About IJCM
The International Journal of Clinical Microbiology publishes peer-reviewed, open access research in clinical laboratory and infection-related microbiology, including human and animal pathogens, clinically relevant microbial communities, and diagnostic methods.
What the journal is
The International Journal of Clinical Microbiology (IJCM) publishes fundamental and applied research on clinical laboratory microbiology and infection-related microbial biology. A manuscript is in scope when its central contribution advances clinical laboratory microbiology or infection-related microbial biology: detection, identification, pathogen or microbial-community characterization, typing, susceptibility, or the development, interpretation and use of microbiological methods and evidence. Original data, rigorous reanalysis of existing data, evidence synthesis and scholarly commentary can each make that contribution.
Its subject is the microbiological evidence itself: how a bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic pathogen is recovered or detected, how it is identified and typed, how its susceptibility to antimicrobial agents is measured, and how far the resulting statement can be relied on. Work on the epidemiology and management of infection belongs here when that microbiological evidence carries the argument rather than accompanying it.
IJCM is published by Open Access Pub. Articles appear open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, with authors retaining copyright. Each registered article has a DOI that resolves to its published version. The journal has published under ISSN 2690-4721 since 2017.
Several journals publish under similar titles in this field. This journal is the International Journal of Clinical Microbiology, ISSN 2690-4721, published by Open Access Pub, and it abbreviates to IJCM. Citing it by its full title and ISSN, rather than by a shortened form, keeps a citation attached to the right venue.
Why the journal exists
A diagnostic result is only as good as the method that produced it, and the work that establishes how well a method performs is often harder to publish than the work that uses it.
Method before conclusion. Evaluations of culture, staining, antigen, serological and nucleic-acid methods against a stated reference standard are the substance of the discipline, and IJCM treats them as primary research rather than as supporting material.
Interpretation. A species name, a susceptibility category or a gene detected is a reading of evidence, not a self-evident fact. Work that examines how such readings are produced, reported and understood is in scope.
Resistance. Susceptibility testing and the detection of resistance mechanisms sit at the center of the discipline, and the laboratory is where most of what is known about resistance is first observed.
Setting. Diagnostic microbiology is practiced under widely different constraints. Studies from laboratories where microscopy remains the working method answer questions that studies from fully automated laboratories cannot.
From specimen to statement
Laboratory investigation often follows the sequence below. IJCM welcomes research at each stage, as well as infection-related pathogen biology, microbial-community research and methods development with a clear clinical microbiological contribution.
- Stage 01SpecimenCollection, transport and acceptance criteria. What is sampled, and from where, sets the ceiling on everything that follows.
- Stage 02DetectionCulture, microscopy, antigen, serology or nucleic-acid amplification, with the controls that separate signal from contamination.
- Stage 03IdentificationBiochemical profiling, mass spectrometry or sequencing, resolved only to the level the method can actually support.
- Stage 04SusceptibilityPhenotypic testing against a recognized standard, and the molecular detection of resistance determinants.
- Stage 05ReportWhat is released, in what terminology, with what qualifications, and to whom.
- Stage 06InterpretationHow the report is read alongside the clinical picture: the point at which the laboratory’s statement meets the patient’s.
Research is in scope at every stage. A study that improves specimen acceptance criteria and a study that resolves a species by sequencing are both clinical microbiology; they differ in where they sit on this sequence, not in kind.
A microbiological result describes what was found in a specimen by a stated method. It does not by itself establish a treatment decision or a patient outcome, and IJCM does not ask its authors to write as though it did. Conclusions are expected to reach as far as the evidence and no further.
What makes a study clinical microbiology
Clinical microbiology connects microbiology, infectious diseases, genomics, laboratory medicine and public health. The journal considers work whose central contribution advances clinical laboratory microbiology or infection-related microbial biology, including research relevant to human or animal disease.
General microbiology. Fundamental pathogen research is eligible when it addresses an infection-related microbiological question. General microbial ecology, industrial microbiology and organismal studies without that connection are outside scope.
Infectious diseases. Asks how infection is managed. IJCM publishes infection research where the microbiological work — recovery, identification, typing, susceptibility — is substantive rather than a stated input.
Molecular biology and genomics. Studies of pathogen biology, detection, identification, resistance, transmission and clinical microbial communities, including appropriately evaluated developmental methods and analyses of existing sequence data.
Laboratory medicine. Provides the quality framework — validation, internal and external quality assessment, competence, biosafety. Applied to microbiological testing, it is part of this journal's subject rather than adjacent to it.
Public health. Surveillance, outbreak research and laboratory-service studies are eligible when they make a central microbiological contribution. Data may be newly generated or drawn from documented laboratory records and other suitable sources. General population studies without that contribution belong to a different scope.
The subject areas the journal accepts, and the boundaries of each, are set out in full on the aims and scope page.
