Hospitable publishing process. BMC Biology offers rapid evaluation and clear and continuous communication on the progress of your manuscript.

High visibility. All content is open access immediately on publication. Papers that are published in BMC Biology are featured on our website with article-level metrics and promoted via press releases, blogs and social media.

Flexible formatting. To facilitate the submission process, we are flexible with regard to the format, style and length of initial submissions.

Scoop protection. BMC Biology offers "scoop protection", meaning that if other researchers publish similar findings after submission, or post them on a preprint server, this will not be a reason for rejection.

Portable peer review. We support authors who wish to transfer a paper reviewed at BMC Biology to a journal of their choice. We are also able to consider manuscripts on the basis of reviews rejected at other journals, including those outside of BMC and Springer Nature. Find out more at our peer review policy page.

Co-submissions to other BMC ‘flagship’ journals. If a paper is potentially appropriate in scope for BMC Biology and Genome Biology or Genome Medicine authors have the opportunity to submit a manuscript for joint consideration at two of these journals at the same time. Learn more here.

Innovative practices and policies. Our re-review opt out policy allows authors to choose whether reviewers see their revisions, minimizing the time to publication. The innovative Registered Reports article format supports transparency and minimizes research and publication bias.

bioRxiv transfers. BMC Biology is happy to consider manuscripts that have been, or will be, posted on a preprint server. Authors are able to submit their manuscripts directly from bioRxiv, without having to re-upload files.