact the submission helpline direct on +44 114 2672864 or contact Sarah Cleveland, ScholarOne Manuscripts coordinator.

Overlapping publications and publication ethics top

See also the ERS Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement: https://www.ersjournals.com/about-us/publication-ethics-and-malpractice-statement

Authors submitting a paper to the ERS research journals do so on the understanding that neither the work nor any part of its essential substance, tables or figures have been or will be published or submitted to another scientific journal or are being considered for publication elsewhere. This must be stated in the cover letter. This restriction does not apply to conference abstracts, articles deposited on non-peer-reviewed recognised community preprint servers such as medRxiv, bioRxiv and Research Square, material published under legal requirements for clinical trials reporting or material that forms part of an academic thesis or dissertation, but includes work published in another language. Preprint publication should be declared at the time of submission, and versions of a manuscript that have been altered as a result of the peer review process may not be deposited. After acceptance, authors are requested to update the preprint server record with a link to the final published version of the article on the journal website.

It is the authors' responsibility to ensure that submitted manuscripts are not duplicate publications; they must declare any simultaneous submissions of similar or related manuscripts at the point of submission and must include electronic copies of these manuscripts as a supplement to their submission. If there are any concerns following submission, the editors reserve the right to take appropriate action.

The ERS uses Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) software. Submitted articles are screened and compared to previously published sources. Manuscripts revealing a high proportion of similarity to single or multiple published sources will be examined carefully, and the Chief Editors reserve the right to approach authors for an explanation (as per the Committee on Publication Ethics recommendations of procedures to follow in the event of suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript).

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, the ERS follows the COPE codes of conduct and best practice guidelines. Any allegation or suspicion of misconduct in research or publication in response to an article submitted to or published in an ERS publication will be investigated thoroughly in accordance with the COPE guidelines, and action will be taken if necessary, potentially including retraction of an article and writing to authors' institutions. See also our correction policy: https://www.ersjournals.com/authors/research-ms-preparation#CORRECTIONS.

Manuscript preparation top

Presentation of manuscripts should be consistent with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, as recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Brief requirements for journal articles are summarised in the following table. The requirements are outlined in more detail below.

Article type	Word limit	Figures and tables*	References	Online supplement	Abstract
Original research	3000	8	40	Accepted	Yes, 250 words
Editorials	1500	2	30	Not accepted	No
Review and series articles	5000	5	200	Accepted	Yes, 250 words
Research letters	1200	1	15	Not accepted	No
Correspondence	800	1	10	Not accepted	No
Task force reports, guidelines and consensus statements	8000	15	250	Accepted	Yes, 250 words

*The number of figures and tables in the above summary refers to the combined number; for example, letters can have either one figure or one table, not one of each.

For further general guidance on how to write papers, please refer to: Sterk PJ, Rabe KF. The joy of writing a paper. Breathe 2008; 4: 224-232, and guidelines for authors on how to write scientific articles to be published in English at www.ease.org.uk/publications/author-guidelines

Authors are reminded that they should not imply that any opinions or views expressed in their article are those of the journal.

General

Write the manuscript in UK English.
The manuscript file you submit must be saved in rich text format (.rtf) or as a Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx).
Describe abbreviations and unusual terms at the first time of use.
Symbols as defined by the ad hoc working group of the Commission of the European Communities (see Eur Respir J 1993; 6: Suppl. 16) are recommended.
Système International (SI) units are recommended.
Equations should be created as normal text.

Title page

Provide a concise and informative title, limited to 90 characters (including spaces).
Include a list of all contributing authors names in full and all of their affiliations, with a clear indication of who is associated with each institution.
Supply the full correspondence details for one corresponding author, including e-mail address. The corresponding author indicated in the manuscript does not necessarily need to be the submitting author. Shared first and/or last authorship, indicated by a footnote to the author list, is permitted for academic credentials. The journal strictly allows only one corresponding author, with exceptions limited only to ERS documents/guidelines jointly developed with other societies, for which shared corresponding authorship has been agreed upon with the publications office and editors prior to submission.
Provide a 256-character (including spaces) summary of the "take home" message of your paper, which can be used to publicise your study via social media.

