ICMJE Recommendations: January 2025 updates

The ICMJE updated its Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals on January 6, 2025.

While the core of the recommendations remains unchanged, five points have been clarified:

1. Identification of reputable peer-reviewed journals: a reference to a recent ISMPP editorial raising awareness on the dangers of predatory journals and providing resources for identifying them has been added: "Predatory Journals: What Can We Do to Protect Their Prey?"
2. Journal responsiveness to authors’ requests: a timely response is expected from journals upon status’ updates from the authors. In turn, authors can consider their manuscript withdrawn upon request without formal confirmation from the journal.
3. Images of people: care should be applied with individual representations to avoid bias or stereotypes.
4. Corrections of errors in publications: corrections only address errors of facts. Matters of debate, evolving science or methodology are not considered as errors, but should be addressed in a different format (e.g., letter to editor, correspondence, …). Editors may decide that a correction is not warranted for older publications due to challenges in accessing data or the authors, as well as the lower impact of older publications over time.
5. Responsibility for reference accuracy: authors (and not journals) are responsible for ensuring that the cited references are accurate and do support the cited facts.