Submission guidelines
Submit manuscript
Please read the guidelines in full before submitting your manuscript.
Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
The Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the author responsibilities section on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
We also encourage you to familiarize yourself with our Editorial Policies and our Publication Ethics Policies.
Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions and peer review from a diverse range of authors and reviewers from across all countries and backgrounds. Read our diversity, equity, and inclusion pledge.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. Open access options are available – see below.
Please read the guidelines below then submit your manuscript here.
Access: Subscription
Accepts preprints? Yes
Identity transparency: Double anonymized
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sage Choice program, and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. Open Access agreement eligibility is determined by the corresponding author’s affiliation matching an agreement at acceptance. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access.
For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
Your article must be within the scope of the journal and be of sufficient quality. If not, it will not be reviewed. Please read the journal’s Aims and Scope to see if your article is appropriate.
The manuscript must be your original work, you must have the rights to the work, and you must have obtained and be able to supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, including figures, illustrations, tables, lengthy quotations, or other material previously published elsewhere.
Article Types
The Editor invites submission of 1) original articles, based on observation or experimentation that add new knowledge to the field of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, especially if it might lead to less invasive treatment (descriptive or comparative analysis generally with 100+ cases), 2) review articles, which codify existing knowledge or throw light on the present and future roles of minimally invasive cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, 3) case series, describing a unique aspect of cardiothoracic or vascular surgery with >25 cases not previously described in the literature, 4) pictorial essays, which primarily utilize images to review a specific subject, 5) video reports, including a detailed narrated video and brief written description of a technique, unique case, or small series, and 6) editorials and letters reflecting the opinions of authorities in the field. The Journal will publish papers in the areas of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, medicine, physiology, pathology, and imaging technology.
Title Page
For all article types, the Title Page must include the title (limit of 145 characters including spaces), full author list including academic degrees and affiliations for each author, disclosure statement for all authors and any sources of funding, complete contact information for the corresponding author, presentation details for applicable national or international meetings (i.e., ISMICS, ECTSS, ECS Club, etc.), full name and institution of the ethics review committee with approval number (if applicable), and the Acknowledgment section (if applicable). The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included on the Title Page.
For accepted articles, details reported on the Title Page will supersede metadata included in the online manuscript submission system, including order and spelling of Author names.
Submission Requirements
|
|
Word Limit |
Reference Limit |
Details & Requirements |
|
Original Research Article |
3,500 |
40 |
|
|
Review Article |
3,500 |
40 |
|
|
Editorial |
500 |
5 |
|
|
Video Report |
500 |
5 |
|
|
Case Series |
1,200 |
8 |
|
|
Letter to the Editor |
500 |
5 |
|
|
Commentary |
500 |
5 |
|
For Original Articles and Reviews, there is a 3,500 word limit for body text (Introduction to Conclusions) and 40 reference limit. Case Series are limited to 1,200 words for body text (including references) and 8 references. Editorials, Letters to the Editor, and Video Reports are limited to 500 words and 5 references, unless otherwise agreed upon with the Editorial Office. Please do not include line numbers in your manuscript, as these will be added by the submission system automatically.
For Original Articles, the structure of the main anonymous manuscript file should be in the following order: Title, Abstract (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions; limit = 250 words), Central Message (limit = 50 words), Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References, Tables, Figure Legend, Video Legend. Figures and videos should be uploaded as separate files that meet Artwork Guidelines.
For Reviews, the structure of the main anonymous manuscript file should follow the order for Original Articles wherever possible. The abstract may be unstructured (limit = 250 words) or structured if applicable. Alternate headings, such as “Surgical Technique” and individual review topics, may be used in place of the Methods and Results sections found in Original Articles. Figures and videos should be uploaded as separate files that meet Artwork Guidelines.
For Video Reports, the structure of the main anonymous manuscript file should be in the following order: Title, Video Report, References. It is required to submit at least 1 detailed narrated video and a brief written description. Details of the case(s) and techniques may be included as slides in the video submission. Video Reports should not include Tables or Figures, but these may be included as Supplemental Material. There is a limit of 2 authors for these submissions.
For Case Series, the structure of the main anonymous manuscript file should be in the following order: Title, Introduction, Case Series, Discussion, References, Figure Legend, Video Legend. It is required to submit at least 1 narrated surgical video with each Case Series submission. Case Series should not include Tables and are limited to no more than 2 Figures in the main text (Tables and additional Figures can be included as Supplemental Material). Figures and videos should be uploaded as separate files that meet Artwork Guidelines.
Formatting your manuscript
Accepted file types
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. You do not need to follow a template, but please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections match the journal guidelines.
Your article title, keywords, and abstract all contribute to its position in search engine results, directly affecting the number of people who see your work. For details of what you can do to influence this, visit How to help readers find your article online.
Title
Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services.
Abstract
Please include an abstract of 250 words (structured or unstructured depending on the article type) between the title and main body of your manuscript that concisely states the purpose of the research, major findings, and conclusions. For structured abstracts the headings are Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.