Tables

Insert tables into the main text document, before the references, using the Table function in your word processing package. Do not supply tables in a separate file.
Number tables consecutively with Arabic numerals.
Limit data to a sensible number of significant figures.
Avoid large tables if possible. Large tables are difficult to display on small screens or A4 printouts.
Provide a clear footnote for each table, making sure all abbreviations and symbols used are defined.
For reference numbering schemes, citations made in tables should continue in numerical order from the point in the main body text where the table is first cited.

Figures

FILE FORMAT and metadata

Figures must be uploaded as separate files, not as part of the main manuscript text document. During the upload process, you should fill in the “Caption/legend” box including the figure number and legend, so that reviewers know which figure they are looking at. Alternatively, you may add the figure captions at the end of the main manuscript text.
Figures should be limited to a maximum of four panels.
Supply line-art figures in EPS, Adobe Illustrator (.ai) TIFF, JPEG or PNG format. Please ensure image files are not layered and that the image size does not exceed 180 wide x 230mm high. Graphs or bar charts may be supplied in Excel or similar spreadsheet format.
Supply halftone and photographic images in TIFF, PNG, JPEG or EPS format. Minimum resolution should be 300 dpi at the final typeset size (90 mm to 180 mm wide).
As an alternative to the above, you can supply figures as a single- or multi-page PDF. However, you must include figure legends within the PDF, as our submission software will not add them.
If your halftone or photographic image features text or arrows marking out particular features, you may wish to supply an additional copy as a layered Adobe Photoshop (.psd) file, labelled as “Supporting document (not for publication)”. This helps our production staff to ensure optimal reproduction of your figure.
If your figures were originally created in another format that contains extra information (e.g. embedded data in an Excel graph), consider supplying them as supplementary material (Original Research Articles and Review articles only).

SIZE AND QUANTITY

Figures constitute a key element of manuscripts submitted to the ERS research journals. However, figures should be limited (both in size and number) to those required to show the essential features described in the manuscript.
Avoid large figures comprising many individual parts: as a maximum, each individual figure must fit to a single PDF page of the journal, with sufficient space for its accompanying caption.
If you have a large number of figures, consider publishing some of them as an online supplement.

FIGURE PRESENTATION

All submitted figures must be clearly named and numbered.
Whether for images, drawings or graphs, use no more than four panels for a single figure. These should be labelled as a), b), c) and d).
In photographic and halftone images, show only the areas of interest with enough surrounding area for orientation purposes.
Radiographic images should be of high quality and combined into one array, such as posteroanterior and lateral views. Each panel should be sized identically.
When several photographic or halftone images of a given type are being shown, please reproduce them all at the same magnification.
Photomicrographs must have internal linear scale markers (scale bars), since the size and magnification may be altered when the figure is printed or displayed on screen.
Images should correspond in appearance to the tonal relations of the original radiograph (i.e. showing the bones white on a dark background), with the patient's right to the observer's left. CT scans and magnetic resonance images should employ the internationally accepted 'view from below'.
Label your images such that all important details are clearly marked, but avoid obscuring large areas of the images with excessive labelling.
Use a sans serif font (such as Arial or Helvetica) for labelling, and ensure that the font is legible, of reasonable size and uniform throughout all the figures in your manuscript.
Ensure that bar charts and graphs have a white background, with no shading or gridlines.
Use colour or greyscale shading on bar charts and graphs (different weights can be used, e.g. from 0% (white) to 100% (black) for purposes of differentiation), in preference to hatching and patterning.
Do not use three-dimensional effects in the presentation of bar charts.
For reference numbering schemes, citations made in figures should continue in numerical order from the point in the main body text where the figure is cited.

GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING IMAGE DATA

If an image has been enhanced electronically, please explain the alterations that have been made and submit the original image along with the enhanced one. Keep an electronic set of original images, since our reviewers might ask you to modify their content and the display modus.
The Council of Science Editors has established four basic guidelines for handling image data, which authors submitting to the ERS research journals are urged to comply with. 1) No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, removed or introduced. 2) Adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate or misrepresent any information present in the original. 3) The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (e.g. by using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. 4) If the original data cannot be produced by an author when asked to provide it, the acceptance of the manuscript may be revoked.

