BMJ introduces a fast track system for papers

We will offer to publish exceptional papers within four weeks

Each year when we revisit the BMJ's mission and strategy, we aim to improve our services to readers, contributors, and reviewers. One step we believe will help is to introduce a formal “fast track” system for urgent or important papers. Our new fast track system begins today. We hope it will attract researchers with high quality studies to submit them to the BMJ, and we hope it will serve readers by helping us to attract better papers. But because fast tracking a paper is demanding of editorial and reviewers' time, we will focus the service on a very small number of papers.

Our fast track logo

From now on we will be able to offer publication of a paper which meets our criteria for fast track review within four weeks of its registration in our office. In the past we have resisted the idea of fast track publication, because we believe all papers we publish are important or interesting and we feared that the time and attention consumed by a minority of fast track papers …