Information for authors
Stem Cell Reports is an open access forum communicating basic discoveries in stem cell research, in addition to translational and clinical studies. In addition to full-length articles, Stem Cell Reports features shorter, single-point manuscripts that report original research with conceptual or practical advances of broad interest to stem cell biologists and clinicians. Stem Cell Reports was launched in June 2013 and is published for the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) by Cell Press.
Editorial evaluation timeline
All submissions are initially evaluated in depth by the scientific editors. Papers that are not deemed by the editors to be strong candidates for publication will be returned to the authors without detailed review, typically within 3–5 days. Otherwise, manuscripts will be sent to reviewers who have agreed in advance to assess the paper rapidly. The editors will make every effort to reach decisions on these papers within 3–4 weeks of the submission date. If revisions are required, editors will carefully evaluate the reviewers' comments and, whenever possible, will provide guidance on the important concerns to be addressed. We generally allow 3 months for revisions and consider only one revised version of the paper. Accepted papers will be published online within 6 weeks of acceptance. Any major changes after acceptance are subject to review and may delay publication.
Editorial policies
Preprint servers
We are happy to consider manuscripts previously posted on preprint servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv, BioRN, ChemRxiv, ChemRN, or SSRN. Three of our broad scope journals, Cell Reports, Current Biology, and iScience, also support direct submission of manuscripts from bioRxiv via transfer of manuscript files and metadata to the journal’s Editorial Manager site. Our support for posting of preprints only applies to the original submitted version of the manuscript; we do not support posting to preprint servers revisions that respond to editorial input and peer review or final accepted manuscripts. Once your paper is published, we encourage you to update the preprint record with a link to the final published article. Please see our prepublication press policy for more information on sharing your work at the prepublication stage.
Authorship
Our authorship policy accommodates diverse types of research, providing a framework that makes clear the contributions of each author.
Author contributions section: To make author contributions transparent, all research articles should include an author contributions section. Please describe the contributions concisely and use initials to indicate author identity. We encourage you to use the CRediT taxonomy, which offers standardized descriptions of author contributions. An authors contributions section is not required for front-matter articles.
Corresponding author: You must designate at least one corresponding author.
We prefer that each paper have a single corresponding author because we think that the ownership and responsibility that are inherent in corresponding authorship will promote best practices in design and performance of experiments, analysis of results, organization and retention of original data, and preparation of figures and text.
That said, we understand that, for some studies, particularly for interdisciplinary ones, multiple authors may bear the responsibilities of a corresponding author. If you feel strongly and have compelling reasons, you may include additional corresponding authors. We may ask you to explain your rationale and to verify that all corresponding authors understand their responsibilities (listed below). We ask that you describe each corresponding author's specific contributions in the author contributions section.
Responsibilities of the corresponding author: All corresponding authors bear responsibilities 1–8 below; at least one corresponding author bears responsibility 9.
Supervising the work
Being responsible for all data, figures, and text
Ensuring that authorship is granted appropriately to contributors
Ensuring that all authors approve the content and submission of the paper, as well as edits made through the revision and production processes
Ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies
Identifying and declaring competing interests on behalf of all authors
Identifying and disclosing related work by any co-authors under consideration elsewhere
Archiving unprocessed data and ensuring that figures accurately present the original data (see data archiving section)
Arbitrating decisions and disputes and ensuring communication with the journal (before and after publication), sharing of any relevant information or updates to co-authors, and accountability for fulfillment of requests for reagents and resources
Equal contributions: In addition to noting corresponding authors with an asterisk, you may use numbered footnotes to designate up to two co-senior authors and otherwise equally contributing authors. The following footnote should be used for authors who have made equal contributions: “These authors contributed equally”. Two co-senior authors can be designated with a footnote, e.g., “Co-senior author”. Please use the author contributions section of the manuscript to more fully describe each author’s specific contributions.
Authorship disputes: All authors should discuss and agree on author order and authorship designations. We expect that everyone listed as an author contributed substantively to the paper.