CAPTIONS

Provide a clear caption for each figure.
Captions should be brief and not repetitive of information given in the text.
All abbreviations should be expanded.
Where appropriate, captions should include the imaging technique used, the body part imaged and any noteworthy details.
Mention any use of internal scale bars.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should be grouped into a single paragraph placed after the Discussion section.
Only acknowledge people who have made substantial contributions to the study, and provide the affiliation of those you name.
Provide the names and affiliation details of members of collaborating bodies.
Financial support for the study should be acknowledged in a separate support statement; financial support provided to individuals must be disclosed on the conflict of interest declaration.

References

Number references consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text, using full-sized Arabic numerals in square brackets to cite references.
The first three authors should be listed followed by et al.
References should conform to the style used in Index Medicus (Vancouver style) as shown in the following examples:

1. Bannerjee D, Khair OA, Honeybourne D. Impact of sputum bacteria on airway inflammation and health status in clinical stable COPD. Eur Respir J 2004; 23: 685-692.

2. Bourbon J, Henrion-Caude A, Gaultier C. Molecular basis of lung development. In: Gibson GJ, Geddes DM, Costable U, Sterk PJ, Corrin B, eds. Respiratory Medicine. 3rd Edn. Edinburgh/Philadelphia, Elsevier Science, 2002; pp. 64-81.

Documents published online, and individual web pages, should be listed in the reference list, not in the text, and only used when an original citation is unavailable; citations should contain at all the information shown in this example (include the author of the webpage, its title, the URL on which the cited material can be found, and the dates on which the webpage was last accessed by you, and on which it was last updated):

3. WHO. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). www.who.int/csr/sars/en/index.html. Date last updated: June 1 2004. Date last accessed: June 1 2004.

References to websites as a whole or sections of websites (rather than particular pages or documents on a website) should be included directly in the text:

...data was sourced from the WHO Global Health Observatory (www.who.int/gho/en/)...

Works that have not yet been accepted for publication and personal communications should not appear in the reference list. These should be mentioned directly in the text.
A copy of any paper cited as "in press" and not yet available online should be uploaded to the submission platform as supporting material.

Original articles top

Original articles should not exceed 3000 words (you do not need to include the abstract, references, tables and figure captions in this word count). If your manuscript exceeds this limit, please state the final word count and explicit reasons for exceeding the limit in your covering letter.

The total number of figures and/or tables should be limited to no more than eight. Large figures with more than four parts should be avoided: these can be presented as supplementary material. More information regarding figures can be found above.

Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 250 words or fewer, which is easily understood without reference to the text (see Ann Intern Med 1987; 106: 598-604).

The abstract should have four separate paragraphs, which correspond to: the question addressed by the study; materials/patients and methods; results; and the answer to the question. One or two sentences of background information can be included in the opening paragraph if necessary. The question and answer should be the same as those in the text.

Graphical abstracts are welcomed for article types that have a text abstract. Graphical abstracts must be submitted for peer review and cannot be provided after acceptance. Please see the separate instructions for graphical abstracts.

Include only the most important numbers and results, and avoid using abbreviations.

Introduction

In the introduction, state the question you asked (or hypothesis to be tested) and your considerations leading to the formulation of the question. Give only pertinent references.

Material and methods

STUDY SUBJECTS OR ANIMALS

Clearly describe how the subjects or experimental animals were identified, including the control subjects when used. For animals, see Laboratory Animals 1985; 19: 106-108.
Clearly state the eligibility criteria for cases and controls in observational studies, or for subjects in clinical trials.
When reporting studies on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the study procedures were approved, or were exempt from review, by the responsible national or institutional review committee. If no formal ethics committee was available, a statement indicating that the research was conducted according to the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki should be included. Written informed consent must also have been obtained from all subjects and this must be clearly indicated in the paper. See also guidance on the reporting of clinical trials, below.
Animal experimentation must have been performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki conventions for the use and care of animals.
Provide details of the species and/or strain and number of animals involved in the study.
The editors will reject work that does not conform to acceptable ethical criteria.

