European Respiratory Journal Submission Process

First decisions are weighted toward the editorial fit screen, where most submissions end at roughly a 10 percent acceptance rate. For papers sent to reviewers, the full-review decision targets 8 to 16 weeks, while edge cases diverge sharply: a misrouted or low-consequence paper is an expedited desk redirect in the first 1 to 2 weeks, and a borderline-fit submission is an outlier that can sit longer while editors weigh consequence. ERJ is the ERS respiratory-medicine flagship, and the fit screen is the dominant feature of the early timeline.

If you want an outside read before you open Manuscript Central, use the free manuscript readiness check to test whether the consequence survives a selective fit screen.

Initial quality check: completeness and reporting fit

The first layer is administrative but still decisive. Before editors read for consequence, the intake verifies authorship and ICMJE criteria, competing-interest and funding disclosure, ethics and consent statements for human studies, trial registration where applicable, and reporting-guideline elements (such as CONSORT for trials or STROBE for observational work), alongside a data-availability statement. The first submission uses a relaxed my-paper-my-way format, but a missing registration or reporting element still weakens the package, and reformatting to house style happens at revision.

Editorial assignment: routing within the ERS editorial team

ERJ routes to editors within the ERS editorial structure by respiratory area (such as airway disease, infection, sleep, critical care, or interstitial disease). The framing you signal in the title and abstract determines which editor reads the contribution first, and a narrow framing can make a relevant study read as single-center or out of scope.

Peer review: consequence assessment after the fit screen

Manuscripts that clear the fit screen move to two or more reviewers under single-blind review. The reviewer job is not only to check that the methods are sound. It is to decide whether the work changes respiratory science, clinical practice, mechanistic understanding, or patient management, and whether the reporting discipline supports the conclusions.

Final decision: consequence stays live after reports return

Even after review, the decision still turns on consequence and broad relevance. A technically sound paper can be returned if the reports show the clinical or scientific consequence is limited, the work is narrow for a broad ERS readership, or the reporting leaves the conclusions unsupported.

This is where most submissions end. Before any reviewer is assigned, ERS editors read the abstract, the central question, and the consequence claim, and decide whether the paper changes respiratory practice, science, or patient management enough for a broad ERS readership.

At this stage the editors are effectively asking:

• does this work have clinical or scientific consequence for a broad respiratory audience, or is it narrow or confirmatory?

• is the relevance broad and European Respiratory Society aligned, or better suited to a sister or US-anchored journal?

• is the package complete, with trial registration, reporting-guideline elements, and ethics and consent statements?

Because this screen is selective at roughly a 10 percent acceptance rate, a decision in the first week or two is almost always a desk return rather than an acceptance. The turnaround, including a 1 to 2 week misroute redirect, lets authors re-route without a long wait.

Papers that clear the fit screen go to two or more reviewers, who typically assess:

• whether the work changes respiratory science, clinical practice, mechanism, or patient management

• the rigor of the study design and analysis

• reporting discipline, including registration and guideline adherence

• whether the conclusions are supported and relevant to a broad ERS readership

• clarity of the consequence in the abstract and first paragraph

ERJ uses single-blind review, so reviewers see author identities while staying anonymous themselves, and ERS Statements follow a distinct ERS task-force process rather than the standard manuscript channel. Full-review decisions target 8 to 16 weeks, though a single manuscript can move faster or slower depending on reviewer availability and the respiratory area.

• Reject (fast, pre-review): a desk return at the editorial fit screen, usually on consequence, breadth, or reporting completeness. Sharpen the consequence framing or re-route to a sister respiratory journal before resubmitting.

• Desk redirect: the editors judge the work misrouted and point you to a better venue, usually within 1 to 2 weeks.

• Major revision: substantive reviewer concerns, often about consequence, study design, or reporting discipline. The revised paper returns to the same reviewers and reformats to house style; respond point by point.

• Minor revision: the paper is essentially accepted pending specific fixes. Respond carefully and promptly.

• Accept: uncommon given the roughly 10 percent acceptance rate; usually follows a clean revision.

Four recurring patterns return otherwise-capable ERJ packages at the fit screen:

• Treating a fast first decision as a refereed rejection. At ERJ a quick decision is almost always a desk return at the fit screen, not a judgment of the methods. The screen happened before review.
• Consequence asserted, not shown. A sound study that does not make its clinical or scientific consequence clear in the abstract reads as confirmatory to a broad-readership editor.
• Narrow or single-center work without wider relevance. A result that holds for one center or a narrow population, without broader respiratory relevance, is what the fit screen returns first; AJRCCM, Chest, or ERJ Open Research is often the better home.
• Reporting-standards gaps. A missing trial registration, CONSORT or STROBE element, or ethics statement weakens the package at intake and after review.

Check whether your ERJ abstract makes the clinical or scientific consequence visible to the fit screen →

Check if your ERJ reporting package (registration, CONSORT or STROBE, ethics) is complete before intake →

Check whether your manuscript fits ERJ or a sister respiratory journal →

This guide tells you what ERJ editors look for at the fit screen; the review tells you whether your paper passes that screen. 60-day money-back guarantee; authors retain all rights and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts.

In our pre-submission review work on European Respiratory Journal submissions, three patterns account for most of the manuscripts that stall at the selective fit screen, before a reviewer is ever assigned.

The consequence is asserted, not shown

We repeatedly see European Respiratory Journal manuscripts where the abstract reports a result but never states what it changes for respiratory practice, science, or patients. Because ERS editors read the abstract for consequence, an implied consequence reads as confirmatory at a roughly 10 percent acceptance rate. The fix we push is to state, in the abstract and first paragraph, what the finding changes for a broad respiratory readership and why it matters now.

The work reads as narrow or single-center

A related pattern is a careful study whose relevance is bounded to one center or a narrow population, framed for a broad journal. The European Respiratory Journal editor reads it as narrow, and we help authors either argue the wider respiratory relevance explicitly or route deliberately to ERJ Open Research, Chest, or another sister venue rather than spend a desk-redirect cycle.

The reporting package is incomplete

The third pattern is a sound study that is quiet on reporting discipline: a missing trial registration, an incomplete CONSORT or STROBE checklist, or an ethics and consent statement that does not match the design. ERJ's intake and reviewers both weigh reporting discipline, and we treat a complete registration, reporting-guideline, and ethics package as a fit-screen prerequisite, not a revision-stage afterthought. In our European Respiratory Journal readiness checks we confirm the abstract states the clinical consequence, the first paragraph argues broad respiratory relevance, and the reporting package (trial registration, CONSORT or STROBE elements, and the ethics statement) is complete, because those are the components the ERS fit screen and the reviewers read before the study is judged for a broad readership.

ERJ (ERS, JIF 16+, broad respiratory medicine) sits among several adjacent venues, and the fit screen is partly a routing decision:

• choose AJRCCM for a high-impact, often US-anchored respiratory or critical-care result

• choose Lancet Respiratory Medicine for a major clinical trial or practice-changing study with wide reach

• choose Chest or Thorax for strong clinical respiratory work with a different readership fit

• choose ERJ Open Research when the work is sound but narrower than the ERJ consequence bar

• stay with ERJ when the work changes respiratory science or practice for a broad ERS readership with reporting discipline

Last verified June 2026 against the ERS and ERJ public author materials and the Manuscript Central intake. Editorial timing targets, the acceptance rate, and reporting requirements shift between updates; treat the numbers as planning ranges and confirm the current figures on the ERS site before you submit.