Journals
About the Journals
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the world’s first health research funder to publish comprehensive accounts of its commissioned research within its own publicly and permanently available journals. The NIHR Journals Library comprises a suite of six open access peer-reviewed journals reporting results from a range of health research areas:
- Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME)
- Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR)
- Health Technology Assessment (HTA)
- Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR)
- Public Health Research (PHR)
- Global Health Research (GHR)
Articles published in the NIHR Journals Library provide a full account of the research project, including methods and a full description of the results. The articles complement shorter articles submitted for publication in other peer-review journals which the NIHR actively encourages researchers to do as part of their dissemination strategy.
Following a successful pilot, threaded publication is now the primary publishing route for research published in the Journals Library. Researchers are able to tell the story of their research through a collection of articles, published by the NIHR Journals Library or in an external journal, and a synopsis, which draws the threads together once the research is completed. Find out more about the threaded publication model.
| Full description of research |  |
| Reproducible | |
| Positive, neutral and negative results reported | |
| Peer-reviewed and copy-edited | |
| Published in an open access journal | |
Publication Process
Editorial office
Our dedicated publishing and production teams, along with a network of experts, ensure that we continue to publish high-quality, trusted research. Manuscripts are delivered to the editorial office at the NIHR Coordinating Centre at the University of Southampton. We manage the editorial review process between the editors, reviewers and authors, ahead of sending the manuscript to the production house. We take an active role in ensuring that our editorial process is responsible and transparent and our authors are expected to meet publishing ethical requirements. We also co-ordinate the editorial boards, and manage the relationship with the production house.
- Read our publishing policies
- Find out more about the editorial process
- Read our statement on Publishing ethics
For details of how to contact the Editorial Office, please see the contact us page.
Expert reviewers
Our community of reviewers plays a vital part in maintaining and improving the quality of the Journals Library. Reviewers are usually sourced from our database of experts, from author suggestions, or from peer-to-peer recommendations. Typically, for each manuscript, four reviewers are chosen for suitability by the editors, and will cover a variety of relevant areas in their reviews. The Journals Library has a system of single blind review, where authors do not know who has reviewed or edited their manuscripts. If you would like to be a reviewer, please register.
Production house
Our production house is Newgen Publishing UK. We have a dedicated project management team at Newgen who are responsible for managing the production stage following editorial review. This involves copy-editing, typesettting and producing the electronic files of manuscripts. When manuscripts reach Newgen, they are copy-edited and proofread by professional writers and proof-readers who liaise directly with the manuscript author and editors.
Publication
The NIHR Journals Library is committed to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.
We provide the opportunity for our readers to comment on and/or raise issues based on the articles published in the Journals Library. Comments submitted are electronic letters which are sent to the editors. If you would like to add a comment you can find an online form at the bottom of each article page.
Editorial team and NIHR Journals Library Board
NIHR Journals Library Editor-in-Chief - Dr Cat Chatfield
The NIHR Journals Library Editor-if-Chief has responsibility upholding the NIHR values in open research practices within the six NIHR Journals Library titles.
Driving the principles of transparency and accessibility of research, they ensure that publishing the comprehensive accounts of its commissioned research within the NIHR Journals Library is of a high and ethical standard.
NIHR Journals Library -Senior Journal Editors
The NIHR Journals Library has a named Senior Journal Editor per journal title, who will have responsibility for that specific title.
They will work closely with the Editorial team offering their scientific and editorial expertise to support the journal. They maintain an overview of the award pipeline and editorial allocation of their journal, informed by the Publishing team.
Professor Andrée Le May - Programme Grants for Applied Research
Professor Catriona McDaid - Health Technology Assessment
Dr Emma Pitchforth - Global Health Research
Dr Eugenia Cronin - Public Health Research
Professor Helen Snooks - Health and Social Care Delivery Research
Dr Peter Davidson - Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation & Deputy Editor Health Technology Assessment
NIHR Journals Library Journal Editor
The Journal Editors work across all the journal's titles. The editor's primary role is to ensure the quality of scientific reporting in the journals without compromising the NIHR’s reputation and the publication's timeliness.
This is achieved by assessing final manuscripts alongside our diverse pool of reviewer's comments, ensuring authors meet the required standards by deciding when each manuscript is acceptable for publication, in terms of form, clarity, readability, unbiased reporting, scientific validity and adherence to international research standards.
Publishing Team
The Editorial team is supported by the Publishing team, who facilitate the editorial review process.
If you have any queries or require further information about any aspect of work of the NIHR Journals Library please contact: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
The NIHR Journals Library Editorial Board
The NIHR Journals Library Editorial Board consist of the Editor-in-Chief of the NIHR Journals Library, Senior Journal Editors and NIHR Journal Editors who are active clinicians, clinical and professional academics (or the equivalent in public health) and health policy experts.