STUDY DESIGN

Clearly state the main study objective(s).
Consider sample size and whether you have enough subjects to reliably address the research question.
Manuscripts reporting clinical trials should include details of the sample size calculation (i.e. the expected effect size, power, level of statistical significance and one- or two-sided test).
For systematic reviews, make sure that the keywords used to search electronic medical databases cover different terminology (for example, tumour or cancer) and spelling (for example, randomised or randomized).

METHODS

Provide an overview of the main tests or experiments.
Describe the methods and apparatus in sufficient detail to allow other workers to evaluate or reproduce the tests/experiments.
For methods that have been published before, provide a reference only, or a reference and brief description.
Identify drugs and chemicals, including generic name, dosage and route of administration.
Provide manufacturers’ names and addresses (city and country) for equipment, drugs, chemicals and software as necessary, but not in a separate section.

ANALYSIS

Clearly state and define the main outcome measure(s).
Briefly state the statistical methods used during the analysis if they are standard. Describe any new methods and justify their use.
In the case of single- or multicentre trials with blinded intervention, the code must have been broken at the end of the study in the presence of the responsible investigator of each centre. The code and the data will then be available to each participating centre. The first author should make provisions so that if needed, the data are available to the editors for independent statistical analysis.
Seek advice from a statistician on the appropriate methods of analysis and whether results have been interpreted correctly.

Results

Keep the results section brief.
Describe the baseline characteristics or condition of patients or animals.
Focus on the important results, i.e. those that help to address the research question.
Present most data in figures or tables, not in the text. Use the text to emphasise or summarise the most important observations.

Discussion

At the beginning of the discussion, summarise the main results, and show how they have addressed the research question.
Make sure that the conclusions are consistent with the results and are pertinent to the research question.
Describe the limitations of the study and/or analysis, and discuss their possible implications for the conclusions.
Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study.
Try to explain contradictory or unexpected results, or discrepancies with previous findings.

Review and series articles top

Review articles provide an overview and discussion of recent and current studies/practices in a particular area of respiratory research.

They should include an abstract of no more than 250 words, which provides an overview of the full article and which is easily understood without reference to the text.

Review articles should not exceed 5000 words (you do not need to include abstract, references, tables and figure captions in this word count); if manuscripts exceed this limit, please state the final word count and give your reasons for exceeding the limit in your covering letter.

The total number of figures and/or tables should be limited to no more than five.

Given the nature of review articles, it is appropriate to include a higher number of references than in original articles, but this should not exceed 200 in total.

Letters and correspondence top

Research letters are case study articles, preliminary studies or short reports presented in the format of a letter to the editor.

Research letters do not contain an abstract.

Research letters should not exceed 1200 words (you do not need to include references, tables and figure captions in this word count) and should have no more than 15 references. One figure or one table may be included. Figures must be limited to 4 panels (A-D), however a single panel figure is preferred for letters: The Lost Art of Composing Single-Panel Figures

Correspondence can be submitted for discussion of recently published articles and other topical matters; correspondence articles should not exceed 800 words (you do not need to include references, tables and figure captions in this word count) and should have no more than 10 references. One figure or one table may be included.

The ERS research journals will not publish online supplementary material for letters or correspondence.

Supplementary material and video summaries top

Authors of original or review articles have the option of providing more detailed methodology, supplementary data or figures, and accompanying videos, as a supplement. This is optional, at the discretion of the author and/or editor. The ERS research journals will not accept supplementary material for editorials, letters or correspondence. Documents should be uploaded as "Supplementary material" during the submission process.

Videos should be a short summary, in English, of the study – they must not go beyond the scope of the paper. These should be submitted alongside the manuscript for peer review, though this may be done at revision stage. If necessary in the submission, a link to an externally hosted video can be included if the file is not able to be uploaded. The video should be no longer than 5 minutes, and should not contain any branding or promotional content, but can include a funding support statement.

Supplementary material will not be edited by the publications office, and will be published online as it is supplied.

Plain language summaries

Authors are invited to submit a plain language summary (PLS) of their work, of up to 300 words (no images), which should be submitted during the submission process. This will be presented alongside the abstract on the webpage version of the article and will be passed downstream to PubMed. It will be available to all readers, regardless of whether they have access to the whole article.

