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Patients Included journal charter

The Patients Included journal charter provides journal publishers with a means of demonstrating a title’s commitment to incorporating the experience of patients as experts in living with their condition by ensuring that patients are neither excluded from nor exploited by the publication.

Patients Included journal charter clauses

1. At least two patients[1] sit on the editorial board[2] of the journal

Research Involvement and Engagement is fully co-produced journal, with co-Editors-in-Chief, one academic – Sophie Staniszewska – and one patient – Richard Stephens. Associate Editors are recruited as academic and patient pairs. The journals also has an Editorial Board that is equally representative of all key stakeholders, including patients, academics, policy makers and service users, who are involved in the development and management of the journal.

2. Patients routinely publish editorials, reviews, or research articles in the journal as authors[3]

We welcome articles from anyone involved or engaged with research into supporting, encouraging or delivering the patient/public voice in research processes or structures, including patients. You can view our published articles, including editorials and commentary articles from patients here.

3. Patients serve as peer reviewers of submissions to the journal

All manuscript submitted to the journal are assessed by our external expert editors and/or peer reviewers from both academic and patient backgrounds, who will assess whether the writing is comprehensible and whether the work represents a useful contribution to the field.

We publically recognize the contributions of our reviewers through use of an open peer review system, where the reviewers' names are included on the peer review reports. In addition, if the manuscript is published, the named reports are published online alongside the article within the 'Open Peer Review Reports'. We also publically acknowledge our peer reviewers, academics and patients, on an annual basis on the journal website.

4. The journal is an open access[4] publication, with no barriers to access full text content

All articles published by Research Involvement and Engagement are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

Authors of articles published in Research Involvement and Engagement are the copyright holders of their articles and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BioMed Central license agreement.

Notes:

  1. An overarching term inclusive of individuals with personal experience of a health issue as well as their families, friends, and informal caregiver;

  2. A group of people controlling the tone and direction taken by a publication’s editorial policy;

  3. The journal explicitly invites contributions from patients;

  4. As defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative.