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Taylor & Francis

Prepare your manuscript for Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-08-01
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Article types

Review
Clinical Trial
Research Article
Systematic Review
Review Article
Commentary
Protocol
Perspective
Editorial
Letter
Research Letter
Brief Communication
Lectio
Case Report

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

  • Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 220 words.
  • Use a structured abstract.
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  • Should be no more than 8,000 words, inclusive of the abstract.
  • Authors are required to submit an abstract of no more than 220 words, with no subsections.
  • Should be no more than 10,000 words, inclusive of the abstract.
  • Authors are required to submit an abstract of no more than 220 words, without subsections.
  • Should be no more than 6,000 words, inclusive of the abstract.
  • Authors are required to submit an abstract of no more than 220 words in a single paragraph.
  • Keywords must follow the abstract and be on the same page.
  • Commentary: The abstract for commentary articles may deviate from this but should always be informative and contain key messages to the target audience.
  • The title page, abstract page, references, and figure legends must be on separate pages.
  • Trial registration numbers should be included in the abstract, with full details in the methods section.
  • Your abstract should focus on what your research is about, what methods have been used, and what you found out.
  • The abstract must be informative.
  • The instructions for authors for each journal will give specific guidelines on what’s required here, including whether it should be a structured abstract or graphical abstract, and any word limits.
  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract (or an optional graphical abstract); keywords; introduction; materials and methods; results; discussion; conclusions; acknowledgments; author contributions; declaration of interest statement; references; data availability statement (if applicable); data deposition (if applicable); supplemental materials (if applicable or as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures (as individual files or embedded on individual pages).
  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract (an optional graphical abstract); keywords; introduction; methods; results; discussion; conclusions; acknowledgments; author contributions; declaration of interest statement; references; data availability statement (if applicable); data deposition (if applicable); supplemental materials (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures (as individual files or embedded on individual pages).

Keywords

  • Provide 3-6 keywords chosen by the author.
  • Keywords (typically 3-6 keywords) that are relevant to your topic are required.
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  • The SDGs should appear after the content-based keywords.
  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; keywords; the body of the correspondence; acknowledgments (if applicable); author contributions; declaration of interest statement; references (if applicable); supplementary materials (as appropriate); table(s) or figure(s) (if applicable).

Reference style

  • Articlo formats your supplied references in Vancouver style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
  • For each section of the manuscript, all headings must be numbered, starting from 1 Introduction, 2 Materials and Methods, 3 Results, 4 Discussion, 5 Conclusions, 6 Acknowledgement, 7 Author Contributions, 8 Declaration of Interest Statement, and 9 References.
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  • For each section of the manuscript, all headings must be numbered, starting from 1, such as: 1 Introduction, 2 Methods, 3 Results, 4 Discussion, 5 Conclusions, 6 Acknowledgements, 7 Author Contributions, 8 Declaration of Interest Statement, and 9 References.
  • Please use this reference guide when preparing your paper.
  • All references must be formatted similarly using a single style.
  • All references listed in this section must be cited in the manuscript, and all references cited in the manuscript must have citations included in the References section.
  • Where applicable, this should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
  • Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text.
  • The entire manuscript must be double-spaced (including title page, text, references, footnotes, figure legends, and tables) and have consecutive (continuous) line numbering.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors take full responsibility for the integrity of the whole content, including accuracy of references.
  • The introduction must contain the following information: significance of the topic, a succinct summary of current knowledge regarding the topic (with citations), current research gap(s) in the body of literature that the authors intend to fill by their work, and the objective(s) of the study.