The PLS should be aimed at members of the public, who may not speak English as their first language. It must not be promotional in tone. Some tips for clear writing include:

Use short sentences: 15 words or lest
Don't provide more than one piece of information per sentence
Vary the length of sentences
Use "active" language: "We performed a test" rather than "A test was performed"
Avoid contractions such as can't, I'll, there's
Keep technical terms to a minimum
Avoid brackets and sub-clauses
Read your summary out loud to a colleague
Be inclusive and sensitive: do not use dehumanising language

Longer PLSs, or ones that require specific formatting, can be submitted as supplementary material. These will be published as a downloadable document alongside the article. They will not be copyedited or formatted by ERS.

Guidelines for reporting research findings top

Randomised controlled trials must conform to the CONSORT statement, which provides a set of recommendations comprising a list of items to report and a patient flow diagram. A completed CONSORT checklist should be included with the submission. A data sharing statement should be included with all clinical trial submissions indicating whether the authors wish to make primary data available to other research groups.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should be registered on the PROSPERO database. Reporting should follow PRISMA guidelines. Meta-analysis of observational data should follow MOOSE guidelines. A completed PRISMA or MOOSE checklist should be included with the submission.

For other study designs, authors should consult the following reporting guidelines: studies of diagnostic accuracy (STARD); observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE); standard protocol items: recommendations for interventional trials (SPIRIT) and animal research reporting of in vivo experiments (ARRIVE). As above, completed checklists should be included with submissions.The SPIRIT recommendations must also be followed for study protocols submitted to ERJ Open Research.

In some cases, the chief editor may require that authors make available the data on which their findings are based, or provide other documentation relating to the protocol of their study.

Data availability and publication top

We encourage authors to make the datasets underlying their manuscript available, when this is practical, either publicly or upon request. Datasets can be shared publicly via subject-specific or general online repositories, or by submitting them as online supplementary material. The PLoS journals provide useful guidance on data repositories and sharing.

The ERS research journals encourage data sharing through the Dryad data repository. Dryad is an international repository for the datasets underlying articles in the sciences and medical research. Datasets published by Dryad are accessible to all readers, and the sharing of raw data in this way enables other researchers to validate study findings and perform new analyses.

Authors should still continue to submit supplementary methods, results, figures and tables in the same way for publication as an online article supplement on the journal site; the Dryad repository should be used to archive the datasets that underlie the study published by the journal.

ERS sponsors publication in Dryad of datasets accompanying articles in its journals.

Once you have successfully deposited a dataset, it will be allocated a unique DOI by Dryad, thereby establishing a permanent link that you can use to cite your dataset. If you deposit prior to submitting your manuscript for peer review, you will also receive a private link to share with peer reviewers.

For a more detailed overview of how to deposit your data with Dryad, please click here.

Registering clinical trials top

In order to be published in the ERS research journals, any clinical trials started after January 1, 2006 must be properly registered. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes and the like.

The ICMJE accepts registration in any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP.

The ICMJE is expanding the definition of the types of trials that must be registered and will begin to implement the World Health Organization definition of clinical trials for all trials that began enrolment on or after July 1, 2008. The World Health Organization's definition of clinical trials is: "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes".

The ICMJE does not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which the primary registration resides to be previous publication if the results are presented in the form of a brief (500 word) structured abstract or table (including data on patients enrolled, key outcomes and adverse events). When submitting to the ERS research journals, authors should specify where the clinical trial is registered and disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.

For further details on current ICMJE policy, please refer to the ICMJE or N Engl J Med 2007; 356: 2734-2736.

Authors are reminded that in addition to the above there may be legal requirements regarding registration of clinical trials, and publication of summaries and other material in public repositories. The ERS will not regard any publication of material under these requirements as prior publication.

Permission to re-publish materials top

The ERS research journals discourage the use of previously published figures and tables, or any other material previously published elsewhere, unless it is absolutely essential. If you need to include such material in your manuscript, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner (or their licensee, if appropriate) before you submit your manuscript. The copyright owner may be the publisher, and not the original author. In order to secure the re-use of the material in question, you may be required to pay a fee to the original publisher. Some copyright holders or licensees will not provide permission for publication, which precludes the material from being published in the printed or online versions of the ERS research journals.

