The ICMJE recommendations

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides a general framework for ethical research reporting and manuscript preparation in biomedical journals.

Purpose and scope

The ICMJE recommendations help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, accessible, reproducible and unbiased reports of biomedical research. ^{1, 2} Most biomedical journals require authors to follow the ICMJE’s Uniform Requirements. ³ They combine ethical principles for conducting and reporting research with recommendations on editing and writing. ³ Their scope includes authorship, editorship, peer review, conflicts of interest and disclosure of study results. ^{4, 1}

The Uniform Requirements included the following manuscript-preparation guidance. ⁵

• Content of the title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion.
• Reference citation, illustration preparation and abbreviations.
• Ethical reporting, including authorship, contributor roles, conflict disclosure, privacy, confidentiality and protection of human and animal research subjects.

⁵

Manuscript writers should know the recommendations, and the ICMJE website, icmje.org, is a resource for questions arising during manuscript preparation. ^{5, 6, 2} The requirements also help peer reviewers, publishers, media, patients, families and general readers understand biomedical authoring and editing. ^{1, 7} Patients and patient associations can use them to assess openly accessible research reports. ⁷

Committee and journal adoption

In 2007, the committee’s twelve member journals were the following. ^{8, 9}

• Annals of Internal Medicine.
• British Medical Journal.
• Canadian Medical Association Journal.
• Croatian Medical Journal.
• Journal of the American Medical Association.
• The Dutch Medical Journal, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde.
• New England Journal of Medicine.
• New Zealand Medical Journal.
• The Lancet.
• Medical Journal of Australia.
• Tidsskrift for Den Norske Laegeforening.
• Journal of the Danish Medical Association, Ugeskrift for Laeger.

^{8, 9}

The US National Library of Medicine was also represented. ⁹ By 2008, more than 500 journals had accepted the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals as guidance on writing, publishing and editing. ¹⁰ By June 2019, the committee, previously known as the Vancouver Group, had sixteen full members comprising journal editors and representatives of related organisations working to improve medical science and its reporting. ¹¹ Many journals beyond the committee had adopted its recommendations and requirements, which were not legally binding but affected prospects for publication in peer-reviewed journals. ¹¹

Revisions and coverage

The recommendations are revised, with the January 2024 update addressing authorship, AI, environmental sustainability, funding, ethics and references. ¹²