We do not adjudicate authorship disputes. These disputes should be resolved by the researchers involved and/or their institutions. If we become aware of a dispute we will suspend consideration of the paper until the dispute is resolved. In this case (and when authors request changes to authorship) authorship should be approved in writing by all authors.
Competing interests
Transparency is essential for a reader’s trust in the scientific process and for the credibility of published articles. At Stem Cell Reports, we feel that disclosure of competing interests is a critical aspect of transparency. Therefore, we ask that all authors disclose any financial or other interests related to the submitted work that (1) could affect or have the perception of affecting the author’s objectivity, or (2) could influence or have the perception of influencing the content of the article.
Prior to acceptance, author groups of all article types (front or back matter) are asked to complete and submit a "declaration of interests" form. We also ask that authors disclose any competing interests in the article in a dedicated declaration of interests section (see below).
Complete details of our declaration of interests policy and additional author instructions are available here.
Studies involving humans and animals
For manuscripts reporting studies involving human subjects, statements identifying the committee approving the studies and confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects must appear in the experimental procedures section. All experiments on live vertebrates or higher invertebrates must be performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. In the manuscript, a statement identifying the committee approving the experiments and confirming that all experiments conform to the relevant regulatory standards must be included in the experimental procedures section. The editors reserve the right to seek comments from reviewers or additional information from authors on any cases in which concerns arise. We suggest that researchers carrying out experiments with animals refer to the ARRIVE guidelines and recommendations from an NIH-sponsored workshop regarding experimental design and reporting standards.
Data processing policy
Authors should make every attempt to reduce the amount of postacquisition processing of data. Some degree of processing may be unavoidable in certain instances and is permitted provided that the final data accurately reflect that of the original. In the case of image processing, alterations must be applied to the entire image (e.g., brightness, contrast, color balance). In rare instances for which this is not possible (e.g., alterations to a single color channel on a microscopy image), any alterations must be clearly stated in the figure legend and in the experimental procedures section. Groupings and consolidation of data (e.g., cropping of images or removal of lanes from gels and blots) must be made apparent and should be explicitly indicated in the appropriate figure legends. Data comparisons should only be made from comparative experiments. Authors are discouraged from using images, blots, etc., or parts thereof, multiple times in separate figures (including the supplemental figures), because this can be interpreted as illegitimate duplication of data. Manuscripts containing duplicate figures/data will be returned to the authors for revision. In the event that it is deemed necessary for proper evaluation of the manuscript, authors will be required to make the original unprocessed data available to the editors of the journal.
Distribution of materials and data
One of the terms and conditions of publishing with Stem Cell Reports is that authors be willing to distribute any materials and protocols used in the published experiments to qualified researchers for their own use. Materials include but are not limited to cells, DNA, antibodies, reagents, organisms, and mouse strains or, if necessary, the relevant ES cells. These must be made available with minimal restrictions and in a timely manner, but it is acceptable to request reasonable payment to cover the cost of maintenance and transport of materials. If there are restrictions to the availability of any materials, data, or information, these must be disclosed in the cover letter and in the experimental procedures section of the manuscript at the time of submission.
Data sets must be made freely available to readers from the date of publication upon request and must be provided to editors and peer reviewers at submission for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript. Any new accession numbers or coding information must be provided in the paper at the end of the experimental procedures section under the separate subheading "Data and code availability" (see "Database linking" below for specific formatting instructions).
For the following types of data, submission of the full data set to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. Examples of appropriate public repositories are listed below.
DNA, RNA, and protein sequences
Protein sequences: Uniprot
DNA and RNA sequences: Genbank/European Nucleotide Archive (ENA)/DDBJ, Protein DataBank, UniProt
DNA sequencing data (traces and short reads): NCBI Trace and Short-Read Archive, ENA's Sequence Read Archive
Sequencing data: Deposit in GEO or ArrayExpress upon submission to the journal
The sequences of all primers, RNAi, antisense, and morpholino probes must be included in the paper or deposited in a public database with the accession number provided in the paper.
