INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical
Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

Please read the guidelines below and then visit the submission site (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/inq)
to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Inquiry will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work,
that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and
that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that
you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not
owned by you.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

Please Read the Manuscript Submission Guidelines below before submitting your manuscript here:
SUBMIT MANUSCRIPT

 

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Peer Review Policy
   4.2 Authorship
   4.3 Acknowledgements
   4.4 Funding
   4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
   4.7 Clinical Trials
   4.8 Reporting guidelines
   4.9 Data
5. Publishing policies
   5.1 Publication ethics
   5.1.1 Plagiarism
   5.1.2 Prior publication
   5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript
   6.1 Word processing formats
   6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   6.3 Supplemental material
   6.4 Journal layout
   6.5 Reference style
   6.6 English language editing services
7. Submitting your manuscript
   7.1 How to submit your manuscript
   7.2 Pre-submission check
   7.3 Title, keywords and abstracts
   7.4 Information required for completing your submission
   7.5 ORCID
8. On acceptance and publication
   8.1 Sage Production
   8.2 Continuous publication
9. Further information

1. Open Access

Inquiry is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available
online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in
perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are
paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a
paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Article processing charge (APC)

If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is
payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in
perpetuity under a Creative Commons licence.

The APC for this journal is 2200 USD.

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3. What do we publish?

Every effort should be made by the author to ensure that the main document file contains no clues as to the
author identity of the author.

On the first page should be the abstract (a maximum of 250 words) and 4-5 keywords. All tables should be placed
at the end of the file and numbered in the order they appear in the text. We strongly encourage the appropriate
use of bar charts and line graphs to illustrate key findings. Figures should be placed in individual text files, separate
from the main document file.

Article types published by Inquiry are given below, with limits on words and in-text tables given in brackets.
Word limits include tables, but not abstracts, key words, or references.

• Original Research (5000 words, 3 tables)
• Reviews, including Systematic Reviews (5000 words, 3 tables)
• Case Studies (2000 words, 3 tables)
• Policy Briefs (1000 words, 1 table)
• Editorials (3000 words, 3 tables)
• Comment (1000 words) – Intended for responses to published papers or responses to other comments.
  Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived.

All article types require a structured abstract except commentaries, which include a summary.
Citations should be numbered in AMA style. A citation program such as EndNote should be used. 

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

Following a preliminary triage to eliminate submissions unsuitable for Inquiry, all papers are sent out for
review.

Please include a cover letter in your submission. To help the Editor in his preliminary evaluation, please
indicate in this letter why you think the paper is suitable for publication.

The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. Inquiry utilizes a double anonymized
peer review process in which the reviewer and author’s names and information are withheld from
the other.

All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Peer review is managed by
the Sage Managing Editor who assigns each submitted manuscript to appropriate reviewers and, with the
input of the Editorial Board, and comments and recommendations of the reviewers, makes decisions on
the eligibility of the article for publication.

4.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors.
Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are
acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

(i) Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or
interpretation of data,
(ii) Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
(iii) Approved the version to be published,
(iv) Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for
appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author should have participated
sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who
accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for
authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not
constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be
listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship

4.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements
section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical
help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

4.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

4.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not
qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any
writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity
that paid for this assistance”).

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer
review.

4.4 Funding

Inquiry requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate
heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to
confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research
received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of Inquiry to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors, enabling a
statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your
manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state
that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

4.6 Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical
Association Declaration of Helsinki.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting,
Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or
human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional
Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and
institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants
provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the
manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient
information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized
representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as
this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing,
that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the
authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may
be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.

4.7 Clinical trials

Inquiry conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public
trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for
publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the
abstract.

4.8 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study.
For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed
Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart as a cited figure, and a completed
CONSORT checklist as a supplementary file.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

4.9 Data

At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Inquiry requests all authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository as a condition of publication. This is subject to ethical considerations and in such cases the journal editor may grant an exception and authors should contact the Editorial Office at umair.shafique@sagepub.com. Authors are also required to include a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file and to follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

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5. Publishing policies

5.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to
the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics
page on the Sage Author Gateway.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

Inquiry and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in
publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims
of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal
against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an
article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material
without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is
contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or
corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or
dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal
action.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal.
However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for
publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at
the address given below.

5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing
Agreement. Inquiry publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard Inquiry license
is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0), which allows others to re-use the
work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For
more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page.

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at
the author’s request.

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6. Preparing your manuscript

6.1 Word processing formats

Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also
accepted. The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right
hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. Word and (La)Tex
templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit
Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

6.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc)
alongside the full-text of the article. These will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article. For
more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files, which can be found
within our Manuscript Submission Guidelines page.

6.4 Journal layout

Inquiry conforms to the AMA style. Click here to review guidelines on AMA.

6.5 Reference style

Inquiry adheres to the reference style specified in the AMA Manual of Style 11th Edition, Click here to
review the guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

6.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting
to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language
Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript

Inquiry is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by
ScholarOne™ Manuscripts.

Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/inq to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a
new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have
had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit
ScholarOne Online Help.

7.2 Pre-submission check 

Prior to submitting, you may consider running your manuscript through the Paperpal Preflight service, which instantly checks your manuscript and helps you address the most common errors and omissions. 

7.3 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords
and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as
Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract
and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help
Readers Find Your Article Online.

7.4 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the 
submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match 
what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed on the manuscript should be the institution 
where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing 
the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At 
this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and 
uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

7.5 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a
supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique
and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even
those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as
manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their
professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this
journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission
during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID
ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when
prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD
will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and
only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work
can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID
homepage to learn more.

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8. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s
publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been check for Sage Production, the corresponding author
will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your
article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that no
production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.

8.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the 
production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal 
Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are 
reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, 
affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest 
statements, if any, are accurate. 

8.2 Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to
publication. With no issues to fill and no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a
fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it
will be completely free to view and download for all. Check the ‘Latest Articles’ tab on the journal website
for the latest published content.

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should
be sent to the Editor, Umair Shafique | umair.shafique@sagepub.com

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