How to get your journal into PubMed Central: requirements and technical preparation
For a biomedical or life sciences journal, being included in PubMed Central (PMC) is one of the biggest steps up in visibility: the full text is archived in the database of the US National Library of Medicine and can be reached from PubMed, one of the search engines most widely used by researchers and clinicians. This article explains how to get your journal into PubMed Central.
The admission process has two clearly distinct parts: an assessment of scientific and editorial quality, and a technical evaluation of the files. Many journals pass the first and get stuck at the second. Here we look at both.
Prerequisites for applying
According to the criteria published by PMC, before applying the journal must meet the following conditions:
- A properly registered ISSN that can be verified in the ISSN International Centre register.
- Electronic publication that complies with PMC’s access policy.
- At least 25 peer-reviewed research articles published in their final version. If there has been a change of publisher or another major change, at least 20 published since that change.
- Compliance with PMC’s language guidelines.
- A publisher with a track record of at least two years of quality scholarly publishing in the life sciences (PMC may consider cases with a shorter history if the team has proven experience).
- A biomedical or life sciences scope, with a clear, published peer review policy.
Scientific and editorial evaluation
PMC checks that the journal mainly publishes primary peer-reviewed content (original articles, reviews, protocols, case reports, data descriptors) and that it has sound editorial and ethical policies that are applied consistently. Applications with systematic quality or ethics problems are rejected at the first screening.
If the journal does not pass this stage, it must wait 24 months before reapplying. That is why it pays to review policies, author guidelines and transparency thoroughly before applying.
Technical evaluation: where many journals fall down
Once past the scientific review, the journal must complete a technical checklist and submit a sample of around 25 recent, representative articles with all their files: XML, PDF, high-resolution images and supplementary material.
PMC checks that these files meet its minimum data criteria and its submission specifications, and that the content of each article accurately reflects the published version. If errors persist after three rounds of corrections, the application is rejected.
The most common problems at this stage are:
- JATS XML that does not validate or is missing required elements.
- Discrepancies between the XML and the published PDF (titles, authors, tables or references that do not match).
- Images with insufficient resolution or incorrectly linked from the XML.
- Incomplete metadata: dates, licence, funding or affiliations.
How to prepare before applying
- Review your editorial policies: peer review, ethics, conflicts of interest, retractions. Make sure they are published and actually applied.
- Produce your JATS XML systematically, not article by article with different methods. Consistency across articles is key in the technical evaluation.
- Validate your files with the validation tools and style checker provided by PMC before submitting the sample.
- Ensure consistency across formats: the XML, PDF and HTML must all be the same version of the article.
- Prepare your images at the resolution required by PMC’s specifications.
How Index Production can help
Index Production generates the JATS XML, PDF, HTML and EPUB from a single source, starting from the author’s Word file. Because every format comes from the same origin, they stay in sync, and each correction is made only once. That is exactly what you need to prepare a consistent sample of 25 articles with no discrepancies.
If you are preparing an application to PMC or to other databases such as SciELO, we can try it out with an article from your journal. And if you would like to estimate how much production time you would free up, use our savings calculator.
The requirements described are based on the information published by PMC about its application and evaluation process. Always check PMC’s official page before applying, as the criteria may change.