Figure and table rules

  • Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript. Keep figures embedded; Articlo also extracts numbered source files for the package.
  • Group figures at the end of the manuscript.
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  • Group tables at the end of the manuscript.
  • Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for color, at the correct size).
  • Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size).
  • Tables and figures Show clearly in your article text where the tables and figures should appear, for example, by writing [Table 1 near here].
  • If figures are submitted as individual files, a list of captions must be provided separately.
  • Use table(s) or figure(s), as appropriate, when describing the results.
  • Table with caption(s) must be provided on individual pages.
  • Figures must be submitted as individual files or embedded on individual pages.
  • Figures should be saved separately from the text.
  • All pages must be numbered consecutively in the lower right-hand corner, starting with the title page and including pages containing tables, figures, and legends.
  • Illustrations submitted (line drawings, halftones, photos, photomicrographs, etc.) should be clean originals or digital files.
  • Color illustrations will be considered for publication; however, the author will be required to bear the full cost involved in their printing and publication.
  • Color illustrations will also be considered for print publication; however, the author will be required to bear the full cost involved in color art reproduction.
  • Tables should be included as separate sheets.
  • Tables should be used only when they can present information more effectively than running text.
  • A short descriptive title should appear above each table and any footnotes suitably identified below.
  • Figures should be included as separate sheets or files.
  • Figures should be completely labeled, taking into account the necessary size reduction.
  • Captions should be double-spaced on a separate sheet.
  • Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
  • It’s very important that you have been given permission to use any tables or figures you are reproducing from another source before you submit.
  • Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: EPS, PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.
  • Care should be taken to avoid any arrangement that unduly increases the size of a table, and the column heads should be made as brief as possible, using abbreviations liberally.
  • Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.
  • Check the instructions for authors to see how you should supply tables and figures, whether at the end of the text or in separate files, and follow any guidance given on the submission system.

Funding statement

  • You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].

Competing interests

  • Include or confirm the competing interests required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Data availability statement

  • Include or confirm the data availability statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Ethics statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Ethics statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Review: For studies that involve human subjects, a statement must be included that the research study was reviewed and approved by an institutional review board.
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  • In settings where ethics approval for non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys) is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this.
  • Authors should familiarise themselves with our policy on participant/patient privacy and informed consent.
  • Review: All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement in the Methods section, confirming ethical approval has been obtained from the appropriate local ethics committee or Institutional Review Board and that where relevant, informed consent has been obtained.
  • Editorial: Consent All authors are required to follow the ICMJE requirements and Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies on privacy and informed consent from patients and study participants.
  • Authors must include a statement to confirm that any patient, service user, or participant (or that person’s parent or legal guardian) in any type of qualitative or quantitative research, has given informed consent to participate in the research.
  • Case Report: a clinical case report detailing their medical history, identifiable images or media content, etc), authors must include a statement to confirm that they have obtained written informed consent to publish the details from the affected individual (or their parents/guardians if the participant in not an adult or unable to give informed consent; or next of kin if the participant is deceased).
  • Case Report: For submissions where patients or participants can be potentially identified (e.g.

Cover letter

  • Permission must be obtained from the original copyright owner, which in most cases is the publisher.
  • Using Third-Party Material You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article.
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  • Review: The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission.
  • If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.

Author contributions

  • Add or confirm the author-written Author contributions statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Submitting authors should be prepared to submit CRediT roles for themselves and their co-authors (where applicable) as part of the submission process.

Supplementary files

  • Lectio: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Letter: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
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  • Review: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Protocol: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Editorial: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Case Report: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Perspective: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Clinical Trial: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Review Article: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Research Article: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Brief Communication: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Embed or attach the author-supplied supplementary material so Articlo can extract and label it for the package.

Title page and author information

  • Provide the author, affiliation, and correspondence details for the separate title page; Articlo creates the editable companion file.
  • Please include the complete contact information (name, institute, address, telephone, and email) of the corresponding author(s) on this page.
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  • All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript.
  • The title page must include the title, authors’ names and affiliations (institute’s name, address, postal code, and country), telephone, and email addresses of all authors.
  • One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article.