Visual Abstract
All submissions, except for Editorials, Letters, Video Reports, and Case Series, are required to include a Visual Abstract that will be published in the online version of each manuscript. Please download this template to create a Visual Abstract. No revisions should be made to journal style for the colors, format, or structure of the standard Visual Abstract template. A collection of Visual Abstracts published in Innovations can be found here.
Placeholders have been added in the template, but Authors should add text and graphics/icons as applicable for their content. The final product should be clear and concise. Please do not include the entire abstract text, but rather present a brief summary of the key findings. We are unable to accommodate reprinted or attributional material within the Visual Abstract. The final version will be compiled by the Editorial Office to ensure journal style is achieved.
For more information on how to create an effective Visual Abstract, please visit this guide, which includes many examples of effective Visual Abstracts.
Keywords
For article types that require it, please include a minimum of 2 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.
Artwork, figures, and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format, please read Sage’s artwork guidelines. Illustrations, pictures, and graphs should be supplied in the highest quality and in an electronic format that helps us to publish your article in the best way possible.
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.
Illustrations, pictures, and graphs should be supplied in the highest quality and in an electronic format that helps us to publish your article in the best way possible. Please follow the guidelines below to enable us to prepare your artwork for the printed issue as well as the online version.
Format
TIFF, JPEG: Common format for pictures (containing no text or graphs).
EPS: Preferred format for graphs and line art (retains quality when enlarging/zooming in).
Resolution
Rasterized based files (i.e., with .tiff or .jpeg extension) require a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).
Line art should be supplied with a minimum resolution of 800 dpi.
Fonts
The lettering used in the artwork should not vary too much in size and type (usually sans serif font as a default).
Figure part labels should use lower case letters in bold font (i.e., a b c d).
Figure Legends should not be included on the Figure images, but rather in the main anonymized manuscript file.
Image Integrity
Figures should be minimally processed and should reflect the integrity of the original data in the image. Adjustments to images in brightness, contrast, or color balance should be applied equally to the entire image, provided they do not distort any data in the figure, including the background. Selective adjustments and touch-up tools used on portions of a figure are not appropriate. Images should not be layered or combined into a single image unless it is stated that the figure is a product of time-averaged data. All adjustments to image date should be clearly disclosed in the figure legend. Images may be additionally screened to confirm faithfulness to the original data. Authors should be able to supply raw image data upon request. Authors should also list tools and software used to collect image data and should document settings and manipulations in the Methods section.
Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Title page
To ensure fair and anonymous peer review, your manuscript must be fully anonymized. Please ensure any identifying information is removed from the main manuscript document and included on the Title Page instead. Do not include any author names in the manuscript file name and remove names from headers and footers. This version of the manuscript will be sent to the peer reviewers. The Title Page will not be sent to peer reviewers. See the Sage Journal Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
The Title Page should include:
- Article title
- The full list of authors including names and affiliations of each
- The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript – please indicate this on the title page.
- All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission (please see the authorship section for more information).
- Contact information for the corresponding author: name, institutional address, phone, email
- Acknowledgments section
- Declaration of conflicting interest
- Funding statement
- Ethical approval and informed consent statements
- Data availability statement
- Any other identifying information related to the authors and/or their institutions, funders, approval committees, etc, that might compromise anonymity.
Acknowledgments
If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your manuscript.
Writing assistance and third party submissions: if you have received any writing or editing assistance from a third-party, for example a specialist communications company, this must be clearly stated in the Acknowledgements section and in the covering letter. Please see the Sage Author Gateway for what information to include in your Acknowledgements section. If your submission is being made on your behalf by someone who is not listed as an author, for example the third-party who provided writing/editing assistance, you must state this in the Acknowledgements and also in your covering letter. Please note that the journal editor reserves the right to not consider submissions made by a third party rather than by the author/s themselves.
Statements and declarations
To ensure proper anonymization, please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ on your title page, after the Acknowledgements section [and Author Contributions section if applicable] including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office. This information will be added to the end of your published paper.
Ethical considerations
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. You can find information on what to say in your ethical statements as well as example statements on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.
All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript.
Consent to participate
Please include any participant consent information under this heading and state whether informed consent to participate was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. More information and example statements can be found on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.
Consent for publication
Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.
Declaration of conflicting interest
The journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, see our policy on conflicting interest declarations and the ICMJE recommendations.
If no conflict exists, your statement should read: ‘The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.
Funding statement
All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding. You’ll find guidance and examples on our Funding page.
Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- Share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
- Cite this data in your research
Reference style and citations
The journal follows the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all references.
Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year. For in-text citations, please use superscript numerals after the punctuation.
Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.
For references, up to three authors may be listed. If more, then list the first three authors and represent the rest by et al.
An example of a properly formatted journal article is:
Araki C, Black TL, Patberg FT, et al. Significance of calf muscle pump function in venous ulceration. J Vasc Surg 1994; 20: 872–879.
Supplemental material
This Journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Author Services. Visit Sage Author Services for further information.
