Instructions for authors

Before you submit

Now you’ve identified a journal to submit to, there are a few things you should be familiar with before you submit.

Ready to submit

To give your manuscript the best chance of publication, follow these policies and formatting guidelines.

Submit and promote

Please note that manuscript can only be submitted by an author of the manuscript and may not be submitted by a third party.

After acceptance, we provide support so your article gains maximum impact in the scientific community and beyond.

  • Instructions and help for the electronic submission and peer-review system NESTOR - Instructions for Nestor
  • Accepted articles will be available within 48h online on the main website - S&S Accepted Manuscripts
  • For any further questions please contact S&S editorial office - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Submit manuscript

1. General

1.1 Conditions of acceptance of a submission

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work has not been published and is not submitted for publication anywhere else. Publication must be approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form in any language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. Authors should accept Article Processing Charges (APC is free in 2021). (For immediate submission, please submit your article to editorial office email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .) For ethics in publishing consult COPE. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Similarity Check.

Authors are invited to comply with the "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals", which were established and made available by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/, polices established by the Council of Science Editors (CSE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and others.

1.2 Authorship

Especially the ICMJE recommends that all those designated as authors meet all of the criteria they describe. The list of criteria is available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/. Those contributors who do not meet all of the criteria shall be acknowledged.

1.3 Conflict of interest

Authors must disclose whether or not they have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. They should also state that they have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested. Especially publications in Life Sciences and Medicine are invited to be accompanied by the "Conflicts of Interest Disclosure Form" at the initial submission.

Any additional conflict of interest, on personal or any other level must also be disclosed. The author is advised to fill out the Conflicts of Interest Disclosure Form, and finishing by Generate Disclosure Statement". This statement shall be reproduced in the article manuscript.

1.4 Publication Ethics and protection of research participants

All laws and regulations should be strictly followed. If required, authors are requested to indicate ethical declarations issued by their institution and concerning their research, including permit numbers, in the Material and Methods section. Authors are requested to fully comply with the ICMJE recommendations in this respect, particularly with the patient's right to privacy, as well as the necessity to have the patient's written consent.

1.5 Reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration

For all studies based on clinical trials, depending on the study design, reporting guidelines such as CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, STARD should be followed. For more information about these guidelines authors should visit the websites of the EQUATOR network or the corresponding sources at the NLM website. The policy for clinical trial registration by the ICMJE is given in their recommendations. These should be followed by the authors in this journal.

1.6 Open access

All articles published by Security and Safety are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Articles are available from the website of the journal (https://sands.edpsciences.org and http://securityandsafety.cn), from PubMed Central, from Europe PubMed Central, in various formats. Authors are the copyright holders of their articles. All articles bear the following mention: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1.7 Open Data and Open Code

1.7.1 Open Data

Security and Safety authors are invited to upload supplemental datasets related to their research to an online repository, making it available for both human and machine reading in order to further aid the acceleration of scientific discovery.

Authors are invited to prepare and deposit their data according to the FAIR data principles. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable. The principles are available here.

To summarize this, the dataset should be findable through a complete set of metadata, including a license for re-use and a data identifier (DOI or other). The dataset is accessible when access is open. Interoperable means that the data can be used and combined with other datasets in a format that is sufficiently widely distributed. Re-usability is achieved when the dataset is deposited with a corresponding Creative Commons open license and is downloadable. Further, re-usability includes that parameters how this dataset has been collected and machine and experimental conditions are documented.

1.7.2 Open Code

Security and Safety authors are invited to make their codes publicly available in order to make the research methodology explicit and allow for the replication of processes in subsequent exploratory research.

1.8 ORCID

From October 2024, only authenticated ORCIDs will be published in this journal. Any ORCIDs included in the manuscript files or provided outside of the authentication process outlined below will not be included in the published article. Corresponding authors can link their own ORCID to their profile at the time of submission. They should also enter their co-authors details (names and email addresses) in the system at this time. Co-authors listed this way will be automatically invited to confirm that they are co-authors of the manuscript, and to validate their ORCID. This must be done before article acceptance. See also EDP Sciences ORCID policy here.

2. Types of papers

Below are listed the types of publications are considered:

  • Editorial
  • Review
  • Research Article
  • Views
  • Perspective
  • Commentary
  • MOOP (Multimedia Open Online Paper)

Editorial: Editorials serve as the voice of Security and Safety and are written by the Journal's Editors and Guest Editors.

