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The BMC Series journals

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Introducing the BMC Series

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Covering all scientific and clinical disciplines, the BMC Series stands for open, robust and reproducible science, focused on the needs of the research communities we serve.

Our first journals launched in 2000 as some of the very first open access journals in their fields. Now they, and the journals we have launched in the years since, are some of the largest and most cited open access publications in their respective disciplines.

We continually strive to best meet the needs of our authors – including the development of new publishing formats and editorial policies to accommodate all types of research.

The BMC Series:

  • Partners with our authors, editors and reviewers to make scientific knowledge widely available
  • Innovates in approaches to peer review and publication to ensure an efficient, transparent and fair process
  • Provides a home for all publishable research, including:
    • Our highly selective flagship titles BMC Biology and BMC Medicine
    • Subject-specific journals focused on technical quality and adherence to community-agreed standards
    • Journals focused on research and data notes, bringing visibility to valuable research outputs not suited to traditional articles

About our journals

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The subject-specific journals

Most of the journals in the BMC Series focus on a subject or discipline, such as BMC Plant Biology or BMC Public Health. The full list of the subject journals currently in the series can be found below. Each journal has a professional Editor who is the main point of contact and has overall editorial responsibility for the journal, working closely with a group of senior academics, the Senior Editorial Board Members, and the Editorial Board.

Journals in the BMC Series focus on the needs of the global research community by publishing work on the basis of its technical quality and adherence to community-agreed standards. Studies must be scientifically valid; for research articles this includes a scientifically sound research question, the use of suitable methods and analysis, and following community-agreed standards relevant to the research field. Specific criteria for other article types can be found in the submission guidelines.

The flagships

BMC BiologyBMC Global and Public Health and BMC Medicine are selective journals, publishing articles of special importance and broad interest. Their editorial threshold and structure are different from the other journals in the series. The Chief Editor for each journal has overall responsibility for the journal. 

Research notes and data publishing

BMC Research Notes is an open access journal publishing peer-reviewed contributions from across all scientific and clinical disciplines, including intriguing initial observations, updates to previous work and established methods, valid negative results, and scientific data sets and descriptions. Overseen by a professional Editor, the journal is committed to making it easier to find, cite and share your short reports by providing an inclusive forum for valuable data and research observations.

BMC Genomic Data is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that welcomes submissions that describe genomic and genetic research data, report new analyses of genomic data and introduce community databases.

BMC Proceedings

BMC Proceedings publishes proceedings of conferences, including peer-reviewed full-length articles, collections of meeting abstracts and meeting reports across all scientific and clinical disciplines. Each collection is published as a supplement and is handled by a Supplement Editor, in line with the standards required for the BMC Series. Oversight for the journal is provided by a professional Editor.

Open data at the BMC Series

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We believe that data should be open, accessible and reusable. Data sharing helps speed up the pace of discovery and its benefits to society.

The BMC Series is pioneering new approaches to data sharing and open data and we are committed to supporting researchers in sharing their data, helping to make data sharing the new normal.

Read more about our open data principles, policies and publishing options here.

Meet the people

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Editors and Editorial Boards on the subject-specific journals

Each of the subject-specific journals in the BMC Series has a professional Editor employed by BMC. The Editors all have scientific backgrounds, most with PhD and post-doc experience. To find the Editor of a journal, please see the journal homepage.

The Editors work closely with academics across the research community. The journal’s editorial boards are headed by a group of Senior Editorial Board Members and all editorial board members are involved in manuscript handling, peer-review and editorial decision making.

Executive Editor

Dr. Hayley Henderson, PhD – Executive Editor, BMC Series

Hayley HendersonHayley oversees an in-house editorial team for the BMC Series journals, ensuring adherence to open access principles and upholding rigorous quality standards in journal policies. She joined the BMC Series in 2009, bringing with her a background in veterinary science and a PhD in cell biology from the University of Cardiff, UK. Hayley's expertise extends to her role as the Editor for BMC Veterinary Research and her position as the head of the International Association of Veterinary Editors.

If you have inquiries or concerns that cannot be addressed by the individual journal Editor, or pertain to broader matters within the BMC Series, please feel free to reach out to Hayley.

For Reviewers

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If you review for a journal in the BMC Series then you are entitled to a 15% discount on the article processing charge for your next submission to the BMC Series. This discount must be claimed within 1 year of completing your review and discounts cannot be combined.

Further information for reviewers can be found here.

Join our Editorial Boards

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We are now recruiting Editorial Board Members to join our teams of academic editors in assessing manuscripts in the various fields covered by the BMC Series journals.

For further information about who we are looking for and to submit your application, please refer to the specific recruitment pages on the individual journal websites (see list above).