The Editorial Process

eLife publishes promising research across the life sciences and biomedicine. Before you submit your work, please note that eLife is a selective journal that aims to publish work of the highest scientific standards and importance. Leading academic researchers evaluate new submissions and approximately two-thirds are returned to the authors without further peer review. Approximately half of the articles that are selected for peer review go on to be published.

To help increase the accessibility of research and ensure that it is communicated as rapidly as possible, authors are encouraged to make use of preprint servers, such as bioRxiv or Authorea, while their paper is under consideration by eLife. The advantages of depositing early versions of an article are summarised on the ASAPbio website. Authors can upload a preprint to bioRxiv or Authorea and then transfer their files for consideration by eLife.

Alternatively, authors can submit to eLife directly, or they can submit using the Overleaf or Authorea authorship tools. Authors working in LaTeX can download and use our template or open it directly in Overleaf.

We are also committed to treating all authors and manuscripts as fairly as possible, and we offer "scoop protection" in the sense that, if other researchers publish similar findings after submission, this will not be a reason for rejection. Please see this editorial and the FAQ below for more details on our policies on preprints and scoop protection.

On January 1, 2017, eLife introduced a fee for publication. A fee of $2,500* is collected for all published papers submitted on or after this date; however, authors with insufficient funding to pay the fee are eligible for a fee waiver (read more).

The eLife editorial process broadly occurs in three phases. Authors submitting to eLife should be familiar with our journal policies. If you have received an encouraging response to your initial submission, please review the guidelines relating to full submissions. If your full submission has been peer reviewed and you have been asked to make revisions, please review our guidelines for revised submissions.

Initial Submissions

If you are interested in submitting your work to eLife, please review the guidelines relating to Initial Submissions. During the initial submission phase, members of eLife’s senior editorial team rapidly assess new submissions, often in consultation with members of the Board of Reviewing Editors or with external guest editors where necessary, to identify the ones that are appropriate for in-depth peer review.

• To simplify the submission process, authors should submit their full manuscript as a single PDF. Limited additional information is collected via the submission screen questions to complete the submission.
• Authors will need to provide a cover letter.
• Limited additional information is collected via the submission screen questions. Only corresponding author details are needed at this stage, along with suggestions for appropriate editors, and individuals who should be excluded from the review process.

Full Submissions

For manuscripts that are invited for in-depth peer review, we request more detailed information about the work to support the peer review process, for example names of co-authors, details of major datasets, and ethics statements. Authors are asked to agree to publish their work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (PDF of the agreement), or the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication (PDF of the agreement) if one or more authors are US-government employees.

Revised Submissions

We will require a response to the essential revision requirements outlined in the decision letter. A response to minor comments is optional. In the event of acceptance, the substantive revision requests and the authors’ response will be published, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license.

FAQ on preprints and scoop protection

1. If I have uploaded my manuscript to a preprint server, can I also submit it to eLife?

Yes, we encourage authors to post their manuscripts as preprints, and this can be done before submission, at the time of submission, or later. It is also possible to submit a manuscript to eLife and then post it directly to bioRxiv as a preprint, and vice versa.

2. If I make an initial submission to eLife and a paper on a similar topic has recently been published in a peer-reviewed journal, will the other paper influence the treatment of my submission to eLife?

The Editors always take the existing literature into account when making decisions about submissions, so situations like this are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. However, eLife does not subscribe to a 'winner-takes-all' philosophy, and does not automatically reject papers because they are not 'first' (please see Malhotra and Marder, 2015 and Marder, 2017).

3. If I make an initial submission to eLife and a preprint on a similar topic has been posted on a recognized server, will the preprint influence the evaluation of my submission to eLife?

No. However, in situations like this we would encourage you to post your initial submission as a preprint on a recognized server.

4. Does eLife offer "scoop protection"? In other words, if I make an initial submission to eLife and a paper on a similar topic is published in another peer-reviewed journal before a decision has been made on my initial submission, will the paper in the other journal influence the evaluation of my submission to eLife?

eLife does offer "scoop protection" in the sense that your initial submission will not be rejected on the grounds that it lacks novelty because of the paper in the other journal. However, it is still possible that the initial submission will be rejected on other grounds.

5. If I make an initial submission to eLife and a preprint on a similar topic is posted on a recognized server before a decision has been made on my initial submission, will the preprint influence the evaluation of my submission to eLife?

As in the previous case, your initial submission will not be rejected on the grounds that it lacks novelty because of the preprint. However, it is still possible that the initial submission will be rejected on other grounds.

6. If I make an initial submission to eLife and a manuscript on a similar topic is already being reviewed by eLife, or has been accepted for publication by eLife, will the other manuscript influence the evaluation of my submission to eLife?

As in the previous case, your initial submission will not be rejected on the grounds that it lacks novelty because of the other manuscript. However, it is still possible that the initial submission will be rejected on other grounds.

7. If my initial submission to eLife is available as a preprint and it attracts negative/critical feedback (eg, in the form of comments and/or other preprints) before a decision has been made, will this feedback influence the evaluation of my submission?

The Editors will primarily base their decision on the content of your submission, but public feedback on the work (positive or negative) might be taken into account. If a full submission is invited, you are advised to be open about the existence of such feedback in your cover letter.

8. Can I cite a preprint in my submission to eLife?

Yes, providing it has been posted on a recognised public preprint server and has a persistent ID. Preprints should be cited as follows:
- Author(s). Year. Title. Name of preprint server. doi or url
For example:
- Narasimhan VM et al. 2016. A direct multi-generational estimate of the human mutation rate from autozygous segments seen in thousands of parentally related individuals. bioRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/059436
- Chung J, Gulcehre C, Cho K, Bengio Y. 2014. Empirical evaluation of gated recurrent neural networks on sequence modeling. arXiv. http://arxiv.abs/1412.3555

Authors can submit their research as one of several article types.

Article Types

eLife publishes the following article types.

Editorials, Insights, and Feature articles

Editorials in eLife are written by eLife editors or staff.

Insights are commissioned by eLife staff and are always related to a Research Article published in the journal. Insights are written by experts in the field of the Research Article: they explain why the results reported are significant and outline some of the challenges that remain in the field.

Feature Articles should offer fresh insights into topics of broad interest to readers working in the life and biomedical sciences. There are no strict limits on length, but authors are advised to stay below 2000 words, two display items (figures, tables etc) and 20 references if possible, and to write in an active/engaging style. Feature Articles are peer reviewed at the discretion of the eLife editors and staff. Feature Articles can also report original findings in meta-research: such submissions should be formatted like Research Articles or Short Reports (see below), and should include the prefix Meta-Research in the title.

Research Articles

There is no maximum length for Research Articles, but we suggest that authors try not to exceed 5,000 words in the main text, excluding the Materials and methods, References, and Figure legends. There are no limits on the number of display items. The main text of the article should usually be structured and ordered as follows: Introduction; Results; Discussion; Materials and Methods (or Methods); Acknowledgements; References; Figures with the corresponding legend below each one; and Tables. A Methods or Model section can appear after the Introduction where it makes sense to do so.

Short Reports

We welcome the submission of Short Reports, for example reporting the results of a single set of experiments, provided the conclusion is clear and justified, and the findings are novel and judged to be of high importance. Short Reports should not usually exceed 1,500 words in the main text, excluding the Materials and Methods, References, and Figure legends, with no more than three or four main display items (figures, tables, videos). Authors have more flexibility in the format, for example with a combined Results and Discussion section.