Review: Summarize the recent progress in certain core scientific disciplines, comment on the research status, and highlight future directions. The author(s) should focus on one topical aspect rather than providing a comprehensive literature survey. Review papers should closely relate to, but not only focus on the author’s own research work. Reviews are usually solicited by editors, but unsolicited submissions may also be considered. Reviews are suggested to be limited to 50 printed pages including up to 300 references, a 250-word abstract, 4–6 keywords and a maximum of 20 displayed items.

Research Article: Originally report substantial advances regarding an important scientific problem. Articles normally include a 250-word abstract, 4–6 keywords, up to 12 figures or tables or videos and 100 references. Other supporting information should usually be included in Supplementary materials that will only be published online. Research articles are suggested to be limited to 30 print pages, including references, captions and notes.

Views: Provide fresh insights on new advances of a specific research field of science and technology, or scientific policy and other issues related to science community. Views normally include a 250-word abstract, 4–6 keywords, up to 12 figures or tables and 60 references. Views are suggested to be limited to 30 print pages, including references, captions and notes.

Perspective: Provide fresh insights on new advances of a specific research field of science and technology, or scientific policy and other issues related to science community. Authors should not primarily discuss their own work. While snapshot the issue or problem, perspectives are expected to propose a solution in detail. Perspective should be less than 3000 words with a maximum of 15 references and 1–2 displayed items.

Commentairy: Commentary articles may reflect an individual perception, involvement, or contribution to oncology, and should be prepared in a similar way to a Review. Commentary should present a personal and original perspective on an important research-related topic of interest to the research community, rather than a balanced review of this topic. The aim should be to stimulate debate or new research, cover controversial topics, or provide a new framework for, or interpretation of, an old problem or current issue, or speculate on the implications of some recent research. Although Commentary articles can be more 'forward looking' than Reviews, please avoid being overly speculative. Please note that articles that outline recent advances in a field rather than give a strong opinion on them are not suitable for this section of the journal; neither are hypotheses without any published support. Commentary are generally solicited and expected to have no more than 2,500 words with 1 displayed item and no more than 60 references.

MOOP (Multimedia Open Online Paper): MOOP presents novel ideas, original research results and significant developments within the journal scope and uses multimedia material such as presentation slices and/or video sequences for illustrating research findings. MOOPs are suggested to be limited to 3 print pages, including references, captions and notes.

Please ensure that you select the appropriate article type from the list of options when making your submission.

3. Preparing your manuscript

Use CMR (Computer Modern Roman) 10pt with 1.2-1.5 interline throughout the manuscript and avoid unnecessary formatting. Number pages. Use up to three subheading levels in total. SI units should be used throughout the manuscript. Manuscripts may be submitted in LATEX or WORD format (Latex is preferred). No Italic font in the maintext except those italicized symbols (such as variables, axes, constants, etc.) and words (such as in vivo, in vitro, in situ, e.g., etc.).

Manuscripts should be prepared according to the following order:

Original research article

  • Title and authors
  • Abstract and 4-6 keywords (only need for Review, Research Article and Views)
  • Main text including Tables, Figures, Videos (Optional) etc.
  • Conflict of Interest
  • Data Availability (need mainly for Research articles)
  • Authors’ Contributions (required for articles with more than one author)
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • Supporting Information (optional, online file Only including Appendix and all the supporting information needed)
  • References
  • Author Biography (optional)

3.1 Title and authors

3.1.1 Title

Title should be simple, concise and informative. A shortened version of the title consisting of a maximum of 75 characters (including spaces) for running headers should also be provided.

3.1.2 Author(s) name(s) and affiliations

A list of all authors with full names, email addresses (better official/institute email), as well as corresponding addresses, should be provided. Addresses should contain all information necessary for an effective postal mail delivery. Security and Safety encourages the listing of authors’ Open Researcher and Contributor Identification (ORCID).

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. All authors should be involved in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Any other contributors should not be listed as authors, but rather be acknowledged appropriately in the Acknowledgments section. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have made bona fide, substantive contributions to the research and have seen and approved the manuscript in final form prior to submission.

Multiple corresponding authors are accepted in a single submission. The journal does not allow addition or removal of author names after submission unless exceptional circumstances are noted. A satisfactory explanation for any proposed changes in authorship will be required. We will also require a letter of consent from any person whose name has been removed indicating that they agree to the removal of their name from the author list. Owing to the complexity of these rules we strongly advise authors to fix the author list before submission and not to attempt to make changes at a later date.