Article structure and word limits

  • Margins Margins should be at least 2.5cm (1 inch).
  • Should be no more than 2,000 words.
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  • It should be a maximum width of 525 pixels.
  • Review: These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
  • Research Article: HERA accepts four types of scientific papers: Original research articles: Original research articles should be novel and have not been published elsewhere.
  • Research findings should increase knowledge of risk assessment and reduce current knowledge gaps in the literature.
  • Systematic Review: Systematic reviews must have a priori hypothesis.
  • Research Letter: Research Letters aim to briefly report or discuss original risk assessment findings that are highly significant and(or) require attention from a scientific society.
  • Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
  • Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
  • If applicable, it should state the primary objective(s) of the study.
  • Quality control measures are required for both qualitative and quantitative research.
  • The contributions provided by each author should be described.
  • Commentary: If applicable, it should state the primary objective(s) of the commentary and contain key messages to the target audience.
  • Commentary: Provide the key information of the commentary article.
  • If applicable, authors should discuss data or research needs and provide recommendations relevant to the existing issues.
  • Provide the key message of the communication.
  • Manuscripts submitted to HERA must be formatted in Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect.
  • Symbols (open or closed circles, triangles, squares) and lettering (typewriter labeling is not acceptable) should be compatibly sized for optimum reduction.
  • Simple fractional expressions should be written with a slant line rather than in the usual manner so that only a single line of type is required.
  • Empirical and structural formulas and mathematical and chemical equations should be arranged to fill adequately the width of a single or double column.
  • Chemical structural formulas should be submitted as digital copy.
  • Do not use structures when a simple formula will suffice.
  • For all NIH/Welcome-funded papers, the grant number(s) must be included in the declaration of interest statement.
  • Clinical Trial: Clinical trials should be registered prospectively – i.e. before participant recruitment.
  • Editorial: Authors of retrospectively registered trials must be prepared to provide further information to the journal editorial office if requested.
  • Clinical Trial: The clinical trial registry should be publicly accessible (at no charge), open to all prospective registrants, and managed by a not-for-profit organization.
  • All research studies on humans (individuals, samples, or data) must have been performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki.
  • Please include all relevant safety precautions; and cite any accepted standard or code of practice.
  • Before you submit your article, make sure you’ve checked the instructions for authors for your chosen journal, so you are aware of everything required.
  • Most journals create image descriptions during the production process, but a minority may require authors to provide image descriptions.
  • Review: Running heads and received dates These aren’t required when submitting a manuscript for review.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Originality and accuracy of content has been confirmed by the authors.
  • Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable.
  • Authors must retain the original and revised versions which must be shared upon request.
  • The PLSP guidelines for authors must be followed at all times.
  • For studies that involve laboratory data, It is imperative that the authors provide information regarding the quality control measures implemented to ensure that the data obtained/produced are accurate and not subject to error.
  • The approval number must also be provided.
  • It is imperative that the authors provide information regarding the quality control measures implemented to ensure that the information is appropriately extracted, reviewed, and analyzed from the eligible articles being reviewed.
  • All units must be included.
  • All furnished art must be complete.
  • Please use SI units (non-italicized).
  • Clinical Trial: Clinical Trials Registry In order to be published in a Taylor & Francis journal, all clinical trials must have been registered in a public repository, ideally at the beginning of the research process (prior to participant recruitment).
  • The process of obtaining consent to publish should include sharing the article with the individual (or whoever is consenting on their behalf), so that they are fully aware of the content of the article before it is published.
  • Special characters If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps: European accents (Greek, Hebrew, or Cyrillic letters, or phonetic symbols): choose Times New Roman font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
  • Special characters If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps: Asian languages (such as Sanskrit, Korean, Chinese, or Japanese): choose Arial Unicode font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
  • Please do not embed it in the manuscript file but save it as a separate file, labelled GraphicalAbstract1.
  • Excel and Adobe pdf files cannot be accepted.
  • If you are at the early stage of your research, you may also need to read how to start writing a journal manuscript.
  • Image descriptions are typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make images accessible to people that cannot read or see the object due to a visual disability.

Reporting guidelines

  • Include or confirm the reporting guidelines required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Preprints and prior publication

  • If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server, please be aware that anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

  • Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process.
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  • Use of AI tools as part of ethical research studies is permitted.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: The name and version number of the AI tool used.
  • Systematic Review: Use of AI tools as part of ethically conducted literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and bibliometrics studies is permitted.
  • Use of AI tool assisted plain language summaries (PLS) of authors own work is permitted.
  • Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparation to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors have checked terms of use for the specific AI tool used, and therefore confirm suitability for publication.

