BMJ (BMJ Publishing Group, now branded BMJ Group) is one of the world's most respected medical publishers - and one of the few major publishers wholly owned by a professional association, the British Medical Association. Its flagship journal, The BMJ, has appeared continuously since 1840, when it launched as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. Today the group publishes roughly 70 journals, all focused on medicine, health services, and public health: The BMJ itself, long-established specialty titles such as Gut, Thorax, Heart, and the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and the fully open-access BMJ Open family.

BMJ has a strong open-science identity. The research in The BMJ has always been free to read, the group was an early mover on open peer review and mandatory data-sharing statements, and its Read & Publish agreements now cover authors at more than 200 institutions worldwide. This guide covers how to choose the right BMJ journal, what open access costs, how peer review works, and how to submit.

BMJ's portfolio splits into three broad routes with different selectivity, cost, and audience. Use the table below to pick the right one for your manuscript.

~70+ peer-reviewed journals, all in medicine and health:

• The BMJ - one of the world's oldest and most-cited general medical journals (published since 1840). Research, analysis, editorials, and education for clinicians and policy-makers.
• BMJ specialty journals - 60+ titles, many co-owned with specialist societies, including Gut, Thorax, Heart, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, British Journal of Sports Medicine, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Journal of Medical Ethics, and Tobacco Control.
• BMJ Open family - the fully open-access arm: BMJ Open (broad-scope), BMJ Global Health, and 20+ specialty OA titles. The group added five new journals in late 2024-2025, including BMJ Digital Health & AI and BMJ Immunology.

BMJ offers four routes:

• Gold OA (fully-OA journals) - BMJ Open, BMJ Global Health, and the BMJ Open specialty family. Licences are CC BY or CC BY-NC, depending on the journal and funder.
• Hybrid OA - most specialty journals let authors pay an APC to make an individual article open access; the subscription route remains free.
• Green OA (self-archiving) - BMJ permits self-archiving of the accepted manuscript, with per-journal embargo terms.
• Read & Publish (transformative agreements) - deals with Jisc (UK), IReL (Ireland), Bibsam (Sweden), CSAL (Switzerland), Bayern Konsortium (Germany), Austrian and Hungarian consortia, Australian institutions, and more - 200+ institutions in total. If your institution participates, your APC is typically covered in full.

Fees below are indicative 2026 figures (before tax); BMJ prices per journal and revises annually, so always check the journal's own fees page before submission.

Waivers: automatic full waivers for corresponding authors in World Bank low-income countries and partial (typically 50%) reductions for lower-middle-income countries; request at submission. There are no submission fees, page charges, or colour-figure charges.

• The BMJ: fully open peer review - reviewers sign their reports, and pre-publication histories of research papers are published alongside the article. The BMJ also pioneered patient review.
• Specialty journals: single-anonymized review is the default; several titles offer or are trialling open review.
• BMJ Open family: open peer review with published reviewer reports; acceptance is based on sound methodology rather than perceived importance.
• Turnaround: varies by title - The BMJ desk-screens most submissions within weeks; BMJ Open family titles emphasise efficient, criteria-based review.

1. Pick the journal. Match your study type and audience using the decision table above, and read the scope statement on the journal's site.
2. Read the author guidelines. Central guidance sits at authors.bmj.com; each journal adds title-specific instructions.
3. Prepare your manuscript. BMJ journals use Vancouver-style numbered references (BMJ house style). SciSpace templates for BMJ titles handle the formatting automatically.
4. Submit online. Most BMJ journals use ScholarOne Manuscripts (Manuscript Central); a few titles use Editorial Manager - the journal's submission page tells you which.
5. Declare everything. BMJ is strict on competing-interest declarations, ethics approval, patient consent, and reporting checklists (CONSORT, PRISMA, STROBE).

BMJ is a member of COPE, OASPA, and STM, and follows ICMJE recommendations across its portfolio. It is a long-standing advocate of research transparency: mandatory data-sharing statements, mandatory trial registration, open peer review at The BMJ, and patient-and-public involvement reporting. Retractions and corrections follow COPE guidance.