Authors should be aware that externally produced questionnaires are often subject to copyright restrictions, meaning that their use, reproduction and modification may be restricted. Before using, modifying or reproducing questionnaires, you should contact the copyright holder or their licensee to seek their support and gain written permission for reproduction and/or modification of the questionnaire, as necessary. If you are unsure about usage, modification and reproduction of questionnaires, you should contact the copyright holder/creator of the questionnaire in the first instance. Should concerns arise regarding the use, reproduction and modification of questionnaires, the ERS reserves the right to take appropriate action.

Once your manuscript has been accepted for publication, the ERS publications team will contact you requesting copies of all the written permission agreements you have obtained.

Authorship top

There is no maximum for the number of authors of a manuscript, although the final submitted version of the manuscript must have been approved by all co-authors.

Authorship credit should be based on fulfilment of all of the following four criteria:

substantial contributions to either: the conception and design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; and
drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
final approval of the version to be published; and
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.

All people listed as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group does not justify authorship.

Writing assistance from medical writers or agencies must be detailed the acknowledgements section or, if appropriate, the author list.

As manuscripts must have been approved by all authors prior to submission, any changes to the list of authors that are proposed after manuscript submission require written approval from all named authors; this is in accord with the procedures outlined by the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE).

Collaborators

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship stated above should be listed in the acknowledgements section, by stating their names and affiliation details.

Examples of those who might be acknowledged include: people or collaborating bodies who contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship; a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance; a department leader who provided only general support.

If the study was performed in collaboration with or on behalf of a particular body (for example, ISAAC), the names and affiliation details of members of that body or group should be listed in an acknowledgements section.

Use of generative artificial intelligence

This guidance refers only to the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in preparing your paper for submission and revision, not to the use of AI as an experimental tool.

If a generative AI model is involved in the planning, conduct or analysis of your study, this should be detailed in the introduction or methods section, as would use of any other research tool.

AI and publication ethics

Generative AI is a powerful tool with potential to drive great advances. However, it can also be used for misconduct. The use of generative AI to fabricate data or references, to conceal plagiarism or duplication of an author’s own work, or to contaminate the scientific record in any way, is contrary to everything ERS stands for.

AI, privacy and confidentiality

Always be aware that depending on their usage agreements, publicly available generative AI models may use anything you upload as training data. You should not upload any material containing confidential or personally identifiable information, or anything to which someone else holds the rights, to an AI model.

AI as an author

A generative AI model or its interface cannot be credited as an author of a scientific paper as it cannot take responsibility for the content of that paper. Unless otherwise stated in these instructions, contributions from an AI should be listed in the Acknowledgements section, including the name and version of the AI and the date(s) used.

AI as a basic writing assistant

Subject to the privacy and confidentiality requirements above, authors are free to use a large language model (LLM) or other AI assistant as a writing assistant, supporting the authors in refining, correcting, formatting and editing text and tables. Contributions of this sort should be detailed in the Acknowledgements section, including the name and version of the AI. Authors retain full responsibility for the text.

AI as an advanced writing assistant

Authors who wish to use generative AI for more advanced writing tasks than those detailed in the previous section should do so with great care, as generative AI models are known to output false information. Authors should be aware that they are fully responsible for the content of their article, and that by submitting it they declare that they meet all four of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ criteria for authorship: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html#two

Contributions of this sort should be detailed in the Acknowledgements section, including the name and version of the AI, the date(s) used and the tasks carried out or input provided by the AI.

AI for images

ERS does not accept figures or images created by, or with assistance from, generative AI models, unless these are specifically part of the research output and are clearly indicated as such.

Manipulation or enhancement of image data is strictly limited to those detailed in the guidelines produced by Rockefeller University Press and discussed by the Council of Science Editors at https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/3-4-digital-images-and-misconduct#GuidelinesforHandling

No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced.
Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original.
The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (e.g., dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend.
If the original data cannot be produced by an author when asked to provide it, acceptance of the manuscript may be rescinded.