3.2 Abstract and keywords (only required for Review, Research Article and Views)

An abstract and keywords should accompany with manuscript for article type of Review, Research Article and Views; The abstract should be completely self-contained, not more than 300-400 words in length. No more than 6 relevant keywords should be provided below the abstract.

Also, since our content will be also shown on SciEngine, which has both English and Chinese version websites, an abstract in Chinese version is optional to all the authors. Authors could enter the Chinese version themselves in the submission system or ask editor office help to add the Chinese version. If not provided, the website will directly using AI translation directly. This Chinese version will only be shown on the SciEngine Chinese Website of Security and Safety and article promotion push to attract more native Chinese-speaking readers. It will not go to production progress.

3.3 Main text

3.3.1 Main text structure

(1) Introduction

No subsection. This section is headed "Introduction".

(2) Main body no fixing title

This part may be presented as several subsections (up to four levels of subheadings). All information regarding deposit of data and code underlying the published research should be mentioned in this section, by indicating especially by hyperlinks where the information can be found.

(3) Conclusion (and Future Work)

This section may be presented as a single part or as several subsections; maximum of two subheading levels. The last subsection can be "Conclusion" or “Conclusion and Future Work”.

3.3.2 Tables (Latex template)

Tables (numbered as Table 1, Table 2, etc.) should be presented as one per page. Avoid complex formatting and use the basic Table format in Word, Latex or Excel. The tables are using CMR font, main text font size is 8pt, for some highlight information within the Table could using text up to 10pt. The table title should be concise and accurate and move all the unnessary information as Notes below the table. No periods for Table capitals. If there are notes inside the table, using a, b, c as superscript inside the table and displayed below as Notes. Notes of the Tables should be 7pt. Basically, all tables are based on a three-line table structure and the table width is 160mm. The upper and lower main lines are 1pt, the middle line is 0.75pt, and the added small dividing line is 0.5pt.

3.3.3 Figures

Figures should be numbered as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. They are referred to in the text as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.

Write mathematical equations as simply as possible. Statistical software should be clearly indicated and cited.

Figures should be indicated with a reasonable number of digits, coherent with the significance of the result. This is especially important for the abstract.

All figures are published free of charge (i.e. they are included in the publication fee), including color photographs and diagrams. However, only photographs of scientific interest and pertaining to the subject of the article should be included. Color illustrations, especially diagrams, should be understandable even, if they are printed as grey levels.

Figures should be prepared to be of good quality both when they are viewed onscreen as HTML and when the PDF is printed. Figures may be arranged as "plates", but keep in mind that PDFs are prepared to be printed on A4 pages.

The electronic submission system will accept PNG (preferred), TIFF (with compression), and EPS files, with appropriate resolution (300 dpi for color photographs, 600 dpi for halftone work, 1200 dpi for line work). JPG format is not recommended - PNG is preferred.

Manuscripts with figures of insufficient technical quality will be immediately sent back for revision by the editorial team and will not begin the review process before correct files are uploaded. In other words, sending a manuscript with incorrect figures will gain nothing and may delay its possible publication. No periods for Figure capitals.

Please do pay attention to the following requirements for figures in the main text (not including figures in the supplementary materials) and upload each figure file separately in the right format to the system.

Figures size: S&S's standard figure sizes are up to 160 mm wide. The height of a figure should be less than 210 mm. Please strictly follow this formatting requirement in the final publication version. All the general text in the Figures are using "Times new roman". most of the text are with 8pt font size, only for those that need to be Highlight could be 10pt. Delete the background which is not useful and using white text color on heavy color background, and black text on light and white color background. Line: Line weights and strokes should be set between 0.25 and 1 pt at the final size (lines thinner than 0.25 pt may vanish in print). The graphic file can be provided in RGB or CMYK format. Figures should be in vector image format. Vector images consist of many individual elements or vector objects, allowing each vector object to be transformed independently within the image.

3.3.4 Videos

Videos should be numbered as Video 1, Video 2, etc. They are referred to in the text as Video 1, Video 2, etc. Legends are grouped on a separate page. More information about video is available in Guidelines for video production.

3.4 Conflict of Interest

This section, mandatory in all articles must be inserted before the Acknowledgements. This section shall describe whether yes or no, each individual author has to disclose any kind of conflict of interest.

