International Journal of Infection Prevention · Special issues
Special Issues
Focused collections on a question the field is actively working through, guest-edited by researchers with standing in that question and reviewed to the journal’s ordinary standard.
Proposals welcome year-round Independently peer reviewed
01 · Proposals
Propose a Special Issue
The International Journal of Infection Prevention welcomes proposals for focused collections that address important questions in infection prevention. Researchers with relevant expertise are invited to review the proposal requirements and contact the editorial office.
A collection works best where a question is genuinely open and spread across groups that publish separately — a resistance mechanism whose control implications are still being worked out, a decontamination method in search of a standard, a surveillance definition that different countries apply differently, or a prevention program whose implementation record is scattered across settings.
Proposals are welcome from any of the disciplines the journal covers and from any country or resource setting. A collection may be assembled entirely from open submissions, so a proposal may be made on the strength of the question alone.
02 · Requirements
What a proposal should contain
- The question — what the collection is about, why it is timely, and what a reader would be able to do at the end of it that they cannot do now.
- Fit with the journal — how the theme sits within the journal’s aims and scope, and which of its subject areas it draws on.
- Guest editors — names, affiliations and a short statement of relevant expertise for each proposed guest editor, with any competing interests declared at this stage.
- Scale and shape — the approximate number of contributions, the kinds of work expected, and whether the collection is open to submissions or built around invited contributions.
- Timing — a workable schedule for the call, review and publication, which the editorial office will confirm or adjust.
Send proposals to [email protected]. The editorial office acknowledges each one and comes back with questions or a decision.
03 · Oversight
How a collection is run
A special issue changes who invites and organizes the work. It leaves the editorial standard exactly where it is.
- The same review
- Manuscripts submitted to a collection follow the journal’s ordinary process. All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review, where they are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
- The same decision criteria
- Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Appearing in a collection is not a route to publication that bypasses any of them.
- Guest-editor conflicts
- Guest editors declare competing interests before appointment and recuse themselves from any manuscript where one applies. A manuscript submitted by a guest editor to their own collection is handled independently by a journal editor.
- The same terms
- Articles in a collection are published open access under CC BY 4.0, registered with Crossref, and subject to the same article processing charge as any other accepted article, invoiced only after acceptance.
Meanwhile
Regular submissions
Regular submissions are accepted throughout the year, and a manuscript never needs a collection to find a home here. Where a collection later covers its subject, an already-published article stands on its own record.