Tools and Resources

This category highlights tools or resources that are especially important for their respective fields and have the potential to accelerate discovery. For example, we welcome the submission of significant technological or methodological advances, genomic or other datasets, collections of biological resources, software tools, and so on. The article should fully describe the tool or resource so that prospective users have all the information needed to deploy it within their own work. Therefore, major datasets must be publicly deposited (unless there are strong ethical or legal reasons to restrict access); relevant code must conform to the Open Source Definition and be deposited in an appropriate public repository; and methodological advances need to be comprehensively described, along with details of the reagents and equipment, and their sources. Authors should follow the format for Research Articles or Short Reports, as appropriate.

Tools and Resources articles do not have to report major new biological insights or mechanisms, but it must be clear that they will enable such advances to take place. Specifically, submissions will be assessed in terms of their potential to facilitate experiments that address problems that to date have been challenging or even intractable. Some Tools and Resources papers will be the first report of an entirely novel technology. In many other cases, authors will wish to report substantial improvements and extensions of existing technologies. In those cases, the new method should be properly compared and benchmarked against existing methods used in the field. Minor improvements on existing methodologies are unlikely to fare well in review.

Research Advances

This format is for substantial developments that directly build upon a Research Article, Short Report or Tools and Resources article published previously by eLife. A Research Advance can be submitted by some or all of the authors of the original paper and/or researchers who were not involved in the original paper. A Research Advance might use a new technique or a different experimental design to generate results that build upon the conclusions of the original research by, for example, providing new mechanistic insights or extend the pathway under investigation. Research Advances can also report significant improvements to experimental tools and techniques.

Research Advances can be of any length, and any number of main display items, but there may only need to be minimal introductory material. Authors have flexibility in the format, for example with a combined Results and Discussion section, and there is no need for a detailed Materials and Methods section when the methods are the same as the original paper. Authors should upload a completed version of the Transparent Reporting Form (PDF; Word) to accompany their submission.

When published, Research Advances are linked to the original article, and they are indexed and citable in their own right. When the authors of the original article are not involved in the Research Advance, the corresponding author of the original study will be asked for comments during the review process. Where appropriate, the Research Advance will be considered by the same editors and reviewers who were involved in the assessment of the original paper.

Review Articles

Review Articles are commissioned by eLife Senior Editors. If you would like to propose a Review Article, please email your outline to editorial [at] elifesciences [dot] org. In your email please also suggest a relevant Senior Editor to assess the outline. The outline should include: i) 50-100 words on each of the main sections of the proposed article; ii) a paragraph on why it would be timely to publish an article on this topic now; iii) a paragraph on why you are a suitable author for such an article.

Scientific Correspondence

This format should be used for a manuscript that challenges the central findings of a paper published in eLife, and for the formal response to such a manuscript. In the first instance, the author must contact the corresponding author of the original eLife paper in an effort to resolve matters (and include evidence of these efforts in their initial submission). Scientific Correspondence must also be submitted within a year of the original eLife paper being published.

The title of the manuscript should be 'Comment on 'Title of original article' ', and it should be written in a measured tone; manuscripts not written in measured tone will be sent back to the authors for revision: please read this blogpost for more information.

Where possible, the initial submission is considered by the Senior Editor and the Reviewing Editor who handled the original paper (and by others if necessary). In the first instance the Editors will decide if any of the issues raised in the initial submission require a formal Correction to the original article: if a correction is required, the corresponding author of the original paper will be contacted and the Scientific Correspondence will be put on hold until the Correction has been finalized. If a Correction is published and discrepancies between the original paper and the challenge remain, the authors of the Scientific Correspondence will be asked to revise their submission accordingly.

If the Editors agree that the initial submission represents a credible challenge to the central findings of the original paper, a full submission is invited; the initial submission is also sent to the authors of the original paper and they are given 14 days to submit a formal response (which may be shared with the authors of the challenge at some stage in the process). If the initial submission does not represent a credible challenge to the original paper, it is declined.

Once any response has been received, the Editors discuss the challenge and the response, and then decide between the following options: accept both for publication; accept the challenge but reject the response; reject both; proceed with peer review of one or both manuscripts; take another course of action.

If the Editors opt for peer review, the following outcomes are possible: the challenge and the response are both accepted; the challenge is accepted but the response is rejected; the challenge is rejected (which means there is no need to publish the response). Please note the manuscripts will typically be accepted or rejected at this stage of the process; revised manuscripts will not usually be requested.

Full submissions and formal responses should not usually exceed 1,500 words in the main text, excluding the Materials and methods, References, and Figure legends, and should have no more than four main display items (figures, tables, videos). Authors should follow the format for Research Articles or Short Reports, as appropriate; the Results and/or Discussion section should contain separate subsections for each element of the challenge. Both the challenge and the response can contain original data.

While priority is given to manuscripts that challenge eLife papers, we will also consider important submissions that challenge papers published elsewhere. As described above, the author must contact the corresponding author of the original paper in an effort to resolve matters (and include evidence of these efforts in their initial submission), and the Scientific Correspondence must be submitted within a year of the original paper being published.

Authors submitting a Research Article, Short Report, Tools and Resources Article, or Scientific Correspondence are encouraged to read about the Initial Submission process. Authors of Research Advances can proceed to the Full Submission section.

Special Issues

eLife has Special Issues on timely and important topics, which are overseen by one or more eLife editors and external Guest Editors when appropriate.

At the point of submission, authors should indicate in their Cover Letter that they want their work to be considered as part of a Special Issue, citing the relevant title as indicated below. Submissions are assessed using the same criteria as other eLife submissions. Authors can submit using the Research Articles, Short Reports, Tools and Resources and Research Advances article types. The eLife editors may wish to commission Review Articles as part of a Special Issue.

We welcome submissions on a rolling basis, although submissions received after the closing date of a call for papers may not be considered for the Special Issue launch.

Special Issues open for submissions:

• Aging, Geroscience and Longevity

Other Special Issues (submissions welcome on a rolling basis):

• Mechanistic Microbiome Studies
• Discovery and Translation of Cancer Immunology

Initial submissions

Single Manuscript PDF

Authors should start by uploading their manuscript text and figures as a single PDF (ideally smaller than 15MB), organised with easy readability in mind. Please include page and line numbers, and a legible font size for the main text and figure legends. We encourage authors to embed figures and tables at appropriate places within the main text.

To facilitate the evaluation of the submission, we highly recommend including all authors for each reference in the reference list (e.g. John Smith, Anthony Murray and Peter Castle rather than John Smith et al.), although discretion can be used to truncate very long lists of authors.

The manuscript should include the following components:

1. Title: The title should ideally be fewer than 120 characters, with a clear indication of the biological system under investigation (if appropriate), and should avoid abbreviations and unfamiliar acronyms if possible. Please note that two-part titles – e.g. “What goes up must come down: Oscillations in transcriptional networks” – are not permitted for research papers.
2. Author names and affiliations: A complete list of authors and affiliations should be provided in the paper itself.
3. Abstract: The abstract should be fewer than 150 words and should not contain subheadings (except for papers following the CONSORT checklist). It should provide a clear, measured, and concise summary of the work. If the biological system (species names or broader taxonomic groups if appropriate) is not mentioned in the title, it must be included in the abstract.
4. Introduction, Results, Discussion, Materials and Methods:

   We encourage a clear and concise style of writing. Various writing guides are available, including Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a Biomedical Journal (ICMJE) and The Elements of Style (New York: bartleby.com, 1999).

   Any "personal communications" relating to unpublished data should be incorporated within the main text, in the following format: (Author Initial(s) and Surname, personal communication, Month and Year). Authors should have permission from anyone named in this way and should be aware that a supporting letter will sometimes be requested.

