About Intensive Care Science

Intensive Care Science

Overview and identity

Intensive Care Science is an English-language, international, open access journal based in Beijing, China, dedicated to advancing the field of critical care medicine, and published by KeAi Communications with Elsevier publishing services. It is owned by the Tianfu Society of Intensive Care Science, which retains copyright of the overall compiled journal and the compiled issues, while authors retain copyright in their individual articles alongside scholarly usage rights. The journal publishes high-quality original research, reviews and perspectives that address the full spectrum of intensive care, including fundamental mechanisms, clinical practice and translational innovations. Its stated aim is to provide a global platform for the dissemination of cutting-edge discoveries that improve the understanding, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of critically ill patients, and to bridge gaps in knowledge, accelerate innovation and support clinicians, researchers and policymakers worldwide in improving critical care. The editorial office can be reached at editorial_office@icsjournal.cn, an address that reflects the journal's own domain and its society ownership.

Publisher and publishing model

The journal is published through KeAi, the Beijing open access joint venture co-founded by China Science Publishing and Media and Elsevier and repurposed as an open access journal publishing service provider in 2013, with a portfolio of more than 280 scholarly journals. Peer review is under the responsibility of the Editorial Board of Intensive Care Science. Through the KeAi and Elsevier framework the journal applies standard international safeguards: submissions are automatically screened using iThenticate CrossCheck to detect plagiarism and overlapping text, high-similarity papers are desk-rejected, authors are encouraged to provide ORCID identifiers, and editors are barred from deciding on papers they have written, papers by family members or colleagues, or papers concerning products or services in which they have an interest. In critical care, where device, drug and monitoring interests are common, that conflict-of-interest separation is a meaningful part of the journal's credibility.

Emphases: mechanisms, therapies, management and global perspectives

The journal organises its mission around five emphases. The first is critical illness mechanisms, including sepsis, multi-organ dysfunction, acute respiratory failure, cardiovascular and neurological emergencies, and immunological dysregulation in critical illness. The second is innovative therapies and technologies, covering organ support, monitoring, artificial intelligence and precision medicine. The third is clinical management and outcomes, including infection control, evidence-based interventions, prognostication, rehabilitation, and nursing practices and models of care in the intensive care setting. The fourth is global perspectives, highlighting contributions from diverse healthcare settings, including emerging and resource-limited regions. The fifth is interdisciplinary collaboration, fostering dialogue across medicine, engineering, data science and related fields. Together the five emphases state plainly that the journal wants laboratory mechanism, bedside management and health-system context in the same conversation, and that work from resource-limited intensive care units is explicitly welcome rather than merely tolerated.

Research areas in detail

The journal's research areas begin with clinical and translational research in critical care medicine and with the mechanisms and management of sepsis, shock and multi-organ dysfunction. They extend to immunological responses, host-pathogen interactions and immune-targeted therapies in critical illness, and to respiratory, cardiovascular, renal and neurological critical care. Technology and support form a second cluster: innovations in mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal life support and organ support technologies; intensive care monitoring and diagnostic technologies; and the integration of artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning in critical care. A third cluster concerns treatment and precision: critical care pharmacology, including sedation, analgesia and antimicrobial therapy, and precision medicine approaches and biomarkers in critical illness. The list closes with the human and organisational side of intensive care: nursing research, including workforce optimisation, communication, family-centred care and clinical decision-making; patient safety, quality improvement and outcomes research; and interdisciplinary approaches bridging basic science and clinical practice. Few new journals state so explicitly that nursing research and family-centred care stand alongside extracorporeal life support within scope, and that breadth reflects how intensive care outcomes actually depend on teams, communication and organisation as well as on machines and drugs.

Article types I: research, reviews and consensus

The journal's author guidance is unusually detailed, specifying formats and limits for nine article types. Original Research covers original clinical, translational or basic research that tests a hypothesis, reports new data or advances methods relevant to critical care medicine. It requires a structured abstract, adherence to the relevant EQUATOR reporting guideline, such as CONSORT for randomised trials, STROBE for observational studies, STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies and ARRIVE for animal studies, prospective registration in an internationally recognised registry for all clinical trials with the registration number provided, and an ethics committee approval number with a statement of informed consent or justification for a waiver. Original Research is typically up to 6,000 words excluding references, tables and figures, with a maximum of six figures or tables and 40 references recommended, and authors are strongly encouraged to supply raw data, protocols and analysis code referenced in a data availability statement.

