About the Journal

Impact Surgery is a peer-reviewed, open access journal publishing research, scholarship, and commentary across surgery, perioperative care, and surgical systems. The journal aims to support evidence-based practice, methodological rigour, and thoughtful discussion of how surgical care is delivered, evaluated, and improved.

The scope of Impact Surgery includes clinical research, health services and systems research, implementation science, quality improvement, education, and policy-relevant work related to surgery and perioperative care. The journal welcomes submissions from a wide range of geographical and professional contexts and seeks to reflect the diversity of modern surgical practice.

Aims and scope

The journal’s primary aim is to publish work that advances understanding of surgical care and its outcomes, including patient-centred, organisational, and system-level perspectives. Emphasis is placed on clarity of reporting, transparency of methods, and relevance to clinical practice and health systems. Impact Surgery publishes original research papers, brief reports, editorials, educational articles, images, protocols, guidance documents, meeting reports, and other article types relevant to its remit. Case reports are not published by Impact Surgery and are directed to Impact Case Reports.

Publication Schedule

Impact Surgery publishes on a bimonthly basis, with six issues per year. All content is published online as open access following rigorous peer review and editorial processing.

Editorial oversight

The journal is led by an Editor-in-Chief and an editorial team with responsibility for maintaining scientific standards, editorial independence, and ethical oversight. Editorial decisions are made independently of commercial or organisational interests and are informed by external peer review where appropriate. Full details of the editorial leadership and board are provided on the Editorial Board page.

Publishing model

Impact Surgery is published as an open access journal. All articles are freely available to read, download, and reuse in accordance with the journal’s licensing terms. The journal does not operate subscription barriers. Details of the open access model and any applicable publication charges are provided in the Open Access Policy and Fees section.

Ethical standards

The journal is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics. Submissions are expected to comply with recognised ethical principles relating to research conduct, reporting, authorship, and transparency. The journal follows established guidance for handling ethical issues, conflicts of interest, and concerns relating to the integrity of the published record. Author-specific ethical requirements are described in the Article Ethics Requirements section, and journal-level policies are set out under Journal Info.

Audience and readership

The journal is intended for surgeons, perioperative clinicians, researchers, educators, policy-makers, and others with an interest in surgical care and systems. Content is selected and edited to be accessible to an international and multidisciplinary readership while maintaining academic rigour.

Publisher

Impact Surgery is published by Impact Health Publishing Group, a UK-registered publishing organisation that provides the journal’s operational and production infrastructure, including platform management, publication workflows, dissemination support, and long-term accessibility arrangements. The publisher supports and upholds the journal’s editorial independence; all editorial decisions are made solely by the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial team and are not influenced by commercial considerations, sponsorship, advertising, or authors’ ability to pay any applicable charges. The publisher is responsible for maintaining publishing policies, supporting ethical standards, and ensuring continuity of access to the journal’s content. Further information about the publisher, including governance and operational updates, is available on the publisher’s website at https://impact-journals.org 

Editorial timelines

The following editorial timeline information is provided to support transparency around journal operations. Metrics are based on manuscripts handled during 01/01/2024 to 01/12/2025 and reflect typical processing times. Timelines may vary depending on article type, review complexity, and the number of revision rounds required.

  • Median time to initial editorial decision to reject: 2 days

  • Median time from submission to first peer-review decision: 14 days

  • Proportion of manuscripts receiving a first peer-review decision within 31 days: 95%

  • Median time from submission to acceptance (including author revisions): 60 days

  • Median time from acceptance to online publication: 30 days

Editorial timeline metrics are reviewed periodically and are intended to reflect typical journal performance rather than guaranteed processing times.