   Within the Materials and Methods and/or figure legends, we encourage authors to provide complete information about their experiments, analyses, or data collection to ensure that readers can easily understand what was measured and analysed, and can accurately perform the relevant protocols.

   In cases where a new method within the submission would benefit from step-by-step protocols in addition to the methods described in the article, we would encourage authors to also consider submitting a detailed protocol to Bio-protocol.

   On first mention, please provide details of any manufacturers in the following format: company name, city, country (or state, if based in the United States).

   Any footnotes (including commentary or footnotes embedded within the reference list) should be placed inside parentheses at the appropriate place in the main text.

5. Acknowledgements: Individuals who have contributed materially to the work, but do not satisfy the authorship criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements section. Authors should seek permission to include any individuals mentioned in the acknowledgements.
6. Competing interests: At this stage we request that the corresponding author provides a statement of financial and non-financial competing interests on behalf of all authors. Examples include paid employment or consultancy, stock ownership, patent applications, personal relationships with relevant individuals, and membership of an advisory board.
7. References: Accepted and published works, datasets (newly generated and previously published), program code, and previously published methods should be appropriately cited and included in the reference list to ensure that a wide range of research objects are afforded recognition through citation.

   Please find below the information we require for each type of reference. Please note, authors do not need to spend time formatting their references and can submit manuscripts formatted in a variety of reference styles, including Harvard, Vancouver, and Chicago. Wherever possible, please do not truncate the number of authors in the references list, but please do provide a DOI if possible.

	Journal	Book	Website	Data citation	Software‡	Pre-print	Conference proceedings	Periodical	Technical report	Thesis	Patent
Author(s)	✓	✓*	✓	✓	✓°	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Editor(s)		✓†
Year	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓	✓	✓§	✓	✓	✓
Date accessed and publication date			✓					✓
Title (of article, chapter, abstract, software etc.)	✓	✓*	✓	✓	✓*	✓	✓	✓			✓
Publication title (e.g. journal, book, database, website, conference proceedings, software host etc.)	✓	✓	✓*	✓	✓*	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Volume	✓*	✓*						✓*
Page range OR eLocation ID	✓	✓†					✓*	✓
Identifier (such as DOI , ISBN, accession or patent number)	✓*	✓*		✓*	✓*	✓*	✓*		✓*	✓*
Location (of publisher, conference, patent etc.)		✓*			✓*		✓*		✓*	✓	✓
Publisher		✓			✓*					✓*
Edition		✓*					✓*		✓*
URL link			✓	✓*	✓*	✓*	✓		✓*	✓*	✓

• * Not required, but if exists please include.
• † Only required for chapter reference.
• ° Or curator.
• § Full publication date required - day/month/year.
• ‡ Please refer to the software citation principles when citing software. If a site suggests a citation should contain a date range, we suggest the publication date should be interpreted as the software having been developed during the date range, but published at the end of the range. Please provide a version of the software.

If using a reference manager, we suggest selecting APA style as this is the best match for eLife reference style. However, we accept any reference style and will format all references during the production process.

Figures, Tables, and Rich Media Files

Figures and tables should be included within the PDF. If authors already have a file available with the figures and tables embedded within the text, please provide this, but otherwise the figures and tables can be included at the end. Each figure and table should fit on one page, together with a title and concise legend (where appropriate), ideally on the same page as the display item. If this is not possible, titles and legends should be included at the end of the article file. Figures and tables should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text.

We encourage the use of rich media files: for example, videos, audio clips, animations, slideshows, and interactive diagrams. Authors can upload such files during the Initial Submission process if they will assist in the initial assessment but otherwise they can be uploaded if a Full Submission is requested. Anything crucial for the initial evaluation should be uploaded at the Initial Submission stage as a supporting file.

At this stage, supplementary figures and tables can be included if they exist, and if desired, within the single PDF.

When preparing figures, we recommend that authors follow the principles of Colour Universal Design (Masataka Okabe and Kei Ito, J*FLY), whereby colour schemes are chosen to ensure maximum accessibility for all types of colour vision.

When preparing coloured tables, authors should note that we can only accomodate schemes as outlined in this guide.

Limited Metadata

You will be asked to enter the following information when completing the submission form:

1. Corresponding Author: At this stage, we only need the name, institution, and email address of the corresponding author.
2. Cover Letter:
   • How will your work make others in the field think differently and move the field forward?
   • How does your work relate to the current literature on the topic?
   • Who do you consider to be the most relevant audience for this work?
   • Have you made clear in the letter what the work has and has not achieved?
   In addition, please upload any related studies that you have published recently or have under consideration elsewhere as supporting files and describe them in your cover letter.
3. Manuscript Title
4. Article Type: Information on the articles we publish can be found here.
5. Subject Area(s): A list of major subject areas is provided from which authors should select one or two (choosing from: Biochemistry and Chemical Biology, Cancer Biology, Cell Biology, Chromosomes and Gene Expression, Computational and Systems Biology, Developmental Biology, Ecology, Epidemiology and Global Health, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Human Biology and Medicine, Immunology and Inflammation, Microbiology and Infectious Disease, Neuroscience, Physics of Living Systems, Plant Biology, Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, Structural Biology and Molecular Physics).
6. Editor suggestions:Authors should be ready to suggest two of eLife's Senior Editors and at least two members of the Board of Reviewing Editors (select the appropriate subject area via the dropdown menu) who would be appropriate for the assessment of the work. In the event of potential competing interests amongst members of the editorial board, authors can exclude one Senior Editor and no more than two Reviewing Editors, in which case we will make every effort to follow author requests for excluded individuals. Please note that any requests to exclude Senior Editors or Reviewing Editors should be explained briefly in the accompanying cover letter.
7. Reviewer suggestions: Authors can optionally suggest potential reviewers for their work at the Initial Submission stage. Please list the names of experts who are knowledgeable in your area and could give an unbiased review of your work. To support diversity, please consider suggesting potential reviewers at an early stage of their career, women, and experts from countries other than the USA and Europe. Please do not list colleagues who are close associates, collaborators, or family members. Requests to exclude individuals can also be made and must be accompanied with a brief explanation. We will make every effort to follow author requests for excluded individuals.

If you receive an encouraging response to your Initial Submission, please review the guidelines relating to Full Submissions.

Full Submissions

If an author is invited to submit a Full Submission, they will receive a link to the article submission system, which will take them to a page incorporating existing information about their Initial Submission. The corresponding author is then required to build on the existing information to support the peer-review process. Once the full submission is complete, all co-authors will be contacted to verify their authorship, contribution, and competing interest statements. Please note that Research Advances bypass the Initial Submission step.

Submission Files

At this point, authors can either upload another single PDF of their manuscript (with the text and figures combined), or they can upload the source files separately if they prefer.

Either way, authors are strongly encouraged to think creatively about the presentation of their work, to take advantage of the flexibility and file formats eLife offers, and to keep the article as concise as possible. To assist the review process, please organise and format the manuscript so that it is easily readable. Please include page and line numbers, double spacing, and a legible font size for the main text and figure legends.

Regarding the use of supplementary data, our vision is presented in this blog post. In short, we strive to make supplementary data, if applicable, easily searchable, discoverable, and citable, and made available in the most useful format for reuse.

1. eLife Transparent Reporting Form:

   To facilitate the interpretation and replication of experiments, authors should, where appropriate, provide detailed information in areas relating to sample-size estimation, replicates, and statistical reporting. At the Full Submission step, authors should be ready to upload a completed version of this form (PDF; Word), which should describe the places within the submission where this information has been included.

