About the Journal
Synthesis is a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access journal published by Perfervid Consultancy Services (Plot No. BA 951, Bush Road, CF 0491 Mankessim, Central Region, Ghana). Articles are published continuously online and gathered into monthly issues. There are no fees for authors and no fees for readers.
Synthesis publishes evidence syntheses across all areas of medicine: short, fully reproducible meta-analyses; methodological notes; and brief updates to previously published syntheses where new data materially change the inference. Authors are encouraged to share the underlying protocol, search strategy, data, and code, and to report following PRISMA 2020. Authors are encouraged to pre-register protocols on PROSPERO or OSF and to follow PRISMA 2020 for reporting.
Article types
Our default short format is the E156 Research Letter: a focused evidence analysis with a 156-word main text. The E468 Short Report offers more room for compact methods analyses and original short reports, and full-length articles are equally welcome where the question or audience warrants more space. In E156 and E468, the word limit applies only to the main text and excludes the title, abstract, references, tables, figure legends, declarations and supplementary files.
- E156 Research Letter (156-word main text) — a single focused evidence analysis; structured fields: Background, Methods, Results, Inference; supported by tables, references, data and code.
- E468 Short Report (468-word main text) — a compact Methods Analysis Paper or original short report built around one methodological question and up to three linked worked analyses; supported by a structured abstract, tables, figure captions, references, declarations, supplementary material, data and code.
- Original Research / Full-length Article — full-length meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and original studies, with no fixed short-format word limit.
- Methods Paper (up to 3,000 words) — methodological development, statistical innovation, validation, software, workflows.
- Narrative Review (up to 4,000 words) — critical synthesis; PRISMA where systematic.
- Case-Based Teaching (up to 2,500 words) — anonymised clinical case with CARE reporting and written patient consent.
- Editorial (up to 1,500 words, invited or proposed).
- Viewpoint (up to 1,500 words) — author-led perspective.
- Debate (paired, up to 1,200 words each).
- Reply / Response (up to 800 words).
Policies overview
Detailed policies are published on the following pages:
- Submissions & Author Guidelines — article types, authorship, ethics, data sharing, reproducibility, reporting guidelines, preprint, image manipulation, plagiarism.
- Editorial Team — editor-in-chief and editorial independence.
- Privacy Statement
- Contact
Indexing & identifier readiness
| Index / identifier | Status |
|---|---|
| ISSN | Application in preparation. |
| DOI (Crossref) | Planned. |
| Google Scholar | Structured for discovery; inclusion not guaranteed. |
| DOAJ | Application staged once minimum publication history is in place. |
| PubMed Central | Application staged once ISSN, DOIs, JATS XML output, and a preservation network are in place. |
| MEDLINE (LSTRC) | Pursued after PMC acceptance. |
| Scopus / Web of Science (ESCI) | Applications pursued in parallel with DOAJ. |
| OAI-PMH | Open (Dublin Core enabled). |
| ORCID | Required as a manual field at submission; full plugin integration planned. |
This page is updated as indexing status changes.
Peer Review Process
Synthesis follows a structured editorial and peer-review process aligned with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Each submission is first assessed by the editorial team for scope, completeness, and research integrity, then reviewed by individuals with relevant expertise who evaluate originality, methodological soundness, clarity, and significance. Final decisions rest with the editors and are based on the reviews and the scholarly merit of the work.
Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Synthesis upholds high standards of publication ethics and follows COPE guidance. Authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to act with integrity. The journal addresses allegations of misconduct—including plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, and redundant publication—and issues corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern where warranted.
Authorship
Authorship is limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the work. All listed authors approve the final version and agree to be accountable for it. Contributors not meeting authorship criteria are acknowledged.
Competing Interests
Authors must disclose any financial or non-financial competing interests that could be perceived to influence the work. Reviewers and editors recuse themselves from submissions in which they have a conflict of interest.
Data Availability
Authors are encouraged to make the data, code, and materials underlying their findings openly available where ethically and legally possible, and to include a data-availability statement.
Open Access and Licensing
Synthesis is a fully open-access journal. All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), permitting use and redistribution with appropriate credit.