As generative AI models work in opaque ways, ERS’s position is that they should not be used for this kind of image enhancement, as the authors cannot guarantee adherence to the rules.

ORCID top

The ERS manuscript submission and publishing systems support the use of ORCID researcher identifiers. Authors who wish to have their ORCID associated with their manuscript should log in to the submission system and edit their personal account to include their ORCID and to authorise ORCID to link to their ScholarOne account. This must be done prior to manuscript acceptance.

The ORCID website (orcid.org) contains resources for authors. ERS has also created a brief guide to creating and maintaining your ORCID profile.

Conflict of interest top

Any conflict of interest for a given manuscript and for all authors of a manuscript must be dealt with according to the statement of the ICMJE (the 'Vancouver Group') as published in Lancet 1993; 341: 742. Editors and reviewers must disclose to the Chief Editor any personal or financial relationship that could bias their opinion and decision in the peer-review process.

In the interests of transparency, all authors must provide a written statement as part of the submitted manuscript that details any conflicts of interest they may have.

Authors must acknowledge all financial support for the work (including, but not limited to, support from pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies) and other financial or personal conflicts of interest that are both connected and unconnected with the work. The author should consider: grants; honoraria; royalties; relevant current/past employment and other affiliations; patents (either pending, issued or licensed); expenses/travel costs paid for conference attendance; drugs/equipment supplied by a particular company; administrative support; and fees for consulting, lecturing, working on speakers' bureaus or advisory boards, and providing expert testimony. It is each author’s responsibility to provide their own written statement. If the author does not have any conflicts of interest they should clearly indicate this. ERS and the Chief Editors reserve the right to take appropriate action if the appropriate information has not been provided. A statement of interest will be included in the published manuscript.

The ERS publications and their editors are guided by the ERS conflicts of interests policy, and will not consider for publication contributions from authors who are or who have been, full or part-time employees of, or paid consultants to, or those with any real or perceived, direct or indirect links, to the tobacco industry, or who have received any financial or in-kind benefit from the tobacco industry, at any time after 1 January 2000. Contributions from authors who have conflicts of interest relating to alternative nicotine delivery products such as e-cigarette and heated tobacco products, at any time after 1 January 2020, will not be considered. If it is discovered during peer review that competing interests were not declared at submission, or when an article is commissioned, this will result in immediate rejection of the paper. If a competing interest comes to light after publication, the article will be retracted or corrected, as appropriate.

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Corrections to ERS research journals articles that have already been published will be made at the discretion of the chief editor(s). For articles that have been published in their final version (with page numbers) for longer than two years, only important corrections, in particular relating to the reporting of the methods or findings of the study, or to the understanding of the manuscript, will be considered.

Appendix: Sources of information for statistical analyses, study design and data presentation top

The statistical advisors of the European Respiratory Journal and ERJ Open Research recommend the following series of papers on the use of statistics, in particular those articles on repeatability, reproducibility, regression and correlation analyses and confidence intervals, and comparisons of means and proportions.