   Please note that we publish the completed Transparent Reporting Form for submissions accepted for publication. This will be available to download as a supplementary file in the format provided by the authors.

2. Figures and Figure Supplements:

   eLife does not have space or printing constraints, so any number of colour figures can be included within Research Articles, although we urge authors to present their results as concisely as possible. Short Reports should not contain more than three or four display items. We also recognise that some figures are more central to the narrative of the paper than others, and so we therefore support ‘child’ figures (examples of which can be found in eLife 2012;1:e00181). These "Figure Supplements" must be linked to one of the primary figures: they can, for example, provide additional examples of analyses or data shown in a primary figure.

   There is no limit on the number of Figure Supplements for any one primary figure. Each figure supplement should be clearly labelled, Figure 1–figure supplement 1, Figure 1–figure supplement 2, Figure 2–figure supplement 1 and so on, and have a short title (and optional legend). Figure Supplements should be referred to in the legend of the associated primary figure, and should also be listed at the end of the article text file.

   Authors should provide information about data processing and analysis in their figure legends, including any statistical tests applied, with exact sample number, p values of tests, criteria for data inclusion or exclusion, and details of replicates. In some cases, it might be unwieldy to have this information in the legend of a figure, in which case the information can be provided in a source data file – see below.

   Although we understand that authors sometimes need to provide composite figures as main figures, we urge authors not to make such figures (and their legends) too large to avoid the figure and its legend extending beyond one page in the PDF. We also encourage authors to avoid composite figure supplements wherever possible.

   When preparing figures, we recommend that authors follow the principles of Colour Universal Design (Masataka, Okabe and Kei Ito, J*Fly), whereby colour schemes are chosen to ensure maximum accessibility for all types of colour vision.

   Figures can be uploaded individually in the following formats: TIFF, GIF, JPG, EPS, AI, PDF and Corel Draw. If you would like to supply PDF images please ensure that they are saved in a Vector image format.

3. Source Data Files, for Figures and Tables:

   eLife encourages authors to provide Source Data files, for example, for figures such as histograms or tables showing summary data (as shown in eLife 2012;1:e00109). Each Source data file should relate directly to a single figure or table, whereas datasets generated in the course of the work should be deposited externally, as explained below. Each source data file should be clearly labelled, ‘Figure 1–Source Data 1’, 'Table 1–Source Data 1' and so on, and have a short title (and optional legend). Source data files should be referred to in the relevant figure legend or table footnote, and they should also be listed at the end of the article text file.

   In addition, authors should provide information about data processing and analysis, including any statistical tests applied, with exact sample number, p values of tests, criteria for data inclusion or exclusion, and details of replicates. In some cases, it might be unwieldy to have this information in the legend of a figure, in which case the information should be provided along with the source data file.

4. Rich Media Files:

   Rich media files encompass forms of presentation that go beyond static presentation: for example, videos, audio clips, animations, slideshows, and interactive diagrams. Rich media files should be supplied as AVI, WMV, MOV, MP4, or H264. Where an audio track is present, we recommend a sampling rate of 44100, 22050, or 11025 Hz to avoid encoding and quality issues. Each file should be accompanied by a concise title/legend at the end of the article file. If the article is published, videos are embedded within the main body of the article (they are not presented as supplementary files) with the same status as primary figures (as shown in eLife 2012;1:e00007).

   eLife supports JMOL, a Java viewer for three-dimensional chemical structures, and we encourage authors to provide compatible files.

5. Source Code:

   Relevant software or source code should be deposited in an open software archive. Where appropriate, authors can upload source code files to the submission system (for example, MATLAB, R, Python, C, C++, Java). Any code provided should be properly documented, in line with these instructions (courtesy of PLOS). Please also refer to our Software sharing policy.

6. Reporting Standards Documents:

   eLife encourages authors to upload any relevant reporting standards documents.

7. Supplementary Files:

   Authors are discouraged from uploading large PDFs of data and/or text as supplementary files for the reasons explained above. However, information not central to the narrative, that falls outside of the other formats specified above, such as long lists of strains or plasmids, are welcome as supplementary files, provided they are uploaded in the most useful format. Supplementary files, if provided, should be labelled as Supplementary File 1, Supplementary File 2 and so on, and have a title (and optional legend). Supplementary files should be listed at the end of the article file.

8. Related Manuscripts:

   Any related manuscripts should be described in the cover letter and uploaded using the Related Manuscript file type.

Submission Metadata

The Full Submission requires additional information about the article and all authors. This allows eLife to propagate published content to a wide range of resources and indexes, so that accepted articles are widely discoverable and can be used by the broadest possible audience. During the full submission process, the corresponding author will also be asked to link their existing ORCID record to their eLife profile, or create an ORCID record, if he or she does not already have one. An ORCID iD is a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from other researchers and reliably connects you with your research contributions and affiliations, to help ensure that your work is properly attributed and credited (learn more).

1. Impact Statement: The impact statement is single sentence (typically 15-30 words) that summarises the most important finding of the work: it needs to complement (rather than repeat) the title, and should avoid acronyms that are not well known to a broad readership. It also needs to be written in third-person (i.e., it should not use “we” or “our”).
2. Complete Author Information:

   Co-author details should be entered: in addition to the full author name and affiliation (department, institution, city, and country), a competing interests statement is required for each author. All financial and non-financial competing interests that could reasonably be perceived to be relevant to the work should be declared.

   Information about individual author contributions should be provided using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy: Conceptualization; Methodology; Software; Validation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Resources; Data curation; Writing – original draft preparation; Writing – review & editing; Visualization; Supervision; Project administration; Funding acquisition (read more).

   During the Full Submission process, an email is sent to all authors to confirm that they approve of the submission of the manuscript, its content, authorship, and the order of authorship. It is also possible to indicate joint first authorship during the submission process.

   If one or more author groups or consortia are indicated as authors, to ensure that individual collaborators are searchable on resources such as PubMed, please provide the list of collaborators in an Excel file (uploaded as file type Collaborators). Please ensure given names and surnames are listed in separate columns per collaborator. They will be listed under the acknowledgements on publication.

3. Funding:

   In addition to a list of the sources of funding, authors are also expected to provide the relevant grant numbers, where possible, and list the authors associated with the specific funding sources. Please do not include information about direct funding in the acknowledgements to avoid duplication.

   Authors are also required to state whether the funding sources were involved in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

4. Datasets:

   All datasets used in a publication should be cited in the text and listed in the reference section and/or data availability statement. References for data sets and program code should include a persistent identifier, for example a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or accession number.

   In the submission form, authors should provide the following information about newly generated and previously published datasets in the following format: Author(s), Year, Dataset Title, Dataset ID and/or URL, and Database and Identifier. This information will be used to create a list of the relevant major datasets in the published article (such as eLife 2012;1:e00070), to indicate their location along with unique identifiers. For newly generated datasets, we encourage the use of the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

   Where appropriate, data analysis tools should also be made available to assist interested researchers in the manipulation and use of the data.

   If there are datasets that cannot be shared for legal or ethical reasons, or there are any data access or data sharing restrictions, please ensure that they are outlined clearly in the data availability statement. Please refer to our data availability policy for further information.

5. Ethics Statement for Human Subjects Research or Animal Experimentation:

   Authors are required to provide an ethics statement during submission to indicate the institutional review board or ethics committee that has approved the study and/or the guidelines that have been followed.

