Article types
Research Articles
Research Articles should be fully documented reports of original research and are always peer reviewed. The total length of the article should not exceed 8000 words (including the main text and figure legends, but not the title page, abstract, Materials and Methods section, and reference list), with no more than eight display items (figures and tables). Supplementary items (figures, tables, movies, datasets) may be published online at the discretion of the Editor and reviewers. Supplemental material is normally limited to 5 Mb per article. For more information on how to prepare a Research Article, please see the manuscript preparation page.
The journal will also consider useful reports of negative results.
Methods & Techniques
These peer-reviewed articles describe a novel method or an advance of an existing method, and must include the validation of the method. If possible, they should also include application of the method, but this is not a requirement. Methods must be described in sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and verify it. If it is a computational method, then the source code and an executable version of the method must be deposited on GitHub (or equivalent) and included in the supplemental information as a compressed archive. Methods & Techniques articles should follow the standard format for Research Articles, as described above.
Future Leader Reviews
As part of its support for early-career researchers, Biology Open (BiO) publishes reviews from future leaders in the biological sciences. Find out how to apply.
Meeting Reviews
Recipients of Scientific Meeting Grants from The Company of Biologists are eligible to apply to publish a Meeting Review free of charge in BiO. Find out how to apply. Note that Meeting Reviews are not peer reviewed, but authors are required to send their article to a minimum of two colleagues who attended the meeting (excluding the meeting organisers) for feedback (these responses should be provided to the Editorial Office when submitting the Meeting Review).
Correspondence
Should a reader have cogent criticisms of a paper published in BiO, the journal will consider publishing them in the form of a letter of no more than 1000 words with no more than ten references. The authors of the original paper(s) under discussion are given the final right to reply, and any such response may be published together with the Correspondence. The Editor reserves the right to edit items of Correspondence/Response and they may be peer reviewed. As a courtesy, we usually share the contents of the Response with the Correspondence authors before publication, but it is intended that the Correspondence authors focus on the original papers (and not on the Response that results from their Correspondence).
Authors of accepted Correspondence and Response articles are not required to pay an Article Processing Charge. This ensures that there is no restriction to the publication of valid and important comment on published work in BiO.
To submit a Correspondence to the journal, please contact the Managing Editor with a brief description of the article.
Last updated: 07 May 2025