Bland JM, Altman DG. Correlation, regression and repeated data. BMJ 1994; 308: 896.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Regression towards the mean. BMJ 1994; 308: 1499.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Diagnostic tests 1: sensitivity and specificity. BMJ 1994; 308: 1552.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Diagnostic tests 2: predictive values. BMJ 1994; 309: 102.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Diagnostic tests 3: receiver operating characteristic plots. BMJ 1994; 309: 188.
Bland JM, Altman DG. One- and two-sided tests of significance. BMJ 1994; 309: 248.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Some examples of regression towards the mean. BMJ 1994; 309: 780.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Quartiles, quintiles, centiles, and other quantiles. BMJ 1994; 309: 996.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Matching. BMJ 1994; 309: 1128.
Altman DG, Bland JM. The normal distribution. BMJ 1995; 310: 298.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Calculating correlation coefficients with repeated observations: Part 1, correlation within subjects. BMJ 1995; 310: 446.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Calculating correlation coefficients with repeated observations: Part 2, correlation between subjects. BMJ 1995; 310: 633.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. BMJ 1995; 311: 485.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Multiple significance tests: the Bonferroni method. BMJ 1995; 310: 170.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Presentation of numerical data. BMJ 1996; 312: 572.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Logarithms. BMJ 1996; 312: 700.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Transforming data. BMJ 1996; 312: 770.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Transformations, means and confidence intervals. BMJ 1996; 312: 1079.
Bland JM, Altman DG. The use of transformations when comparing two means. BMJ 1996; 312: 1153.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Comparing several groups using analysis of variance. BMJ 1996; 312: 1472-1473.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Measurement error. BMJ 1996; 313: 744
Bland JM, Altman DG. Measurement error and correlation coefficients. BMJ 1996; 313: 41-42.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Measurement error proportional to the mean. BMJ 1996; 313: 106.
Altman DG, Matthews JNS. Interaction 1: Heterogeneity of effects. BMJ 1996; 313: 486.
Matthews JNS, Altman DG. Interaction 2: compare effect sizes not P values. BMJ 1996; 313: 808.
Matthews JNS, Altman DG. Interaction 3: How to examine heterogeneity. BMJ 1996; 313: 862.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Detecting skewness from summary information. BMJ 1996; 313: 1200.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Cronbach's alpha. BMJ 1997; 314: 572.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Units of analysis. BMJ 1997; 314: 1874.
Bland JM, Kerry SM. Trials randomised in clusters. BMJ 1997; 315: 600.
Kerry SM, Bland JM. Analysis of a trial randomised in clusters. BMJ 1998; 316: 54.
Bland JM, Kerry SM. Weighted comparison of means. BMJ 1998; 316: 129.
Kerry SM, Bland JM. Sample size in cluster randomisation. BMJ 1998; 316: 549.
Kerry SM, Bland JM. The intra-cluster correlation coefficient in cluster randomisation. BMJ 1998; 316: 1455.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Generalisation and extrapolation. BMJ 1998; 317: 409-410.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Time to event (survival) data. BMJ 1998; 317: 468-469.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Bayesians and frequentists. BMJ 1998; 317: 1151.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Survival probabilities (the Kaplan-Meier method). BMJ 1998; 317: 1572.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Treatment allocation in controlled trials: why randomise?BMJ 1999; 318: 1209.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Variables and parameters. BMJ 1999; 318: 1667.
Altman DG, Bland JM. How to randomise. BMJ 1999; 319: 703±704.
Bland JM, Altman DG. The odds ratio. BMJ 2000; 320: 1468.
Day SJ, Altman DG. Blinding in clinical trials and other studies. BMJ 2000; 321: 504.
Altman DG, Schulz KF. Concealing treatment allocation in randomised trials. BMJ 2001; 323: 446-447.
Vickers AJ, Altman DG. Analysing controlled trials with baseline and follow up measurements. BMJ 2001; 323: 1123-1124.
Bland JM, Altman DG. Validating scales and indexes. BMJ 2002; 324: 606-607.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Interaction revisited: the difference between two estimates. BMJ 2003; 326: 219.
Bland JM, Altman DG. The logrank test. BMJ 2004; 328: 1073.
Deeks JJ, Altman DG. Diagnostic tests 4: likelihood ratios. BMJ 2004; 329: 168-169.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Treatment allocation by minimisation. BMJ 2005; 330: 843.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Standard deviations and standard errors. BMJ 2005; 331: 903.
Altman DG, Royston P. The cost of dichotomising continuous variables. BMJ 2006; 332: 1080.
Altman DG, Bland JM. Missing data. BMJ 2007; 334: 424.
Petrie A, Sabin C. Medical Statistics at a Glance. 2nd Edn. Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Kirkwood B, Sterne JAC. Essential Medical Statistics. 2nd Edn. Blackwell Science, 2003.
Bland M. Introduction to Medical Statistics. 3rd Edn. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Barker DJP, Rose G. Epidemiology in Medical Practice. 5th Edn. Elsevier, 1997.
Rothman KJ. Epidemiology: an Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002.
Silman AJ, Macfarlane GJ. Epidemiological Studies: a Practical Guide. 2nd Edn. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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This page was updated on 30 August 2024

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