6. Editor and Reviewer Suggestions/Exclusions:

   We request that authors provide suggestions for at least four potential reviewers of the work. To encourage diversity, please consider specifically suggesting reviewers at an early stage of their career, women, and experts from places other than USA and Europe. Please do not list colleagues who are close associates, collaborators, or family members. Authors may also provide the names of reviewers or editors who they would prefer to exclude from the assessment of the article. We will make every effort to follow author requests for excluded individuals unless the editors judge that such exclusion would interfere with the rigorous assessment of the work.

If your Full Submission has been peer reviewed and you have been asked to make revisions, please review our guidelines for Revised Submissions.

Revised Submissions

Response to the Decision Letter After Peer Review

Authors should provide a response to the decision letter, responding point-by-point. If the paper is accepted, responses to any major concerns will be published, so please upload an editable file wherever possible.

Source Manuscript Files

If source manuscript files have not already been provided, we will need them at the revision stage.

Article Text File and Tables

The text file, with any main tables at the end, should be uploaded as a DOCX (or DOC or RTF) file, or as a LaTeX file (ideally using our LaTeX template). The uploaded Article File should include tracked changes indicating the revisions made, ideally using the tracked changes function in Word. (If you prefer to indicate textual changes in another way, for example with coloured text, this version should instead be uploaded as a Related Manuscript file, with a clean version of the text file uploaded as the Article File.)

Where article files are supplied in LaTex format, the associated bibliography (.bib) file must be provided along with any accompanying style (.bst) file. If specific style packages (.sty) are used for the main article, these should also be provided. All .bib, .bst, and .sty files should be uploaded as related manuscript files. LaTeX code uploaded to our submission system cannot make use of packages such as subfig or subcaption at the moment, so all figures with panels must be collected into single figure files prior to upload. If authors intend to select the option to have the accepted version of their article published, it will be useful if the typeset PDF of the article is uploaded as well.

Please also make sure to include information in your manuscript related to the use of cell lines, animal or human experimentation and data and software availability, as indicated in our Journal Policies.

Key Resources Table

Where appropriate, and especially for studies including bench research, authors should incorporate a Key Resources Table within their resubmission. This is designed to highlight genetically modified organisms and strains, cell lines, reagents, and software that are essential to reproduce the results presented. Please download and complete this template for the Key Resources Table to ensure consistency. The template is a resource developed by FlyBase with input from other model organism databases, and it includes notes on completion and an example table. The completed Key Resources Table should be incorporated within your article file at the very beginning of the Materials and Methods section (example in published article available here).

Figures and Figure Supplements

Each figure and each figure supplement should be uploaded as an individual file: each image should be labelled Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on. Figures and figure supplements can be uploaded in the following formats: TIFF, GIF, JPG, EPS, AI, PDF and Corel Draw.

All figures must be uploaded at a minimum dpi of 300 and a minimum physical width size of 10cm. If you anticipate any figures being the equivalent width of a full typeset page, they must be uploaded at a minimum physical width of 20cm and remain at 300 dpi.

At the revised submission stage, please ensure that whitespace around figures is minimised, especially in PDF images.

Figures in revised manuscripts may be screened to ensure that they have not been adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information present in the original image.

eLife Digest

Most eLife papers include a plain-language summary (called an eLife digest) that explains the background and central findings of the work to a broad readership. When an author has been asked to revise a full submission, a member of the Features Team will make contact to ask if the author would like to include a digest in their paper. Digests are typically between 200 and 400 words long.

Striking Image

Authors are encouraged to provide a striking image (preferably in colour) that we can use to highlight the article if it is published. Images should be in landscape format, with strong visual impact, and be at least 1800 x 900 pixels in size: png, tiff or jpeg formats are preferred. Images should not include labels or text, and should be composed of no more than one or two panels. Please see here, or look at our social media channels for more ideas about the types of images we look for. These files must be available to use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Please upload these images using the Potential Striking Image file type, and please include a short caption that explains what is shown in the striking image.

For information about acceptance, rejection, and appeals, please proceed to the Post Decision section.

Post Decision

Acceptance

eLife is an open-access journal: articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (except where otherwise noted), which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited, in line with the BOAI definition of open access.

Detailed Protocols

If your paper involves a method that would also benefit from the publication of a step-by-step protocol (e.g., http://bio-protocol.org/e1067), we would encourage you to consider Bio-protocol, which curates high-quality life science protocols, or protocols.io, which is an open-access repository of science methods.

• For a submission to Bio-protocol (these are subject to peer review), please refer to their guidelines and then submit the protocol using this link.
• For a submission to protocols.io, after describing the step-by-step protocol, select “Get DOI” to obtain a persistent digital object identifier, which should be included within the Materials and Methods section of your manuscript, using this format: https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.[xxxxxx]. Initially the protocol is only visible to those with the link, but you can make the protocol public by selecting “Publish” from the protocols.io site.

Publication of the Accepted Manuscript

To ensure that new research is made available as rapidly as possible, eLife offers an optional service to authors whereby a PDF of their accepted manuscript can be published within a few days of acceptance.

Accepted manuscripts are citable, have a DOI, are listed in PubMed, and are available to download from eLife’s upcoming, browse, and archive pages.

The main figures and tables of the accepted manuscript are available at the end of the PDF. Additional items such as videos, figure supplements, and source data files are available to download as a separate zip file.

Authors are invited to opt-in to this service when submitting a revised manuscript. In the event that the study has potentially broad public significance, we recommend that authors consult their institutional press officer before choosing to publish the accepted manuscript.

Publication of the Final Version

The final version of the accepted article will be published, along with the decision letter incorporating the review comments and the authors’ response to those comments (as in eLife 2012;1:e00109). If authors have any questions or concerns about the content of the decision letter after peer review, or their response to this letter, it is important to notify the journal office as soon as possible.

The corresponding author will have an opportunity to review a proof of the article in HTML format prior to publication. Authors will have 48 hours to answer queries generated during the production process. Changes should be limited to essential corrections.

Corrections to Published Articles

Publishers have a responsibility to correct errors that have been discovered in published articles. Requests for corrections or retractions should be sent to the journal’s editorial staff for consideration and further advice.

Corrections are limited to those that will affect the scientific integrity of the content.

In the rare instance that there is a substantive error that requires a correction to an accepted manuscript before the final version is published, a second version of the accepted manuscript will be published. The first version will still be accessible and a description of the correction(s) will be included as a footnote within the PDF of the new version. A description of the correction(s) will also be added as a comment online.

Once the final version of record is published, a formal correction would need to be issued for any further changes. Formal corrections are published on the eLife website, with links to a corrected version of the relevant article. The previous version of the article is replaced and the published correction provides a clear record of the change. We will transmit corrections to PubMed Central and PubMed as well as other relevant indexes and repositories, although some services will not be able to present the correction or replace the content. If you have any concerns about a correction, please contact the editorial staff.

Rejection

Using eLife peer reviews when submitting to another journal

Because we are committed to improving the overall efficiency of the publishing process, we are willing to share referee reports and identities (where they agree) with another journal of the corresponding author’s choice. As an example of what others have done, we have facilitated the transfer of review material to a range of journals, including Biology Open (which offers the option to upload the manuscript files on the corresponding author’s behalf), BMC Biology, EMBO Reports, eNeuro, the PLOS journals, the Journal of Cell Biology, and the Journal of General Physiology. We encourage authors of neuroscience submissions to consider re-using reviews with other members of the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium.