Depending on the type of conflict, the following sentences are recommended to be added for each author (please use the authors' initials here):

  • For author AA receiving personal funding please state:
    "AA has received funding from" and note the source.
  • In case BB's institution received any sort of support, state
    "The institution of BB has received funding from…" and note the source.
  • If CC received no financial support please state:
    "CC certifies that he or she has no financial conflict of interest (eg, consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc) in connection with this article."
  • If DD has received or may receive any personal payment or other benefit from a commercial entity (eg, serve as a consultant), please note:
    "DD has or may receive payments or benefits from… (note the source) related to this work."

3.5 Data Availability (Mainly needed for Research Article)

This section may be presented as a single part; Where ethically feasible, S&S strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. S&S supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI).

A clear statement of the above-mentioned data availability is required after acceptance. The statement should come after the Conflict of Interest, with the direct link or DOI to the repository or database, if the authors choose to upload the data in this manner. Otherwise author should state: “The original data are available from corresponding authors upon reasonable request.”.

If no data associate with this article, delete this part, only when having this information should mentioned it after the Conflict of Interest part.

3.6 Authors’ Contributions

This section may be presented as a single part for those articles have more than one author to give appropriate credit and to make sure all individuals listed as authors, the individual contributions of authors should be specified in "Authors’ Contributions" section of the manuscript.

3.7 Acknowledgements

This section must be concise. No subdivisions. Mention here colleagues and grants. See also the above section about authorship (see 1.2) and mention here all those persons not meeting all the criteria necessary for authorship.

3.8 Funding

This section must be concise. No subdivisions. Mention here funding related in order.

3.9 Supporting Information

This section is optional but must be concise. If no supplementary information, delete this part, only when having this information should mentioned it between Funding and References Sections.

Supplementary online material are shown as supporting information and may include data too long to be included in the manuscript, additional illustrations and movies. Online material is subjected to strict refereeing. Formats accepted are: PDF, graphic formats for supplementary figures (see 3.3.3), MPEG for videos. Files should preferably be less than 20 Mb. Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript, but would nevertheless benefit the reader, can be made available by the publisher as online-only content, linked to the online manuscript. The material should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper, but should contain data that is additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, or additional figures.

It is standard practice for appendices to be made available online-only as supplementary data. All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats. All material to be considered as supplementary data must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication, and will not be edited. Please indicate clearly all material intended as supplementary data upon submission and name the files, e.g. “Supporting Information Figure 1”, “Supporting Information Appendix”, etc. Also ensure that the Supporting Information is referred to in the main manuscript where necessary, for example as “(see Supporting Information)” or “(see Supporting Information Figure 1)”.

Please note that the responsibility for scientific accuracy and content in supplementary data remains entirely with authors.

3.10 References

This section should be arranged according to the precise format detailed below. Only works cited in the text should appear here. Citation of unpublished papers and grey literature should generally be avoided. Software cited in the Material and Methods should have a citation. Papers may be cited as "in press" only when they have been accepted for publication (in this case, include the DOI).

Reference text font size to 8pt. References should be listed in the order in which they appear in the text, starting with [1]. The reference text should have not Italic font, and font size 8pt.

If you use EndNote and Mendeley to facilitate referencing citations (not required for submission), this journal’s style can be found at:

  • Mendeley: (OUP SciMed Numeric)
  • Endnote: (Endnote style.ens)

Authors are encouraged to use a reference manager software. The below given format of the references is mandatory, authors are invited to strictly follow these guidelines.

Authors should provide direct references to original research sources whenever possible. References should not be used by authors, editors, or peer reviewers to promote self-interests. Authors should avoid citing articles in predatory or pseudo-journals.

Authors are responsible for checking that none of the references cite retracted articles except in the context of referring to the retraction. Authors can identify retracted articles in MEDLINE by searching in the PubMed's list of retracted publications.

3.10.1 References in the text

References are numbered as [1], [2,3,7] or [5-9]. This allows copious lists of references without lengthening the text itself. The use of numbered references does not mean that author names and dates of cited papers are prohibited in the text, but this should be used only if necessary.

Example: Many studies [1-9] have addressed … (no special need to indicate authors here). In 2013, Smith [10] claimed that … but Dupont [11,12] later demonstrated that… (names of authors and dates are useful here).

3.10.2 Presentation of references

References are numbered in the order of appearance in the text. Words in titles are not capitalised. No journal name begins with "The".