Authorship and originality

  • Preparing Your Paper All authors submitting to medicine, biomedicine, health sciences, allied and public health journals should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Manuscript structure

  • Subsection headings should also be numbered (e.g., 2.1, 2.2, etc.).
  • Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing (i.e., as mentioned in section 2.1).
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  • For each section of the manuscript, all headings must be numbered, starting from 1 Introduction.
  • Headers (for example) should be formatted as follows: 1 INTRODUCTION –First order header (all letters capitalized, bold font, no period).
  • The Results and Discussion should each be written as a separate section.
  • Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
  • It should also include a brief description of the methodology used, including the main results and overall findings of the study.
  • The introduction should be written concisely.
  • Information in the materials and methods should be written precisely and in a logical order.
  • The results should be described concisely and in a logical order.
  • The discussion should interpret the results and explore their significance, not repeat them.
  • Conclusions must be concise and provided in each manuscript.
  • This section should contain the main conclusions of the study and a statement addressing how this work (or findings) contribute to the field of risk assessment.
  • Systematic Review: For all systematic reviews, results and discussion sections should be present as the work typically includes result synthesis, evidence evaluation, and/or meta-analysis.
  • Information in the methods section should be written precisely and in a logical order.
  • The results of evidence evaluation and/or meta-analysis should be described concisely and in a logical order.
  • Commentary: The introduction must state the existing issues and provide the objectives of the commentary article.
  • If applicable, each section heading of the correspondence must be numbered.
  • Subsection headings (if applicable) should also be numbered.
  • This section must be written concisely.
  • Letter: Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: First-level headings (e.g. Introduction, Conclusion) should be in bold, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
  • Authors must retain full records of the methods undertaken, including full descriptions and records of the prompts used, which must be shared with the journal upon request.
  • The introduction must contain the following information: significance, current knowledge regarding the topic, current research gap(s) in the body of literature that the authors intend to fill by their work, and the objective(s) of the study.
  • HERA strongly recommends that the authors do not combine Results and Discussion together.
  • Only state the results and do not add any statements that interpret the results.
  • The introduction shall contain either the primary research question(s) or hypothesis and shall be written concisely.
  • Clinical Trial: However, for clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, Taylor & Francis journals requires retrospective registration to ensure the transparent and complete dissemination of all clinical trial results which ultimately impact human health.

Study reporting guidelines

  • Particular care should be used in preparing manuscripts involving mathematical expressions.
  • For animal studies, approval must have been obtained from the local or institutional animal use and care committee.
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  • Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable (e.g. CONSORT-AI, STARD-AI, GAMER, TRIPOD-AI, etc).
  • For studies that involve animals, a statement that all protocols related to animal experiments were reviewed by the institutional animal care and use committee members (IACUC) and all animals were treated humanely according to institutional guidelines and the identity of the guidelines must be stated in this section.
  • Review / Systematic Review / Protocol: Systematic reviews should be conducted following a standardized protocol such as PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), and be registered through PROSPERO, Cochrane, or other well-recognized systematic review registration systems.

Article type and manuscript length

  • Commentary: Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract (an optional graphical abstract); keywords; introduction; the body text of the commentary article; conclusion; acknowledgments; author contributions; declaration of interest statement; references; data availability statement (if applicable); data deposition (if applicable); supplemental materials (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures (as individual files or embedded on individual pages).

Language and text style

  • Please use American spelling style consistently throughout your manuscript.
  • Please use double quotation marks, except where “a quotation is ‘within’ a quotation”.
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  • Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.
  • Authors should write in clear, concise English.
  • Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Fourth-level headings should be in bold italics, at the beginning of a paragraph.
  • Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Fifth-level headings should be in italics, at the beginning of a paragraph.
  • Letter: Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Second-level headings should be in bold italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
  • Letter: Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Third-level headings should be in italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
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What your package checks

Abstract: 220 words
Keywords: 3-6 keywords
References: Vancouver
Title page: separate file
Declarations: Ethics, Author contributions, Acknowledgements, Artificial intelligence
Format: Times New Roman, double spacing

Source transparency

This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.

Open official guideline source