In the event that an article is rejected after peer review, we ask permission from the reviewers to pass on their full review and identity to another journal, so that authors can request that the peer-review information is passed along confidentially. We will inform the reviewers if such a transfer is made. For reviews to be passed to another journal within the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium please email us (editorial [at] elifesciences.org) and ask that the reviews be forwarded, stating the name and manuscript ID at the next journal. For other journals, authors should indicate that their work was previously reviewed by eLife in their cover letter and request that the editors contact eLife (editorial [at] elifesciences.org) to request the referee reports and identities. When authors have made revisions, they should upload a response to the previous reviews alongside their manuscript.

Appeals

If authors feel that their article has been erroneously rejected by eLife, they should contact the editorial office. Appeals are first sent to the appropriate Senior editor for consideration.

Journal Policies

eLife is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), supports their principles, and follows their flowcharts for dealing with potential breaches of publication ethics. eLife also follows, as far as possible, the recommendations outlined in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, guidelines established by the ICMJE.

Authors are expected to comply with best practice in research and publishing ethics, and with our associated guidelines and policies, for example with regard to authorship, competing interests, and data availability and reporting standards.

eLife is a signatory of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, which is an initiative by the Center for Open Science that promotes shared standards for increasing openness, transparency, and reproducibility.

Allegations of Misconduct

If we receive an allegation of potential research or publication misconduct, we will alert those affected and ask for their response. We reserve the right to suspend the review process where necessary; to publish an expression of concern for published papers where appropriate; and/or to ask the relevant employers, or institution, or an appropriate regulatory body to investigate. If someone has concerns about potential misconduct in a paper published by or under consideration by eLife, s/he should contact the journal office, editorial@elifesciences.org, with their message addressed to the Editor-in-Chief, Michael Eisen.

Animal and/or Human Experiments

Work involving human subjects or animal experimentation is expected to be conducted to the highest ethical standards, for example in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki for medical research, and with the relevant legislation and guidance for animal research listed by NC3Rs.

For work involving animal research, authors should follow the ARRIVE guidelines (and state clearly in the Materials and Methods whether animals were maintained singly or in groups).

For human subjects research informed consent must have been obtained (or the reason for lack of consent explained). When this work includes identifying, or potentially identifying, information, authors must also download the Consent Form for Publication in eLife (PDF), which the individual, parent, or guardian must sign once they have read the article and been informed about the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (form and guidance based on those developed by PLOS). The signed consent form should not be submitted alongside the article, but authors should file it with the individual's case notes and the ethics statement should state that consent authorisation for publication has been obtained.

For clinical trials, eLife follows the recommendations of the ICMJE that all trials must be prospectively registered to be considered for publication, and the clinical trial registration number will be requested during submission. When reporting randomised clinical trials, authors should follow the CONSORT guidelines and upload a CONSORT checklist and flow diagram with their submission.

Authorship

eLife follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for authorship and contributorship and the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) is used to indicate each author’s contributions.

Please note that acquisition of funding or the provision of space, providing published data or materials, or general supervision of the research group alone does not justify authorship.

Following the recommendations of the ICMJE regarding authorship and contributorship, individuals who have contributed materially to the work, but do not satisfy the authorship criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements section. Authors should seek permission to mention any individuals listed in the acknowledgements.

Cell Lines

Regarding the use of cell lines, authors must report their source, confirm the identity has been authenticated, state the authentication method (such as STR profiling), and report the mycoplasma contamination testing status. Authors should authenticate the identity of their cell lines at least once per year, and when starting new work or new cell lines confirm that the cell lines are free from mycoplasma and other microorganisms. Authors should check the list of commonly misidentified cell lines maintained by the International Cell Line Authentication Committee before submission and justify the use of any cell lines contained therein. Cell line authentication services are offered by ATCC, Science Exchange, and others.

Competing Interests

Authors, reviewers, and editors are all required to declare any competing interests that might be perceived to interfere with the objectivity of the presentation or handling of the work. Any relevant patents, patent applications, and products in development that relate to a submission must be disclosed in full, including patent numbers and titles. For further information on competing interests, see the recommendations of the ICMJE and the guidance provided by PLOS.

Compliance with Funder Open-Access Policies

eLife complies with all major funding agency requirements for open access to the published results of their research grants. eLife articles are:

• Made openly available immediately at the point of publication;
• Published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) or Public Domain Dedication (CC0) license;
• Automatically deposited in Pubmed Central/Europe PMC at the time of publication (of the Version of Record);
• Published with funding information, including grant numbers, which are deposited by eLife to the Open Funder Registry;
• Sent to the JISC Publication Router, which helps institutions comply with the open-access policies of research funding bodies and the Research Excellence Framework.

Copyrighted Material

Copyrighted material (in full or in part) should not be included in a submission to eLife, unless you have explicit permission from the copyright holder that it can be reproduced under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Occasionally we have published figures or parts of figures which cannot be re-published under a Creative Commons Attribution license. In those instances we ensure the correct attribution is provided within the human readable text (HTML and PDF versions of the article) and the underlying XML, for machine readability.

Availability of Data, Software, and Research Materials

Data, methods used in the analysis, and materials used to conduct the research must be clearly and precisely documented, and be maximally available to any researcher for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure.

Regardless of whether authors use original data or are reusing data available from public repositories, they must provide program code, scripts for statistical packages, and other documentation sufficient to allow an informed researcher to precisely reproduce all published results.

In rare cases, despite authors’ best efforts, certain data or materials cannot be shared for legal or ethical reasons. In such cases, authors must inform the editors at the time of submission. This will be taken into account during the review process. Authors are encouraged to anticipate data and material sharing at the beginning of their projects to provide for these circumstances. Editors may grant exceptions to data and material access requirements provided that authors:

• explain the restrictions on the dataset or materials and how they preclude public access;
• provide a public description of the steps others should follow to request access to the data or materials;
• provide software and other documentation that will precisely reproduce all published results;
• provide access to all data and materials for which the constraints do not apply.

Data Availability

To maintain high standards of research reproducibility, and to promote the reuse of new findings, eLife requires all datasets associated with an article to be made freely and widely available (unless there are strong reasons to restrict access, for example in the case of human subjects data), in the most useful formats, and according to the relevant reporting standards.

Wherever possible, authors should make major datasets available using domain-specific public archives (for example, GenBank, Protein Data Bank, and ClinicalTrials.gov), or generic databases (for example, Dryad, Dataverse or the Open Science Framework) where a domain specific archive does not exist. A comprehensive catalogue of recommended databases is available at the FAIRsharing Resource.

Authors using original data must:

• make the data available at a trusted digital repository (however, if all data required to reproduce the reported analyses appears in the article text, tables, and figures then it does not also need to be posted to a repository);
• include all variables, treatment conditions, and observations described in the manuscript;
• provide a full account of the procedures used to collect, pre-process, clean, or generate the data;
• provide research materials and description of procedures necessary to conduct an independent replication of the research.

Trusted repositories adhere to policies that make data discoverable, accessible, usable, and preserved for the long term. Trusted repositories also assign unique and persistent identifiers. Author-maintained websites are not compliant with this requirement.

Authors using unpublished datasets must abide by the relevant community guidelines for the use and acknowledgment of those data resources (including the Fort Lauderdale and Toronto agreements in the case of genomic datasets), obtaining permission where required (which should be stated in the cover letter), and citing the appropriate laboratory, website, and accession numbers.

Software

Authors are required to follow the guidelines developed by PLOS if new software or a new algorithm is central to the submission; for example, authors must confirm that software conforms to the Open Source Definition and is deposited in an appropriate public repository. To ensure that software can be reproduced without restrictions and that authors are properly acknowledged for their work, authors should license their code using an open source license.

