Policies

We strongly encourage authors to make the data relevant to their articles publicly available, wherever legally and ethically possible. We recommend using recognised subject-specific repositories, such as GenBank, where relevant and available. FAIRsharing provides a curated list of repositories. There are also a number of recognised, general repositories in which to deposit data, for example, DRYAD, OSF, FigShare, Zenodo.

Wherever data is deposited in a repository with a persistent identifier (e.g a DOI or accession number) we request that this is cited in the article’s reference list.

To comply with some funder requirements, such as RCUK, we require that all authors publish a Data Availability Statement in their article.

We ask authors to choose one of the following statements:

1. Data available in a public, open access repository
2. Data is uploaded as supplementary information (Please consider option 1 instead)
3. Data available upon request
4. Data available from a third party and not publicly available
5. Data Sharing not applicable (there is no data in this work)

For options 1, 3, and 4 we will ask you to declare access information for the data.

We only accept clinical trials which have been preregistered. BMJ’s policy on trial registration can be found here.

We also strongly encourage the preregistration of all research before data gathering commences. Preregistration separates hypothesis-generating (exploratory) from hypothesis-testing (confirmatory) research and acknowledges their inherent differences. Removing these conflicts through preregistration improves the quality, transparency, and reproducibility of published research. More information on preregistration can be found here.

Research can be preregistered at recognised repositories, such as OSF or PreClinicalTrials.

Researchers who take steps to reduce bias by specifying in advance how data will be collected and analysed may be eligible for awards of up to $1000 as part of the Center for Open Science’s Preregistration Challenge.

All material published in BMJ Open Respiratory Research must adhere to high ethical standards concerning animal welfare.

Manuscripts will be considered for publication only if the work described:

• Follows international, national and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals and complies with relevant legislation.
• Has been approved by the ethics review committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted where such a committee exists;
• For studies involving non-human primates, demonstrates that the standards meet those of the NC3Rs primates guidelines

Before acceptance of a manuscript, to verify compliance with the above policies, the authors must:

• Confirm that legal and ethical requirements have been met with regards to the humane treatment of animals described in the study;
• Specify in the Materials and Methods section the ethical review committee approval process and the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines followed.

The Editor retains the right to reject manuscripts on the basis of ethical or animal welfare concerns. Papers may be rejected on ethical grounds if the study involves unnecessary pain, distress, suffering or lasting harm to animals, or if the severity of the experimental procedure does not appear to be justified by the value of the work presented. We ask if the work would be likely to gain approval in Europe under the European Directive 2010/63/EU – ‘protection of animals used for scientific purposes’.

Manuscripts describing animal research must include a justification for the use of animals, and for the particular species used. It should also provide details of animal welfare, including information about housing, feeding and environmental enrichment, a description of steps taken to minimise suffering, humane endpoints, and method of euthanasia. If the study has any implication for the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement), these should be discussed in enough details so that readers can implement the 3Rs in similar experiments

Assuming that the minimum standards for consideration have been reached, peer reviewers will be encouraged to consider the following:

• Are the benefits of the research on human health clear?
• Could the information provided by the study have been obtained by any other methods?
• Were the optimum number of animals used to address the research question?
• Was pain, suffering and distress (if any) reduced to the minimum possible?