Endocrine Reviews Submission Guide

Source: Endocrine Reviews author guidelines.

Oxford's current Endocrine Reviews instructions say every submitted review article must be preceded by an Article Plan. The Article Plan is not a casual pitch; it is the editor's first evidence that the proposed review has enough scope, timing, and authority.

Use this page when deciding:

• whether the proposed topic has timing headroom

• whether the author team supports the authority ER requires

• whether the scope justifies a 30-60 page treatment

• specific topic and synthesis value

• "why now" inflection (clinical trial result, mechanism breakthrough, public-health moment)

• differentiation from existing reviews

• author CVs with primary-research evidence

• Recent comprehensive coverage of the same topic.

• Author standing in adjacent rather than central endocrinology subfield.

• Synthesis argument missing. "A review of recent advances in [topic]" is not a synthesis argument.

• Scope wrong for the venue. Topics that fit a Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism opinion don't justify ER's depth.

ER is the Endocrine Society's flagship review venue, with an editorial standard tuned to comprehensive synthesis by leading endocrinologists.

Authority-driven selection: ER reviews are read as authoritative because authors built the field they're synthesizing.

The 5-year timing window: ER rarely commissions a comprehensive review of a topic covered by an existing ER or NRE piece within the last 5 years.

Clinical relevance expectation: unlike Annual Review of Physiology (more basic-science), ER expects translational or clinical relevance even for mechanistically-focused reviews.

The strongest ER proposals sound like a senior endocrinologist briefing the editorial office on a synthesis the field needs.

They usually:

• state the synthesis argument in one sentence

• explain the timing inflection

• distinguish from existing reviews

• establish author credentials with primary-research evidence

• propose a working title and approximate structure

Before submitting to Endocrine Reviews, an Endocrine Reviews submission readiness check identifies whether the package meets the editorial bar before you commit to the submission.

• Is Endocrine Reviews a good journal?

• Annual Review of Biochemistry submission guide

Before drafting the proposal, run it through an Endocrine Reviews proposal-readiness check.

Official sources set the requirements, but the remaining question is manuscript fit. This guide tells you what Endocrine Reviews editors look for before they invite the full manuscript: article-plan authority, timing, scope, and synthesis logic. The review tells you whether your paper clears the Endocrine Reviews fit check before upload, especially around author standing in adjacent rather than central endocrinology, a comprehensive review of the topic appearing in adjacent venues recently, and proposal reading as a survey rather than a synthesis. Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts.

Across Manusights submission reviews for proposals targeting ER, three patterns generate the most consistent rejections.

In our pre-submission review work, we see many Endocrine Reviews proposal rejections trace to author-authority mismatch with the proposed endocrinology subfield. We also often find these cases involve timing collisions with recent Endocrine Reviews or Nature Reviews Endocrinology pieces. A related pattern is that these cases often arise from proposals reading as comprehensive surveys without a specific synthesis argument.

Endocrine Reviews author authority gap. The Article Plan may include a strong outline and current references, but the CVs, bibliography, cover letter, and author contribution story do not prove sustained primary-research authority in the exact endocrine topic. This is different from being a strong clinician, physiologist, or adjacent metabolism researcher; ER needs the author team to look like it can synthesize the field from inside it.

Endocrine Reviews timing collision. The top 10 recent-article list may show why the topic matters, but the reference map can also reveal that a recent ER, NRE, Annual Review of Physiology, or Trends piece already did the comprehensive synthesis. In those cases, the abstract, outline, and proposed tables need a distinct organizing argument, not just updated citations.

Endocrine Reviews survey-shaped plan. The outline may be complete while the one-page narrative still sounds like a catalog of recent findings. The manuscript components that usually expose this problem are the article title, abstract, section headings, key figures, and conclusion claim: they summarize literature but do not state the framework the review will give the field.

Author standing is in adjacent rather than central endocrinology subfield

ER editors weigh authority heavily. We observe that proposals from authors with primary research in adjacent areas (general physiology, basic-science metabolism without clinical focus) are routinely declined.

Check whether your Endocrine Reviews author standing matches the article plan →

A comprehensive review of the topic appeared in adjacent venues recently

ER editors check NRE, Annual Review of Physiology, and Trends in Endocrinology. We see proposals overlapping recent comprehensive reviews routinely declined unless the new piece offers a distinct synthesis.

Check whether your Endocrine Reviews topic has enough timing headroom →

The proposal is a survey, not a synthesis

Editors at ER look for a specific framework or argument. We find that proposals framed as "comprehensive review of recent progress" are routinely returned with the suggestion to articulate what specifically the synthesis will reorganize. A ER proposal-readiness check can identify whether the proposed argument and authority case are strong before submission.

Clarivate JCR release context and Oxford Academic's 2025 JIF data place ER among top endocrinology review journals. SciRev author-reported data confirms 4-6 week proposal evaluation windows.

Check whether your Endocrine Reviews proposal has a synthesis argument →

Before the reviewer-invitation stage, read the Endocrine Reviews package against the same risks this guide flags in the Manusights section. The practical question is whether the abstract, cover letter, figures or tables, methods, reporting statements, supplementary files, and references all make the journal choice obvious.

• If the abstract still points toward author standing is in adjacent rather than central endocrinology subfield, revise the central claim before upload.

• If the evidence package leaves a comprehensive review of the topic appeared in adjacent venues recently, strengthen the methods, controls, figures, or supplementary material rather than expecting reviewers to infer it.

• If the cover letter cannot resolve proposal is a survey, not a synthesis, compare the target journal against the adjacent venues named above before submitting.

This page was researched from Endocrine Reviews's author guidelines, Endocrine Society editorial-policy materials, Clarivate JCR data, SciRev community reports, and our pre-submission review work on pre-submission proposals we've reviewed for ER and adjacent venues (Annual Review of Physiology, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, Nature Reviews Endocrinology).

The failure pattern we observe most often is author authority mismatch.

Manusights guide-build evidence units for this page include the official Article Plan requirements, the Oxford journal page, Endocrine Society scope language, public metric records, and proposal patterns we see in endocrinology review work. Source limitation: official guidance explains the required files and upload path, but it cannot tell an author whether their Article Plan has enough endocrine-specific authority, recent-review separation, and synthesis logic to justify an invitation.