The common structure of each reference follows always the below example:

Journal articles

[1] Ji X S, Yang J, Huang K Z, et al. Physical layer authentication scheme based on Hash method. J Electron Inf Technol 2016; 38: 2900-7.

[2] Sun Y H, Zhao M, Zhang S H. Aggregation transmission scheme for machine type communications. Sci China Inf Sci 2017; 60: 100305

Book chapter

[3] Kumar T, Liyanage M, Ahmad I, et al. User privacy, identity and trust in 5G. In: A Comprehensive Guide to 5G Security. Hoboken: Wiley, 2018. Complete book

Complete book

[4] Wu JX. Cyberspace Mimic Defense: General Robust Control and Endogenous Safety & Security. China: Springer, December 2019

3.11 Author Biography

This section includes an electronic photo and a paragraph of biography for each author in the order of the author list. The raw photo of the author in eps or png (please cropped the photos as ratio of 2:3) to make the photo clear, if not try the png photo directly to make the final author photo clear enough. Within 200 words.

Author Photo Width*Height = 20mm*30mm. Author Full name ( 9pt CMR Bold) This part is author biography ( 9pt Justify), which are within W*H=115mm *300mm. Line spacing is 1.2*9pt=10 .8pt. For example, “.... received his/her Ph.D. degree from ... in 2017. He is currently a professor with the ...., Beijing, China. His research interests include xxxxxx.”

4. Layout

For particular inquiry of manuscript style, please feel free to contact editorial office at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . For detailed style references, please check our journal style guide. Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word or LaTex. Times New Roman is the recommended font. Manuscripts should be in English only.

Download S&S Word template .doc
Download S&S LaTex template .tex

5. Electronic submission

Authors should use the electronic submission and peer-review system Nestor. Please submit at: https://sands.nestor-edp.org Before you begin submission, prepare as the following:

  • A list of full names of all authors and a valid email address for each of them (copy and paste from first page of manuscript);
  • A Word/Latex file (Latex is preferred) and a pdf file of the manuscript;
  • A Word/Latex file and a pdf file of the covering letter, explaining why the manuscript is of importance and any other detail.
  • The electronic files of all figures, with appropriate resolution and technical quality (see 3.3.3).
  • The video file prepared following the Guidelines for Video Production;

6. Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Please make sure you have the following information available before you submit your manuscript:

6.1 Author information

  • Full names, E-mail address (better official/institute email) and Full postal address of all the corresponding authors
  • Full names and email addresses (better official/institute email) of all co-authors on your manuscript.
  • Optional to link ORCID to those authors who have in the NESTOR system.

6.2 Cover letter

A cover letter that includes the following information, as well as any additional information requested in the instructions for your specific article type (see main manuscript section above):

  • An explanation of why your manuscript should be published in Security and Safety
  • An explanation of any issues relating to journal policies
  • A declaration of any potential competing interests
  • Confirmation that all authors have approved the manuscript for submission
  • Confirmation that the content of the manuscript has not been published, or submitted for publication elsewhere
  • If you are submitting a manuscript to a particular special issue, please refer to its specific name in your covering letter

6.3 Suggest and Excluding peer reviewers

You may suggest potential peer reviewers for your manuscript. If you wish to do so, please provide institutional email addresses where possible, or information which will help the Editor to verify the identity of the reviewer (for example an ORCID). Intentionally falsifying information, for example, suggesting reviewers with a false name or email address, will result in rejection of your manuscript and may lead to further investigation in line with our misconduct policy.

During submission you may enter details of anyone who you would prefer not to review your manuscript. If you wish to do so, please provide institutional email addresses where possible, or information which will help the Editor to verify the identity of the reviewer (for example an ORCID). Also, must give a reasonable explanation about why he/she is not recommended.

6.4 Manuscript:

  • Include abstract and keywords for Review, Research Article and Views
  • All figures (include relevant captions)
  • All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
  • Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
  • Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print
  • Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable)
  • Supporting information files (where applicable)

Further considerations

  • Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
  • All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
  • Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
  • A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
  • Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
  • Conflict of Interest, Data Availability (mainly needed for Research articles), Authors’ Contributions (required for articles with more than one author), Acknowledgements, Funding, Supporting Information (online file only), References, Author Biography (optional for revised version only) are well prepared
  • Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

6.5 Non-confidential certificate

Non-confidential certificate or public publication certificate is a must for the authors who are from secret-related units, required in the submission system.

6.6 Ethical certification

Ethical certification will also be required for those articles related to Animal experiments or volunteers, required in the submission system.