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About

Aims and scope

Pilot and Feasibility Studies encompasses all aspects of the design, conduct and reporting of pilot and feasibility studies in biomedicine. The journal publishes research articles that are intended to directly influence future clinical trials or large scale observational studies, as well as protocols, commentaries and methodology articles. The journal also ensures that the results of all well-conducted, peer-reviewed, pilot and feasibility studies are published, regardless of outcome or significance of findings.

Pilot and feasibility studies are increasingly conducted prior to a full randomized controlled trial. However, these studies often lack clear objectives, many remain unpublished, and there is confusion over the meanings of the words “pilot” and “feasibility”. Pilot and Feasibility Studies provides a forum for discussion around this key aspect of the scientific process, and seeks to ensure that these studies are published, so as to complete the publication thread for clinical research.

Why publish your article in Pilot and Feasibility Studies?

  • We are the only journal dedicated to pilot and feasibility studies, and we welcome research, methodology articles and protocols for studies intended to influence the design and conduct of future clinical trials, or large-scale observational studies conducted on human participants.
  • We consider randomized and non-randomised pilot and feasibility studies, feasibility literature reviews or survey papers, intervention development and qualitative work preparing for large-scale studies, and proof-of-concept studies.
  • Our internationally renowned editorial team encompasses a broad range of disciplines, and provides expert feedback on manuscripts to help improve the accuracy and transparency of your reporting.
  • Open access publication ensures that your article can be easily discovered, accessed, used and shared, maximising your work’s impact and acting as a springboard for further discovery.

Open access

All articles published by Pilot and Feasibility Studies 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.

As authors of articles published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BMC license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article processing charges (APC)

Authors who publish open access in Pilot and Feasibility Studies are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is: £1690.00/$2390.00/€1990.00

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for articles published in our fully open access journals whose corresponding authors are based in the world’s lowest income countries (see our APC waivers and discounts policy for further information). Requests for APC waivers and discounts from other authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

Indexing services

All articles published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies are included in:

  • DOAJ
  • ESCI
  • PubMed
  • PubMed Central
  • Scopus
  • Summon by Proquest

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

We are working closely with relevant indexing services including Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) to ensure that articles published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies will be available in their databases when appropriate.

Peer-review policy

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help Editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Pilot and Feasibility Studies operates an open peer-review system, where the reviewers' names are included on the peer review reports for authors. In addition, if the article is published, the named reviewer reports are published online alongside the article under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. Previous versions of the manuscript and all author responses to the reviewers are available by contacting info@biomedcentral.com.

The benefit of open peer review is that it increases transparency. The peer reviewers and Editors are fully accountable for the decisions made, bias is reduced as reviewer reports are named, published reports can serve an educational purpose in helping facilitate training and research into peer review, and reviewers can get credit for their work.

Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or more experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

In cases where the journal is unable to find sufficient peer reviewers, the services of a publishing partner, Research Square, may be used to identify suitable reviewers and provide reports to avoid further delays for authors. Reviewers recruited by Research Square are paid a small honorarium for completing the review within a specified timeframe. Honoraria are paid regardless of the reviewer recommendation. With Research Square, a double-blind peer review system is in operation.

In cases where reports have been obtained by Research Square, the peer review reports will be unsigned unless the reviewer opts in to sign the report.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Pilot and Feasibility Studies should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Pilot and Feasibility Studies

Articles in Pilot and Feasibility Studies  should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Pilot Feasibility Stud [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Pilot Feasibility Stud 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

Pilot and Feasibility Studies's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. 

Speed of publication

Pilot and Feasibility Studies offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Pilot and Feasibility Studies gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Pilot and Feasibility Studies’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work (for further details, see the BMC license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.

Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    1.7 - 2-year Impact Factor
    0.787 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    0.622 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2023 Speed
    38 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    261 days submission to accept (Median)

    2023 Usage 
    1,132,064 downloads
    1,271 Altmetric mentions