About the Journal

Sapience is a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access journal published by the 786-MIII Medicine platform. Articles are published continuously online and gathered into monthly issues. There are no fees for authors and no fees for readers.

Sapience is the methodological-wisdom journal of the 786-MIII platform. Its focus is the applied craft of evidence — research design under real-world constraint, statistical reasoning, decision-making under uncertainty, the interpretation of imperfect data, and the teaching of these skills to working clinicians and to the next generation of researchers. Sapience publishes methods papers, reflective methodological commentary, teaching cases that work through the inferential logic of an example, and E156 micro-publications that distil a methodological insight to its essential form. The journal is more pedagogical and reflective in tone than its sister journals and welcomes work that prioritises clarity of reasoning alongside formal rigour.

Article types

Our encouraged default format is the E156 micro-publication: a 156-word abstract that is the paper, accompanied by an evidence capsule. Long-form articles are particularly welcome at Sapience and are equally valued.

  • E156 Micro-publication (encouraged default, 156-word body)
  • Methods Paper (up to 3,000 words) — particularly welcome
  • Narrative Review (up to 4,000 words)
  • Case-Based Teaching (up to 2,500 words) — particularly welcome
  • Editorial (up to 1,500 words)
  • Viewpoint (up to 1,500 words)
  • Debate (paired, up to 1,200 words each)
  • Reply / Response (up to 800 words)

The E156 evidence capsule and Assurance badges

  • Bronze — basic reproducibility: data file present, code runs end-to-end, dashboard generates, citation links resolve.
  • Silver — audited reproducibility: all of Bronze, plus row-level provenance, automated tests pass, every claim matched to a code output, limitations checked.
  • Gold — independent verification: all of Silver, plus independent re-extraction, independent re-run, citation/source audit, repository correction-and-versioning policy active.

Policies overview

Indexing & identifier readiness

ISSN application is in preparation; DOI/Crossref minting is planned; DOAJ, PMC, Scopus, and Web of Science applications will be staged once minimum publication history is in place. Google Scholar indexing is active.

Peer Review Process

Sapience 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

Sapience 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

Sapience 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.