How BCPHR Aligns with International Publishing Standards

BCPHR aligns with eight international publishing standards bodies that together define best practice in scholarly publishing, research integrity, human subjects protection, and reporting transparency. This page summarizes how BCPHR implements each standard. Click any standard to read it in full at the issuing body.

Standards BCPHR Follows

COPE Core Practices

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices are ten foundational practices that all member journals are expected to have policies and procedures for. BCPHR implements all ten through its Author Hub, including the Allegations of Misconduct process, Authorship policy, Complaints and Appeals procedure, Conflicts of Interest disclosure, Data and Reproducibility expectations, and Post-Publication Discussion mechanism. BCPHR follows COPE flowcharts for handling specific cases.

ICMJE Recommendations

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals provide the foundation for BCPHR's authorship criteria, conflict of interest disclosures, and trial registration requirements. BCPHR only considers papers reporting registered clinical trials in accordance with ICMJE guidance.

WAME Policies

The World Association of Medical Editors recommendations on publication ethics policies for medical journals inform BCPHR's editorial independence statement, advertising policy (currently no advertising accepted), and editorial team transparency. WAME guidance is integrated into the BCPHR peer review and editorial policies.

Declaration of Helsinki

The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki sets the ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. BCPHR requires that all human subjects research published in the journal has been conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by an institutional review board or equivalent ethics committee.

Foundation for Biomedical Research

The Foundation for Biomedical Research provides guidance on ethical animal research including alignment with the Animal Welfare Act. BCPHR requires that all animal research published in the journal aligns with the Animal Welfare Act and has been approved by an institutional animal care and use committee or equivalent body.

EQUATOR Network

The EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) maintains reporting guidelines for the major study designs in health research. BCPHR requires authors to follow the appropriate EQUATOR-listed reporting guideline for their study type (CONSORT, PRISMA, STROBE, TRIPOD, CHERRIES, SAGER, etc.). See the Reporting Standards page for the full list.

16 Principles of Transparency

The 16 Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing are the joint COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME standard for what scholarly journals should disclose on their websites. BCPHR implements all 16 Principles. See the 16 Principles Crosswalk page for a principle-by-principle map of where each is implemented on the bcphr.org site.

PIE-J (NISO RP-16-2013)

PIE-J (Presentation and Identification of E-Journals) is the National Information Standards Organization Recommended Practice for how online journals should present title history, ISSN, publication dates, and edition numbering. BCPHR follows PIE-J for its edition-to-year crosswalk and article-level identifier consistency, as recommended by PubMed Central. See the Indexing and Identifiers page for the implementation details.