Regulatory Rapporteur
author guidelines

Download a copy of the author guidelines by clicking the link below:

1. Legal

1. By submitting an article to Regulatory Rapporteur, the author agrees to assign the copyright to TOPRA (publisher of Regulatory Rapporteur) upon publication under the terms provided in the copyright form.
2. Papers submitted to Regulatory Rapporteur must not have been previously published, either in print or online, or simultaneously submitted for review to any other publication.
3. Authors are responsible for all statements in their work and for obtaining permission to use previously published tables and illustrations.
4. All articles submitted to Regulatory Rapporteur must be original articles and all the author’s own work. Please note that our editors will check all manuscripts for plagiarism, including the use of large-language models (artificial intelligence (AI)), and articles will not be accepted if this is detected.
5. All papers submitted for publication will be subject to a peer review process.
6. TOPRA and the Editorial Board of Regulatory Rapporteur reserve the right to edit, abridge or omit material submitted for publication.
7. Authors should offer an impartial, original, non-promotional perspective on their chosen topic. We do not publish articles relating to a single proprietary product, technology or service and authors should not seek to use the journal as a vehicle for marketing any specific product or service. Promotional material will be deleted by our editors.
8. The author(s) must make any declarations of interest known to the editors of Regulatory Rapporteur, either in writing via email or via a statement at the beginning or end of the article.

2. Article format

1. Articles/proposals should be submitted by email as word documents to publications@topra.org. If a submitted article is unsolicited, please email an abstract and four or five key themes explored in the first instance. This proposal will be reviewed by the Editorial Board, and TOPRA will then confirm whether the article is approved or rejected for publication within Regulatory Rapporteur.
2. A Regulatory Rapporteur Focus article should be 2,000–2,500 words long. Significantly longer articles need to be agreed to in advance by the Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief.
3. Articles must be in English (UK).
4. Articles should include:

• A title, as short as possible while retaining key information
• A list of all authors, and their professional affiliations
• An abstract of 100–200 words. This will be visible to non-subscribers of Regulatory Rapporteur and therefore should be a broad overview explaining what the article is about without any technical detail or references.
• Key words (up to ten) which summarise the main theme of the article
• The main body of text, which can include headings, lists, tables and figures
• A conclusion or summary as a final paragraph
• A list of references, if required. Please see the referencing format section for details

5. All abbreviations should be written out in full the first time with the abbreviation in brackets and only used thereafter. For example, ‘The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for the scientific evaluation of centralised marketing authorisation applications (MAA).’
6. If created by the author, all tables and figures should be provided in an editable format, such as an Excel, Word or PowerPoint document. If taken from a source, all tables and figures should be referenced.
7. Please note that the final decision to accept or publish an article is at the discretion of the Editorial Board and/or TOPRA.

3. Referencing format

1. Any statements of fact made or statistics mentioned should be backed up with evidence from a reputable source and any mention of source material should be referenced accordingly. Personal opinions should be avoided, unless they are backed up by empirical evidence or research.
2. Please insert references in the text as simple numbers at the end of the sentence, with a numbered list of references at the end of the text. Please do not use footnotes or dynamic referencing.
3. In the references list, please include the following information where available:

• Author (or corporate author)
• Year of publication
• Title of reference
• Version/issue number, if applicable
• Page number (or page range) if the document is over 20 pages
• Digital Object Identifier (DOI), if available
• Link to relevant webpage/s, if the article has no DOI but is an online reference
• The date you accessed the article

4. Authors may also prefer to format references according to the Regulatory Rapporteur style, which can be found in our style guide. However, our in-house editors will ensure your references are properly formatted so the important thing is to include the required information.

4. Help and assistance

Please address any questions either pre- or post-publication by email to publications@topra.org.