As part of the submission process you will need to confirm that this is your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that this is for first publication in this Journal, that it is not being considered for/has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
Please see our guidelines on prior publication.
Preprints
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.
Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission.
Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed.
Submission site
Submit your manuscript online via Sage Track.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in Sage Track before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
Manuscripts should only be submitted with the consent of all contributing authors. The individual responsible for submitting the manuscript should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the manuscript are listed as authors.
Ensure you upload all relevant manuscript files, including any additional supplemental files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Authorship
Please view our authorship policies, which includes information on criteria for authorship, who should be the corresponding author and more.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
Files
- Cover letter. To help the Editor in their preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the manuscript suitable for publication.
- Title Page with all required identifying information as laid out in Preparing your manuscript for submission (above). This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
- Your manuscript, properly formatted and anonymized according to all stipulations above, and within the scope of the journal. Any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) should be removed or anonymized and included on the Title Page instead. See above for more information on anonymization. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
- Figures and images.
- Figures must be uploaded as separate image files that meet our artwork standards for file type (.TIFF, .JPG, .EPS).
- Figure part labels should use lower case letters in bold font (i.e., a b c d).
- All figures must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text – they will appear in the published article in the order they are numbered.
- All figures must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text – they will appear in the published article in the order they are numbered.
- Figure resolution is 300dpi. More information on figure/image preparation can be found here.
- Supplemental material. This journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images, etc) alongside the full-text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
Other information required for submission
-
ORCID ID of the submitting author.
- It is strongly encouraged that all co-authors ensure their ORCID IDs are linked to their accounts in the submission system prior to article acceptance, as this is the only way to have their ORCID ID present on the published article. ORCID IDs cannot be added to manuscripts after acceptance/publication. Please note that each co-author must log in to the submission system to add their own ORCID ID to their account. To add an ORCID ID, edit your account, click the link when prompted, and sign into your ORCID account to validate your ID. You will then be redirected back to the submission system and your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata.
- Please create an ORCID ID if you do not already have one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
- Complete list of authors, with their institutional affiliations.
- The author information you enter at submission must exactly match what is included on your manuscript and/or title page, including full names, academic affiliations, and corresponding author contact details.
- The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript.
- All listed authors must meet the criteria for authorship (above).
- All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission.
- All authors must have given consent for the manuscript to be submitted in its current form.
- Keywords: During submission, you may be asked to select or enter keywords for your manuscript. These keywords are used to match appropriate reviewers to your manuscript.
- The number of figures, tables, and words in your manuscript.
- Funder information: Name, grant/award number.
- You may be required to enter your declaration of conflicting interest as part of the submission process, in addition to listing it on your manuscript and/or title page. Please have it on hand.
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal:
Identity transparency: Double-anonymized
Reviewer interacts with: Editor
Review information published: None
Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejected without peer review at this point if they are out of scope for the journal or otherwise unsuitable.
After passing the initial evaluation, your manuscript will then be peer reviewed. You can log in at any time to check the status of your manuscript. We will notify you when a decision has been reached.
The journal operates a strictly anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and, the author’s name from the reviewer.
The following manuscript types may not require two independent reviews to be accepted: Editorials, Letters to the Editor, Auto-Commentaries, Video Reports
To ensure the integrity of the peer review process we assign reviewers and cannot accept author recommendations.
All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision on all manuscripts, including those appearing in a special issue or special collection. The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
As a COPE member we engage with multiple forms of post-publication discussion in line with wider guidance from Sage: Commentaries, Critiques and Responses.
You can view our complaints and appeals policy here.
Read Sage's complete peer review policy.
Diversity and Inclusion Statement
Innovations is committed to diversity and inclusion in our journal. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds. Furthermore, we strive to maintain an inclusive community within the journal’s leadership and reviewers.
Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Contributor’s Publishing Agreement
Before publication, we require the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Preprints
If your manuscript was posted on a preprint server prior to acceptance, you must include a link in your preprint to the final published version of your published article.
Production
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal, Sage Edit, or by email, and should be returned promptly to avoid delaying publication. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence, and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. This is the final opportunity to make changes to your manuscript. Further corrections will not be possible after publication. Changes to the author list are not permitted at this stage.
Publication
OnlineFirst publication: This enables us to publish final articles online immediately, without waiting for assignment to a future issue of the Journal. This usually significantly reduces publication lead time. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite OnlineFirst articles.
Access to your published article: We provide you with online access to your published article. The online access link is provided to the corresponding author for sharing with their co-authors.
Promoting your article
Publication is not the end of the process. Between us, we can ensure that your article is found, read, downloaded and cited as widely as possible. Many of the most effective tactics are those you can do quickly and easily to your network of contacts and peers. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway for numerous resources to help you promote your work.
The Sage Journal Author Gateway has some general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journals Solutions Portal.
You can view our complaints and appeals procedure.
Contact us
You can direct any questions to the journal’s editorial office:
Sari D. Holmes, PhD
Managing Editor
sari.holmes@jhmi.edu