Withdrawal Policy

Withdrawal Policy

Open Access Agreement

BMJ Open, expect our authors to comply with, best practice in publication ethics as well as in quality of their articles. We are committed in providing high quality articles & adhering to the publication ethics. BMJ Open follows the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and follows the COPE Flowcharts for Resolving Cases of Suspected Misconduct.

We want to avoid unwarranted withdrawal of manuscripts. In such scenarios BMJ Open defines refund policy keeping in mind, the cause, the time wasted by the editors, reviewers and the editorial staff.

• • Authors should follow the publication ethics. Visit Publication Ethics.
• • It is unacceptable to withdraw a manuscript from a journal because it is being accepted by another journal.
• • Before submitting the manuscript authors should carefully check the facts and data presented in the manuscripts are accurate and error-free.
• • All authors include corresponding and co authors should confirm the number of authors, authorship, approval and integrity of the manuscript before submission.

Manuscript Withdrawal Charges

If the author(s) requests a withdrawal of a manuscript after the peer review process, in the production stage (Early Release or Ahead of Publishing), or after being published online, authors are required to pay a withdrawal penalty.

The author is permitted to withdraw the manuscript without incurring any withdrawal penalty if the request is made within 36 hours of submission.

Withdrawal After Initial Assessment: If a manuscript has been submitted for more than 72 hours and has passed the initial assessment, a withdrawal charge will be applicable. This charge accounts for the resources expended by the editorial team, including the time and effort invested in the initial evaluation and the submission of metadata to relevant indexing and archiving systems following the completion of the initial assessment. The manuscript will only be withdrawn from the publication process upon full payment of the outstanding withdrawal charges, ensuring that the journal’s operational costs and editorial efforts are appropriately compensated.

BMJ Open Journal Editorial Office will provide the corresponding author with a formal letter of Manuscript Withdrawal. Withdrawal of manuscripts is only permitted after the withdrawal penalty has been fully paid to the International Journal of Surgery Editorial Office. As per the policy, withdrawal charges are applicable in case of withdrawal.

Article withdrawal

This is only used for “Article in Press” which represents the early versions of the accepted articles. If any article at the stage of “Article in Press”, by any means, represents infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or similar incidences, the article may be withdrawn depending on the Editor’s discretion. In this regard, Editor’s decision must be considered as final following the deep assessment and analysis of the situations, on a case by case basis.

Article removal and replacement

Subjected to legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s). Identification of false or inaccurate data representation which may pose a serious health risk and involves any means of scientific data tampering or other fraud hindering fair practice of science should be treated with highest possible strictness.

Article retraction

Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, sham claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and similar claims will lead to the retraction of an article. Occasionally, a retraction may be considered to correct errors in submission or publication.

Manuscript withdrawal charges

If the author(s) requests a withdrawal of manuscript, after the peer review process or in the production stage (Early Release or Ahead of publishing) or published online; then authors need to make a withdrawal penalty.

The author is allowed to withdraw the manuscript without paying any withdrawal penalty, if the author(s) requests a withdrawal of manuscript, within 36 hours of submission.

BMJ Open Journal Editorial Office will provide the corresponding author a formal letter of Manuscript Withdrawal. Withdrawal of manuscripts is only allowed after withdrawal penalty has been fully paid to the BMJ Open Editorial Office. As per the policy, we declare that the withdrawal charges are applicable in case of withdrawal.

Unethical withdrawal

In the advanced stage of the editorial process, when peer review is near completion, withdrawal is unacceptable unless there are compelling reasons.

If the author withdraws a manuscript after publication, the article publication charges, if paid by the authors, will not be refunded.

If the authors do not reply to communication from the editorial office, even after multiple reminders, at any stage of the publication process; BMJ Open Journals holds all rights to disclose the conduct of the authors and content of the manuscript without further approval from the authors, and cannot be held responsible for the consequences arising from it.

Withdrawal of a manuscript will be permitted only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons. For withdrawal of a manuscript authors need to submit an "Article withdrawal Form", signed by all authors mentioning the reason for withdrawal to the Editorial Office. The form is available from the editorial office of the journal. Authors must not assume that their manuscript has been withdrawn until they have received appropriate notification to this effect from the editorial office.

How can you contact us?

If you have any questions or complaints, please contact BMJ Open’s Office at:

16192 Coastal HWY, Lewes
Delaware 19958, USA
Email: info@bmjopen.org

The BMJ Open Office will make reasonable efforts to promptly investigate and, if necessary, to correct any problem. Please note that we don't appreciate unethical withdrawal.