Authors are encouraged to use version control services such as GitHub, GitLab, and SourceForge. eLife maintains a GitHub account to archive code accompanying eLife publications that has been deposited on GitHub or another version control service. Binary files ("non-text files", such as images, zip files, or program data) should be kept to a minimum and, if possible, they should not exceed 50MB. Please try to avoid files larger than 100MB as they will require special handling.

Research Materials and RRIDs

In accordance with the principles established in ‘Sharing Publication-Related Data and Materials’ (doi:10.1104/pp.900068), a condition of publication is that authors must make the materials and resources described in their article promptly available upon reasonable request from academic researchers.

All biological reagents must be made available to qualified investigators upon reasonable request. We strongly encourage authors to deposit copies of their plasmids as DNA or bacterial stocks with repositories such as Addgene or PlasmID. Other established repositories for biological materials include the American Type Culture Collection, Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center, Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center, Caenorhabditis Genetics Center, the European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Program, the European Mouse Mutant Archive, the Knockout Mouse Project, the Jackson Laboratory, the Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers, and RIKEN Bioresource Centre.

Authors should include a statement at the end of the Materials and methods to provide information about the availability of the materials and resources described in the article, including any restrictions in availability or use.

To help promote the identification, discovery, and reuse of key research resources, we encourage you to include Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) within the Materials and Methods section to identify the model organisms, cells lines, antibodies, and tools (such as software or databases) you have used (e.g. RRID:AB_2178887 for an antibody, RRID:MGI:3840442 for an organism, RRID:CVCL_1H60 for a cell line, and RRID:SCR_007358 for a tool). The RRID Portal lists existing RRIDs, and instructions for creating a new one if an RRID matching the resource does not already exist.

Dual Use

Regarding the oversight of dual use life-sciences research, we follow the recommendations formulated by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB). If there are any concerns about dual use life-sciences research during submission or review, please bring them to the attention of the journal’s editors.

Editorial Independence and Integrity

eLife follows the guidance of the World Association of Medical Editors and the Council of Science Editors regarding editorial independence. The editors of eLife, under the leadership of the Editor-in-Chief, have sole responsibility, authority, and accountability for the editorial content of the journal. Submissions are judged on their own merits, regardless of funding, author affiliations, or author relationships with eLife.

The funders and sponsors of eLife have no role in the selection, evaluation, or editing of the content. The content published in eLife does not represent the opinions of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, the Wellcome Trust or the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Information provided during the submission and review process is strictly confidential.

Image Acquisition and Presentation

Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information present in the original image. See ‘What's in a picture? The temptation of image manipulation’ (Rossner and Yamada 2004, Journal of Cell Biology, 166:11) and also 'Avoiding Twisted Pixels: Ethical Guidelines for the Appropriate Use and Manipulation of Scientific Digital Images’ (Cromey 2010, Sci Eng Ethics, 16-639-667) for valuable guidance on acceptable practice and examples of inappropriate manipulation. Please take note of the following guidance in particular:

• Minimal processing of images (for example, changing brightness and contrast) is appropriate only where it is applied equally across the whole image and is equally applied to controls.
• Contrast should not be adjusted to obscure data.
• Processing an image to emphasise one region at the expense of others, or to emphasise experimental data relative to the control, is not permitted.
• Combining images that should otherwise be presented separately may misrepresent the original data. If different images do need to be combined, then this should be clearly indicated in the image (for example, including dividing lines in gels) and described in the Figure legend.

Please note that authors should provide information within their submission about the tools and techniques used when acquiring and preparing images. For example, submissions including microscopy images or autoradiograms should include information about the exposure times, the acquisition parameters, and whether the image received any post-acquisition treatment (for example stating if the format or scales were modified).

Images may be subject to screening prior to acceptance and we may need to request the original, unprocessed figure files/raw data for further review.

Licensing

Because articles published by eLife are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license, others are free to copy, distribute, and reuse them (in part or in full), without needing to seek permission, as long as the author and original source are properly cited.

Media Policy

eLife’s media policy is designed to encourage high-quality, informed and widespread discussion of new research – before and after publication.

Presenting and discussing work prior to publication

Prior to publication, authors are encouraged to present their findings to their peers, including at meetings and conferences; to deposit a copy of their manuscript with a preprint server (or other open repository or website); and to blog about their findings. None of these activities will affect consideration of a manuscript for publication in eLife. Where there is media interest in a paper that has been accepted by eLife, and likely media coverage in advance of publication, we encourage the authors to take advantage of the eLife option to publish their manuscript within a few days of acceptance (our “publish on accept” service), so that readers of any (potential) early coverage will be able to access the full paper as soon as possible.

Authors are welcome to speak to the media about their work at any time prior to publication and may share advance copies of their manuscript with journalists as they prefer. They may also wish to ask their institutional press officers to help with advance promotion, once the manuscript is accepted. However, eLife encourages press officers to pitch studies widely at the time of publication only, rather than in advance, so that as many journalists as possible receive the story, and access to the full, peer-reviewed paper, at the same time.

Our policy not to embargo eLife papers

Because authors are completely free to release their content ahead of publication and to talk with the media at any stage, we do not release content under embargo, except under exceptional circumstances. This means that journalists can write and publish articles about a study in advance of publication without breaking an embargo. However, we strongly recommend that their stories are published at the time of or after publication, so that readers have access to the full, peer-reviewed paper.

Making content widely accessible

Many eLife papers are published with a plain-language summary (called an eLife digest) to explain the background and central findings of the work to a broad readership. We also publish the most substantive parts of the decision letter that is sent to authors after peer review (and which is based on the referees' reports on the paper), along with the authors' response to this letter, to provide greater context for the work. Where eLife considers papers to be of potential interest to a broad audience, these will also be promoted widely to the media and to interested readers either on the day of publication or post publication.

More information for institutional press officers and journalists is available at https://elifesciences.org/for-the-press.

Nomenclature

Correct and established nomenclature should be used throughout the article, such as for gene names, species names and SI units. The appropriate nomenclature databases for correct gene names and symbols should be consulted. Helpful reference points for approved nomenclature include Genetic nomenclature for Drosophila melanogaster; Genetic Nomenclature for Caenorhabditis elegans; A Standard For Maize Genetics Nomenclature; Arabidopsis Nomenclature; Guidelines for Human Gene Nomenclature; Rules for Nomenclature of Genes, Genetic Markers, Alleles, and Mutations in Mouse and Rat; the Xenopus Gene Nomenclature Guidelines; and the Zebrafish Nomenclature Guidelines.

Note that in the specific case of a study that reports a new taxon name, authors are required to follow the guidelines developed by PLOS for zoological and botanical names.

Preregistration

Preregistration of studies involves registering the study design, variables, and treatment conditions prior to conducting the research. For clinical trials, eLife follows the recommendations of the ICMJE that all trials must be prospectively registered to be considered for publication, and the clinical trial registration number will be requested during submission.

eLife is using the Registered Reports approach as part of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology. For other submissions, authors are encouraged to consider whether preregistration would be appropriate, noting if they have done so within their cover letter.

Reporting Standards

To facilitate the interpretation and replication of experiments, authors are required to complete eLife's Transparent Reporting Form before peer review. Authors are also required to adhere to well-established reporting standards, such as for microarray experiments, clinical trials, and so on.

Authors are required to cite the specific guidelines that they have followed in the reporting of their work, and we encourage authors to upload any relevant reporting checklists or documents as a Reporting Standards Document to indicate the use of appropriate reporting guidelines for health-related research (see EQUATOR Network), life science research (see the BioSharing Information Resource), or the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting work involving animal research.