The NIHR Journals Library Editorial Board meets four times a year to discuss cross-journal learning and development on themes or topics. It is an opportunity for editors to bring editorial challenges for discussion and to then capture the reflections and learning from these discussions to inform future training, editorial updates and guidance for authors, peer reviewer and editors on the themes and topics raised.
Members of the NIHR Journals Library Editorial Board are required to declare any interests which conflict, or may be considered to conflict, with NIHR business, or may be perceived as influencing decisions made in the course of their work within the NIHR.
All members are asked to complete the Register of Interest form (annually), which is intended to capture long term predictable interests that could be perceived to lead to conflicts of interest. These and other interests are judged on a case-by-case basis at individual meetings.
View the Register of Interests for the NIHR Journals Library Editorial Board.
Open Access
Total and complete publication of research findings is part of the NIHR’s commitment to the principles of open access and adding value to all stages of research, ensuring best use of public money to benefit the health and wealth of the nation.
All journals in the NIHR Journals Library are open access and are free to view and download online (print copies can be purchased from the individual article pages).
Launched in 1997, Health Technology Assessment (HTA) has an impact factor of 3.6 and is ranked 32nd (out of 105 titles) in the 'Health Care Sciences & Services' category of the Clarivate 2022 Journal Citation Reports (Science Edition). It is also indexed by MEDLINE, CINAHL (EBSCO), EMBASE, NCBI Bookshelf, DOAJ, Europe PMC, the Cochrane Library, INAHTA, the British Nursing Index, Ulrichsweb, and the Clarivate Science Citation Index.
Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) was launched in 2013 and is indexed by MEDLINE, Europe PMC, DOAJ, INAHTA, Ulrichsweb and NCBI Bookshelf.
Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) was launched in 2014 and is indexed by Europe PMC, DOAJ, Ulrichsweb and NCBI Bookshelf.
Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) was launched in 2013 and is indexed by Europe PMC, NCBI Bookshelf, DOAJ, Ulrichsweb and SCOPUS.
Public Health Research (PHR) was launched in 2013 and is indexed by MEDLINE, Europe PMC, NCBI Bookshelf, DOAJ, INAHTA and Ulrichsweb.
The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), in association with a number of other UK biomedical funders, is a partner in an initiative to establish Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC).
Led by the Wellcome Trust, the aim of this initiative is to create a stable, permanent and free-to-digital archive of the full text, peer reviewed research publications (and datasets) that arise from research funded through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and other members of the Europe PMC Funders Group.
Please see the NIHR Policy on Open Access for its funded research.
Transparency
Ensuring that our published research is open access is an important part of our commitment to transparency. We are also transparent about what our editorial process entails and are responsible in our approach to editorial review. This ensures that the research published in our journals is trustworthy and of high-quality. Our Information for Authors includes comprehensive information about the editorial process and we provide full details of the requirements for our peer reviewers.
We ask our authors to follow our guidance on publication ethics and support the use of a declaration of transparency (for further information please see the Equator website: https://www.equator-network.org/2014/08/12/declaration-of-transparency/)
Readers of our journals are able to respond to published research through electronic letters to the editor.
Publication ethics
We take an active role in the prevention of plagiarism, falsification of data, fabrication of results and other areas of ethical misconduct. All journals in the NIHR Journals Library are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This is a UK-based charity, with over 7000 members worldwide from all academic fields. COPE advises editors and publishers on how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.
Plagiarism detection software is used to check all manuscripts submitted to the NIHR Journals Library.
We support the use of a declaration of transparency. For further information please see the Equator website: https://www.equator-network.org/2014/08/12/declaration-of-transparency/
Please see our policies for more information about our requirements for authors.
Research Practice
The research NIHR funds is world-leading and we operate to the highest standards. Consistent with this, we are signatories of both the Concordat to Support Research Integrity and the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers.
At NIHR, we expect our staff and the researchers we fund to abide by all regulatory and legislative frameworks in relation to research practice, transparency and governance.
All NIHR-funded researchers are required to follow NIHR policies and guidelines relating to research practice, research culture and integrity and Privacy and FOI. This includes policies around study registration, the use of animals in research, research integrity and patient consent.
Research Misconduct
Should there be concerns that a project suffered misconduct in research, publication, or professional behaviour, the case may be discussed in confidence with the editorial board, or referred to COPE or any other relevant authorities. Concerns about research misconduct will be investigated by the relevant NIHR programme and publication of the Journals Library article may be delayed until the matter is resolved.