Systematic Reviews must describe a search strategy, selection criteria, data extraction, risk-of-bias assessment and synthesis methods, must adhere to PRISMA with a checklist and flow diagram, and are typically up to 8,000 words with up to ten figures or tables and 150 references; prospective registration, for example in PROSPERO, is strongly encouraged, and retrospective registration must be declared and explained. Review Articles are narrative or critical syntheses of up to 8,000 words with a single-paragraph abstract. Consensus articles present official guidance developed by a working group, society or multidisciplinary panel through an explicit process such as Delphi rounds or voting, are typically up to 4,000 words, and must provide the contributing experts, their affiliations and any sponsoring bodies.

Article types II: cases, commentaries and correspondence

Case Reports present one or more patients with unusual findings, novel management or unexpected outcomes of educational value, require an explicit statement of patient consent and ethical approval where applicable, and are typically up to 3,500 words with a maximum of four figures or tables and 25 references; common cases without new information are not eligible. Commentaries are focused, authoritative discussions of up to 1,500 words offering informed opinion and clear argumentation rather than primary data, with editorial invitations and competing interests declared. Short Communications are concise reports of novel, timely findings, pilot data or methodological advances of up to 2,000 words, with rapid dissemination indicated in the cover letter where it is sought. Correspondence covers letters on recently published content, brief case observations and concise scholarly remarks of up to 1,500 words, subject to editorial review with responses potentially invited from the original authors. Editorials are invited commentaries from the editorial team or invited experts, normally solicited by the Editors-in-Chief and also limited to about 1,500 words. The precision of these limits, and the insistence on checklists, registration and consent, gives prospective authors a verifiable picture of a journal designed to clinical publishing standards from its first issues.

Peer review process

Peer review is single anonymized. A submission is first assessed by the editors for suitability; if suitable, it is typically sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent expert assessment of scientific quality, and the editors' decision is final. The journal sets out a six-step workflow: the editorial office reviews all manuscripts and desk-rejects those failing basic standards for reasons such as being out of scope, ethical conflicts, high similarity, lack of originality or flaws in research design; the Editor-in-Chief then invites reviewers directly or assigns an editorial board member to do so; after at least two reviewers report, the Editor-in-Chief or assigned editor provides feedback based on the reviews and their own assessment; on revision, the assigned editor and Editor-in-Chief collaborate on the final decision; submissions from editors, guest editors, board members and authors with conflicts involving them are handled confidentially by a different team member; and special-issue conflicts are likewise reassigned to another board editor. That published workflow, rather than a general promise of rigour, is what the journal asks authors to trust.

Open access, charges and schedule

Intensive Care Science is a peer-reviewed, fully open access journal: all articles are immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution licence, CC BY, which permits copying, extracts, adaptations and commercial use provided appropriate credit is given with a link to the formal publication through its DOI, a link to the licence is included, and changes are indicated. The standard article publishing charge is USD 1,000 plus taxes, payable by authors or on their behalf by a funder or institution, but in an exceptionally long launch concession, all charges for articles submitted to the journal before 1 January 2030 will be fully waived. The journal is published quarterly, four issues per year. KeAi Communications and the Tianfu Society of Intensive Care Science are granted non-exclusive publishing and distribution rights under the journal's licensing agreement.

Readership and place in critical care publishing

The journal addresses intensivists and critical care researchers, translational scientists working on sepsis and organ dysfunction, engineers and data scientists building monitoring and decision-support tools, critical care pharmacologists, nurses and nursing researchers, and policymakers concerned with intensive care capacity and outcomes. Its distinct offer within a crowded critical care literature is the combination of society ownership, a Beijing-based international publisher, an explicitly global remit that names resource-limited settings, and author guidance that enforces trial registration, reporting checklists and data availability from the outset. For WorldNM's directory of Chinese magazines and scholarly journals, Intensive Care Science is recorded at its Beijing base, owned by the Tianfu Society of Intensive Care Science, with its official KeAi journal page as its website.