About

Aims and scope

BMC Methods is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that focuses on publishing lab protocols and methodology papers in the natural sciences; including biology, chemistry, physics, computational and biomedical sciences. The journal serves as a platform for researchers to disseminate experimental procedures, novel techniques, and innovative methodologies, promoting reproducibility, transparency, and the advancement of scientific methods.

BMC Methods welcomes submissions of both lab protocols and methodology articles. We particularly welcome lab protocols that have a strong emphasis on providing comprehensive explanations for each step and robust supporting data to facilitate the wider adoption of the described methods. Submissions should address relevant questions within each discipline. Authors are encouraged to demonstrate their method's performance compared to existing approaches. BMC Methods also considers manuscripts that explore the theoretical foundations of methods and propose enhancements or optimizations. For lab protocols, we welcome detailed step-by-step procedures.

Please note that study protocols are not within the journal's scope but are considered in the main medical and veterinary subject-specific BMC Series journals.

Articles on the methodology of epidemiological research, clinical trials and meta-analysis/systematic review, and empirical studies of the associations between choice of methodology and study outcomes are considered at BMC Medical Research Methodology.

The journal considers manuscripts in the following broad subject-specific sections:

Molecular biology
Genomic and transcriptomic
Proteomics
Metabolomics and lipidomics
Microscopy and imaging
Genome editing
Model systems and organisms
Computational biology and bioinformatics
Structural Biology
Plant biology, ecology and evolution
Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Open access

All articles published by BMC Methods 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 BMC Methods 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 (APC)

Authors who publish open access in BMC Methods are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is: £0.00/$0.00/€0.00

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

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.

Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for articles published in our fully open access journals whose corresponding authors are based in the world’s lowest income countries (see our APC waivers and discounts policy for further information). Requests for APC waivers and discounts from other authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

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.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to BMC Methods should adhere to BMC's editorial policies.

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

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

BMC Methods'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

BMC Methods 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 BMC Methods 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 BMC Methods are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on BMC Methods’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in BMC Methods 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 BMC Methods. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in BMC Methods 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.