Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability
Risk & Reliability
This journal is fully peer reviewed and is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The Journal of Risk and Reliability is a peer reviewed journal for researchers and practitioners who are involved in the field of risk analysis and reliability engineering. The journal will publish high quality papers covering foundational, theoretical, methodological and practical issues relevant for the safe and reliable design and operation of engineering systems from any industrial sector.
Important aspects include;
Systems reliability assessment
Risk analysis methods
Use of risk and reliability analyses
Foundational issues
Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis
Expert judgments
Resilience analysis and engineering
Security
Critical infrastructure vulnerability assessment
Hazard analysis
Failure analysis
Reliability modelling and analysis
Maintainability analysis
Maintenance modelling, planning, scheduling and optimisation
Repairable systems analysis
Availability modelling and analysis
Integrated logistics support
Life cycle costs
Human reliability
Software reliability
Safety critical software
Systems health monitoring
Degradation modelling
Fault diagnostics
Fault prognostics
Reliability data collection and analysis
Service system reliability
Condition monitoring
Accident analysis/Incident reporting
Reliability test planning/Reliability assurance programmes
Accelerated degradation and life tests
Physics of failure
Root cause analysis
Advanced simulation techniques for risk and reliability analysis
Meta-models for risk and reliability analysis
Optimisation methods
| Terje Aven | University of Stavanger, Norway |
| P Baraldi | Politecnico di Milano, Italy |
| Anne Barros | CentraleSupélec – Paris Saclay University, France |
| C Bérenguer | Grenoble Institute of Technology, France |
| E Borgonovo | Università Bocconi, Italy |
| D Coit | Rutgers University, USA |
| F Coolen | University of Durham, UK |
| F Di Maio | Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy |
| E L Droguett | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) |
| N Pedroni | Politecnico di Torino, Italy |
| L Podofillini | Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland |
| R Remenyte-Prescott | University of Nottingham, UK |
| Shaomin Wu | University of Kent, UK |
| E Zio | Mines Paris – PSL University, France and Politecnico di Milano, Italy |
| Sameer Al-Dahidi | German Jordanian University, Amman, Jordan |
| J D Andrews | The University of Nottingham, UK |
| J Ansell | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| A Arnaiz | Tekniker Foundation, Spain |
| R Billinton | University of Saskatchewan, Canada |
| M Bouissou | EDF, France |
| R Cassady | University of Arkansas, USA |
| C Cavalcante | Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil |
| T Dohi | Hiroshima University, Japan |
| Hongyan Dui | Zhengzhou University, China |
| Y Dutuit | University of Bordeaux, France |
| M Eid | Etudes / RiskLyse, France |
| C Emmanouilidis | University of Groningen, the Netherlands |
| M Finkelstein | University of the Free State, South Africa |
| Roger Flage | University of Stavanger, Norway |
| A Grall | Troyes University of Technology, France |
| M Hodkiewicz | The University of Western Australia, Australia |
| X Huang | University of Electronic Science & Technology, China |
| M J Zuo | University of Alberta, Canada |
| L Jackson | Loughborough University, UK |
| A S K Jardine | University of Toronto, Canada |
| C Johnson | Queen’s University Belfast, UK |
| G Levitin | The Israel Electric Corporation, Israel |
| S Martorell | Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain |
| J May | University of Bristol, UK |
| M Modarres | University of Maryland, USA |
| A Mosleh | University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), California |
| Marcio Moura | Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil |
| Edoardo Patelli | University of Strathclyde. Glasgow, Scotland |
| E Pohl | University of Arkansas, USA |
| A Rauzy | NTNU, Norway |
| M Revie | University of Strathclyde, UK |
| P Sonnemans | Technische Universiteit, Eindhoven, Netherlands |
| I Torres Castro | Universidad De Extremadura, Spain |
| V Volovoi | Independent Consultant, USA |
| L Walls | University of Strathclyde, UK |
| M Xie | National University of Singapore, Singapore |
| Taotao Zhou | University of Maryland, USA |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jrr to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Original Article: Presents original research related to foundational, theoretical, methodological or practical issues relevant for the safe and reliable design and operation of engineering systems from one or more industrial sectors. It covers concepts, theories, principles, approaches, methods or models for the proper understanding, assessment, characterisation or management of the risk or reliability of engineering systems. Papers that provide perspectives on current practises and methods, and how to improve these are also covered.
Review Article: Presents state-of-the-art analysis of a current topic of the risk and reliability field, which explains to a broad audiemce the developments in this topic over recent years.
Case Study: Paper highlighting an analysis of a specific system or activity, which in its turn provides new insights for the risk analysis and reliability engineering field. The paper must include some new generic knowledge elements, that can lead to improvements of theory or practice.
Technical Note: A short, interim statement on a research project or description of some new development.
Length
- In general, Original Articles, Review Papers and Case Studies should not normally exceed 5000 words (with up to 10 illustrations). Longer articles will be considered; however, as our criterion is that the content justifies the length of the article.
- Technical Notes should not exceed 1500 words and 5 illustrations.
- Discussions on papers already published should not exceed 500 words and 2 illustrations.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles alongside their article submissions to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. The editor may consider limited embargoes on proprietary data. The editor can also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For more information please visit the Research Data Sharing Policies, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jrr to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage has become a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID.
ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, Sage is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability editorial office as follows:
Assistant Managing Editor
Sage Publications Ltd
1 Oliver's Yard, 55 City Road
London, EC1Y 1SP
UK
Email: jriskrel@sagepub.co.uk