Human genomic data reporting newly described SNPs and CNVs identified in control samples should be deposited in an appropriate repository such as dbSNP, the Database of Genomic Variants Archive (DGVa), or the Database of Genomic Structural Variation (dbVAR).
We encourage but do not require the deposition of human sequence data in an appropriate repository such as dbGaP. We expect that, if data collected for a published paper cannot be included in the paper or made accessible in a public repository, then authors will accommodate legitimate requests for sharing of human genetics data provided that there are no IRB restrictions.
Transcriptome data
MIAME/MINSEQE-Compliant data: GEO or ArrayExpress upon submission to the journal
Data must be MIAME/MINSEQE compliant, as described at the FGED website for microarray (http://fged.org/projects/miame/) or next-generation sequencing (http://fged.org/projects/minseqe/).
Other data sets
In addition to the information that must be deposited in public databases as detailed above, authors are encouraged to contribute additional information to the appropriate databases. Authors are also encouraged to deposit materials used in their studies in the appropriate repositories for distribution to researchers.
Examples of repositories that facilitate sharing large data sets, including some that offer the option of anonymous referee access to data before publication, include:
For proteomics data: PRIDE, PeptideAtlas
For protein interaction data: IMEx consortium of databases, including DIP, IntAct, and MINT
For chemical compound screening and assay data: PubChem
Where there is no public repository and if the data sets are too large to submit to the journal online, authors should either consult the journal editorial office for advice or provide copies of these data to the editors in an appropriate format (for example, a link to data files that can be downloaded from a cloud server) for the purposes of peer review.
Code and software
New code or software should be made available through a public repository such as GitHub or R/Bioconductor.
Database linking
Stem Cell Reports encourages authors to connect articles with external databases, giving their readers one-click access to relevant databases that help to build a better understanding of the described research. Please refer to relevant database identifiers using the following format in your article: “Database: xxxx” for single accession numbers and “Database: xxxx, yyyy, zzzz” for multiple accession numbers (e.g., “Genbank: NM_000492”; “GEO: GSE6364”; “PDB: 1TUP, 1KW4, 3H5X”). See https://www.elsevier.com/authors/author-resources/research-data/data-base-linking for more information and a full list of supported databases.
Open access/copyright policy
Authors will be asked to sign a nonexclusive publishing agreement that allows them to retain copyright of their work. Authors can choose to publish their work under one of two Creative Common licenses.
The first option is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows users to alter and build upon the article and then distribute the resulting work, even commercially. As with all Creative Commons licenses the work must be attributed to the original author and publisher. This license encourages maximum use and redistribution. The full details of the license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
The second option is the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which allows users to copy and distribute the article, provided the work is attributed back to the original author and publisher. The article cannot be changed in any way or used commercially. The full details of the license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.
Publication fee
Stem Cell Reports is an open access journal and does not charge subscription fees from its readers. To provide open access, the journal will levy an article publication fee of $3300 (USD) for corresponding authors who are ISSCR members at the time of publication or $3800 (USD) for non-member corresponding authors, which applies to research articles as well as unsolicited front matter such as reviews, perspectives, forums, and commentaries. The publication fee allows Stem Cell Reports to support itself in a fully sustainable way and is the only fee that is requested. Stem Cell Reports will consider reducing or waiving publication fees for those who have difficulties with the fee, on a case-by-case basis.
Some universities have signed the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE): "the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds." More information about COPE and the list of signatories can be found at http://www.oacompact.org. A list of institutions that provide funding for open access can be found at http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/oa-funds-in-action-attachment.pdf.
US National Institutes of Health (NIH) posting policy
As a service to Stem Cell Reports authors, our publisher Cell Press will deposit to PubMed Central (PMC) author manuscripts on behalf of Stem Cell Reports authors reporting National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research. The service will help authors comply with the NIH revised ''Public access policy',' effective April 7, 2008. The NIH's revised policy requires that NIH-funded authors submit to PMC, or have submitted on their behalf, their peer-reviewed author manuscripts, to appear on PMC no later than 12 months after final publication. Publication in Stem Cell Reports ensures compliance with this policy.
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