Journals
Journals have a crucial role to play in improving the standard of animal research reporting in the scientific literature.
Over 1,000 journals endorse the use of ARRIVE in editorial policies and instructions to authors. The guidelines have been designed with implementation by journals and publishers in mind; the items of the guidelines are prioritised into two sets, to allow journals to focus initially on the most pressing issues.
The “ARRIVE Essential 10” constitute the minimum requirement for reporting animal research and include information allowing reviewers and readers to assess the reliability of the findings. Focussing on the Essential 10 in priority better allows journal staff, editors and reviewers to verify that the items have been adequately reported in manuscripts.
The "Recommended set" complements the Essential 10 and adds important context to the study described. Items from this set can be added to journal requirements over time and in line with specific editorial policies once mechanisms are in place to ensure adherence with the Essential 10.
The ARRIVE guidelines are not intended to supersede individual journal requirements but to promote a harmonised approach across journals and ensure that all manuscripts contain the essential information needed to appraise the research.
How can journals use and promote the ARRIVE guidelines?
Most journals include specific references to the ARRIVE guidelines in their instructions for authors, along with a requirement or encouragement to comply with them in any submission involving animal research.
ARRIVE author checklists, detailing where the information related to each item of the guidelines is found within the manuscript, are a useful tool to help editors, journal staff and reviewers identify missing information rapidly.
Journals can work to improve the transparency and quality of published animal research by:
- Endorsing the ARRIVE guidelines and including this prominently in instructions to authors (ideally with links to resources provided by the NC3Rs).
- Requiring authors to submit an ARRIVE author checklist. Checklists are available for the ARRIVE Essential 10 and for all 21 items of the ARRIVE guidelines so that journals can tailor their requirements.
- Including the ARRIVE guidelines in guidance to reviewers, to ensure that all relevant information to scrutinise the research adequately is requested.
- Providing or arranging training for journal staff to highlight the importance and benefits of transparent and complete reporting. Free-to-use training materials, including ARRIVE manuscript review exercises, are available to train staff in the use and importance of the ARRIVE guidelines for the quality of reporting in preclinical animal research.
- Performing editorial checks to ensure manuscripts contain all the information set out in the ARRIVE Essential 10. The IICARUS study has shown that requesting submission of a completed author checklist without verification from journal staff is insufficient to improve adherence to the ARRIVE guidelines. Other studies [1,2,3] using author checklists with more editorial follow-up showed a marked improvement in the detail of the information included in manuscripts.
Example policies from journals and publishing bodies.
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We encourage authors using vertebrates or cephalopods in their research to comply with the ARRIVE guidelines (see also the publications on the guidelines and elaboration document). The ARRIVE guidelines aim to improve standards of reporting to ensure that the data can be adequately interpreted, reproduced, and utilized. Where research could be confused as pertaining to human clinical research, the animal model should also be noted in the article title. |
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Authors describing studies involving animals must have consulted the ‘Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ (ARRIVE) 2.0 guidelines, developed by the NC3Rs to improve standards of reporting, ensuring that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinized and utilized. Articles reporting in vivo experiments must adhere to the ARRIVE essential 10 checklist as a minimum, and we encourage authors to use the full ARRIVE 2.0 checklist. The relevant information outlined in these guidelines should be included in the appropriate section of the article. |
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Studies involving animals should be conducted according to internationally accepted standards and are expected to comply with the three Rs principle (Replace, Reduce, Refine). Frontiers endorses the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines for reporting experiments involving live animals. Authors are encouraged to use the ARRIVE checklist and to submit this checklist with manuscripts involving animal research. |
Academic publishing bodies, some with thousands of journals within their portfolio, also advocate for the use of the ARRIVE guidelines. Springer, with over 3,500 active journals, support the use of the ARRIVE guidelines in their Standards of Reporting policy.
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Springer Nature advocates complete and transparent reporting of research. For biomedical and biological research, the checklists below must be completed before peer review, and made available to the Editors and reviewers. ... Preclinical animal studies: ARRIVE |