Who the journal is for
IJCM is written for the people who produce and interpret microbiological evidence: clinical microbiologists and laboratory physicians, diagnostic laboratory scientists, molecular diagnostic and microbial genomics researchers, those working on antimicrobial resistance and susceptibility testing, infection prevention and control teams, and infectious-disease researchers whose work rests on laboratory findings.
The journal is deliberately open to laboratories working under very different constraints. A method evaluation carried out where reagents and instrumentation are limited is as much a contribution to the discipline as one carried out where they are not, and is read by a different part of the same community.
What the evidence has to carry
Evidence requirements depend on the study design and claim. Diagnostic accuracy studies, developmental assays, observational analyses, qualitative laboratory-service studies and scholarly syntheses require different forms of support. The considerations below apply where relevant; immediate deployment, statistical significance and completed clinical validation are not universal scope requirements.
Specimens. What was sampled, from whom, how it was transported and on what grounds specimens were included or rejected.
Reference standard. What the method was compared against, and whether that comparator is itself capable of settling the question.
Controls. Positive, negative and contamination controls, stated rather than implied — the point at which most molecular detection work succeeds or fails.
Performance. Sensitivity, specificity and predictive values reported with the prevalence they were measured at, since the last two move with it.
Validation and reproducibility. Verification in the setting of use, repeatability, and enough method detail for another laboratory to repeat the work.
Susceptibility methodology. The testing method, the breakpoint set and its version, and the quality-control strains — without which a resistance figure cannot be compared with any other.
Genomic and molecular quality. Platform, coverage, assembly and analysis pipeline with versions, and the accession under which the data are available.
Clinical context. Enough about the patients and the setting for a reader to judge whether the finding transfers to their own.
Antimicrobial resistance
Resistance is a laboratory observation before it is anything else, and IJCM treats it as one. Work on susceptibility testing methods, on the phenotypic and molecular detection of resistance mechanisms, on surveillance in defined populations, and on the reporting practice that supports diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship is central to the journal.
A resistance prevalence measured in one laboratory, over one period, on one set of isolates, describes that sample. Authors are asked to say what their isolate collection represents and to keep the claim inside it; a local figure is valuable precisely because it is specific.
Manuscript-level requirements, including the reporting checklists the journal expects, are on the instructions for authors page.
How the journal is run
Editorial responsibility
An Editor-in-Chief holds editorial responsibility for the journal, supported by an editorial board whose members are listed with their role, affiliation and country, and with an ORCID iD where one has been supplied. Reviewers advise; editors decide. Editors and reviewers declare competing interests and stand aside from manuscripts in which they hold one.
Editorial decisions are taken independently of any fee, service, membership or role, and independently of the author's institution, funding or country. The board is listed in full on the editorial board page.
Review and decisions
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Research integrity and clinical responsibility
Research may involve human participants, clinical specimens, animal models or other laboratory systems. Applicable ethical approval, consent, privacy and biosafety requirements depend on the design. The journal also requires transparent reporting, data availability and disclosure of funding and competing interests. See the editorial policies for the relevant requirements.
Published work that is later found to be wrong is corrected, and work that cannot stand is retracted, with a notice that says what happened and remains attached to the record. The full policies are on the editorial policies page.
Access and the record
Articles are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, with the authors retaining copyright, and are free to read without registration. Each registered article has a DOI that resolves to its published version. How the journal is discoverable, and the difference between DOI registration, discovery services and selective indexing, is set out on the indexing page.
Journal facts
- Full title
- International Journal of Clinical Microbiology
- Abbreviation
- IJCMUsed with the full title on first mention. The journal is not abbreviated to a shorter form.
- ISSN
- 2690-4721
- Publisher
- Open Access Pub
- Publishing since
- 2017
- Discipline
- Clinical microbiologyDiagnostic bacteriology, clinical virology, medical mycology, clinical parasitology, antimicrobial resistance and molecular diagnostics.
- Access model
- Open access, free to read, no registrationArticle processing charges are invoiced after acceptance and are set out on the article processing charges page.
- License
- CC BY 4.0, authors retain copyrightCopyright and license
- Identifiers
- Crossref DOIs, prefix 10.14302ORCID iDs are displayed for editors and authors who supply one.
- Peer review
- Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
- Publication model
- Articles are published individually after acceptance and completion of production and collected into numbered issuesThe current issue and the complete archive are open to read.
- Language
- English
Related pages
- Aims and Scope
- Editorial Board
- Current Issue
- Archive
- Editorial Policies
- Instructions for Authors
- Indexing and discovery
- Article Processing Charges
Submitting work
Research articles, reviews, case reports, methodology articles (including technical notes), letters and perspectives within the reviewed scope are considered throughout the year. Authors should read the Aims and Scope and Instructions for Authors before submitting.
International Journal of Clinical Microbiology (IJCM) · ISSN 2690-4721 · published open access by Open Access Pub under CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI prefix 10.14302. Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role.