In the specific case of a study containing an X-ray crystal structure, authors are required to upload a validation summary report from one of the Worldwide Protein Data Bank organisations as a Related Manuscript File. The associated maps and coordinate data for the structure should be placed into a zipped folder and uploaded as a Supporting Zip Document; please label this as "maps and coordinate data for review".

In the specific case of a study containing functional enzyme data, we encourage authors to deposit data to STRENDA DB and to upload the “Experimental data fact sheet” that accompanies the deposition as a Reporting Standards Document in the submission to eLife.

Research Conducted by eLife. As a way of improving our services, we periodically undertake research and surveys relating to eLife's submission and review process. Where appropriate we will share our findings so that others can benefit. Participation does not affect the decision on manuscripts under consideration, or our policies relating to the confidentiality of the review process. If you would like to opt out of eLife's research and/or surveys, please contact the journal office (here).

Publication Fees FAQs

A fee of $2,500* is collected for published research papers; however, authors with insufficient funding to pay the fee are eligible for a fee waiver.

* If the fee is invoiced to an individual, rather than a business, then VAT of 20% is added to the fee.

The publication fee (also referred to as an “open-access” or “article-processing” fee) is a charge collected by many open-access publishers to help recover the costs of publication while providing free and open access for readers to use and re-use results. eLife provides open access to all content.

Questions related to our introduction of publication fees are addressed below.

For background and more information, please also read:

• Inside eLife: Setting a fee for publication
• Editorial: Building a sustainable future for eLife
• Inside eLife: What it costs to publish

1. How did eLife decide on a fee of $2,500?

As a non-profit organisation, we believe the fee should be derived from our real costs. At $2,500, the publication fee covers the marginal costs that we incur for every new article we publish. It does not cover our fixed publishing costs or the costs of our technology and innovation efforts. By recovering our marginal costs, we can help to ensure the long-term sustainability of eLife. We also considered how the fee compares to those at other journals and believe we offer good value.

A detailed overview of how we arrived at the fee is available at: Inside eLife: Setting a fee for publication.

2. I can’t afford a $2,500 fee. What can I do?

It is very important that a publication fee does not inhibit the submission of excellent work from labs with insufficient access to funds. We will grant a waiver for labs under financial pressure – whether because of local economy, career stage, or a lack of funding.

3. Will my ability to pay influence consideration of my paper?

No. Editors have no knowledge of waiver requests or financial arrangements. Ability to pay will have no bearing on editorial decisions at all.

4. What article types are affected?

The publication fee applies to Research Articles, Short Reports, Tools and Resources, Research Communications, and Research Advances.

5. What do I get in return, as an author?

There is tremendous variation in the fees charged for open-access publishing, and we therefore encourage all authors, including eLife authors, to ask themselves this question when they are considering where to publish their work. eLife offers:

• Clear, constructive input from experts in your field. eLife post-review decisions are the product of a consultation among reviewers – overseen by the working scientists who serve as eLife editors – who achieve a consensus on major points before sending consolidated feedback to authors. As a result of this constructive and efficient process most published articles go through only one round of review and revision.
• Open access. All research papers published at eLife, along with associated datasets and media files, are made freely and immediately available online for all to read and use, provided the original author is given credit. Your work will also be delivered to PubMed Central immediately on publication. Publication in eLife thus complies with all international funder policies on public and open access.
• The freedom to present your work in full. eLife imposes no limit to the length of most research papers or the number of figures, tables, datasets or videos that you wish to present in the main body of the article. Authors also have the option to publish their article within 1-2 days of acceptance.
• Wide exposure. Your work will be published alongside other excellent science evaluated and selected by the editors of eLife. eLife is indexed by all the major databases including Medline and the Web of Science, and eLife papers routinely appear in the mainstream media. We also often work with early-stage investigators to help gain attention for their work through interviews, podcasts, and public appearances.

6. eLife continues to receive funding, so why do you need to start charging fees?

Publication fees are a part of our long-term growth strategy, which also continues to involve a close relationship with research funders who have made it possible for us not to charge before now. The intent of the fee is to cover our marginal publication costs, or the cost of every new research article we publish, so that we can support the continued expansion of the journal.

We also feel that eLife has a role to play in the economics of the science publishing marketplace. We would like to try and have a positive influence on how publication charges fit into the future of funding open-access publishing by being open about our costs, value, and fees.

7. I’m funded by the same funders as eLife. Will I have to pay?

Yes. The fee will apply to all research papers including those with investigators associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, the Wellcome Trust and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The generous support of these organisations will help us cover the balance of our publishing costs (our fixed costs) and enable us to invest in technology and innovation.

8. Will the publication fee be increased in future?

The fee was introduced on January 1, 2017. We set the fee in a way that makes it possible to maintain it at the same level, and cover our marginal costs, for several years, despite fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, for example. We will continue to be open and transparent about our costs and publishing volumes and be prepared to revisit the relationship of the fee to our costs in future, as well as other sources of revenue.

9. How does the fee relate to eLife’s long-term financial plan?

The publication fee is an important part of our long-term plan, helping to ensure we can continue to grow the eLife journal. As a result, we can dedicate the support of our funders to the ongoing costs of publishing and the value we add (such as eLife Digests and Insights), and to experimenting and innovating in research communication. We’ll be creative in exploring other revenue streams in future, which may or may not include advertising, submission fees, additional grants, or fees for valuable services.

Any questions not addressed here may be sent to eLife via fees [at] elifesciences [dot] org

eLife publication fee waiver policy

eLife recognises that there are various circumstances in which the authors of an eLife article might not have access to sufficient funds to cover the publication fee. To ensure that eLife’s publication fee is not a barrier to publication we therefore offer a simple way for authors to apply for a fee waiver.

Authors are expected to have explored all reasonable sources for paying the publication fee and may apply for a fee waiver once their submission has been invited for full peer review. Waiver requests are considered on a case-by-case basis and should be accompanied by a brief justification from the author.

The information that authors provide to support their waiver application will offer valuable insights into the availability of funds for publication fees. There are no strict criteria for a fee waiver because of the variety of circumstances that might lead to insufficient funds being available, such as: lack of support from the funder or institution, termination of a grant, career stage, geographic location, or a discipline with less funding.

All waiver requests will be treated confidentially, but we will highlight trends in the information as it accumulates to help inform funder and institutional policy with respect to the support of open-access publishing.

eLife academic editors and reviewers have no access to information about waiver requests, which can therefore never influence editorial decisions.

Refund Policy

We place great importance on giving authors a prompt, fair and responsive service. However, if a manuscript is accepted for publication and our service falls far short of an acceptable standard, we may waive the publication fee. In addition, we may decide to refund a publication fee that has already been paid in exceptional circumstances, for example where an author withdraws a manuscript after acceptance.

Journal Metrics

We provide the charts below to offer greater transparency about our submission volumes and decision times.

1. Number of eLife submissions

This shows the number of initial submissions received each quarter.

2. Number of research publications

This shows the number of research publications each quarter.

3. Decision times before peer review

This shows the number of days between receiving the initial submission and making a decision on the initial submission (25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles).

4. Decision times after peer review

This shows the number of days between receiving the full submission and making a decision on the full submission, after peer review (25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles).

5. Submission to publication

This shows the number of days between receiving the initial submission and publication. Publish on accept was introduced in April 2014, which allows authors to have their accepted manuscript PDF published within a few days. About 60% of authors opt for this, with the remaining authors preferring to wait for the typeset, author-proofed version.