Aims and scope

The South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition (SAJCN) accepts articles from all basic and applied areas of dietetics and human nutrition, including clinical nutrition, public health nutrition, food science, food policy, food service management, and nutrition policy. The Journal has a broad interpretation of the field of nutrition. The Journal recognizes that there are many factors that determine nutritional status, which need to be the subject of scientific investigation and reported in the Journal. 

The Journal seeks to serve a broad readership and to provide information that will be useful to the scientific community, the academic community, government and non-government stakeholders in the nutrition field, policy makers and industry.  The Journal encourages articles from all investigators in the field of dietetics, food, nutrition and related areas. In particular, young researchers will be encouraged and supported to submit their research work for publication. 

Although the Journal is based in South Africa, it actively encourages articles from other African countries to act as a forum for the discussion of African nutritional issues. The Journal is committed to high scientific, professional and ethical standards.  The Journal will accept letters for publication, which are relevant to the Journal. The Journal provides a forum for publication of congress abstracts, supplements, short communications and policy statements with their technical support papers. 

The views expressed in the Journal are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Editorial Board. 

The Journal is managed by an Editor and Editorial Board with the following responsibilities:

  • Maintenance of scientific standards of the articles published and appointment of a review panel of experts for the peer review process
  • Maintenance of ethical standards of the articles published
  • Encouragement and support of authors
  • Promotion of the readership
  • Ensuring the dissemination of articles published
  • Maintenance of ethical standards with regard to sponsorship and advertisements 

 

Peer Review Process 

All manuscripts will be subject to blinded peer-review and the decision of the editor will be final. Articles submitted for consideration by the editor should not have been published before, either in total or in part, nor be currently submitted to any other publisher. The Editor retains the right to stylise and shorten any material accepted for publication.

Accepted manuscripts will be copy edited and galley proofs will be sent to the author for approval. 

Opinions expressed in the Journal should not be taken to represent the policies of the SAJCN, the Association of Dietetics in South Africa, the Nutrition Society of South Africa, the South African Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition or NISC (Pty) Ltd.

 

Article Publishing Charges: 

To support full Open Access publishing, the SAJCN applies an article publishing charge (APC) to articles accepted for publication.

The standard APC for South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition is:

  • Authors from Sub-Saharan Africa: ZAR13 000
  • Authors from the rest of the world: USD1 500

VAT is added where applicable.

The APC is levied upon acceptance of the article and will need to be paid before publication.

Contributions to the journal that are not peer-reviewed, including editorials, case reports, guest editorials, book reviews and conference reports, will not attract an APC.

Authors who do not benefit from institutional or other research support and, as a consequence, are unable to pay the APC may apply to the Editor-in-Chief for a waiver of part or all of the APC.

All articles will be made freely and permanently available online through gold open access publication.

 

Submit your article

Read the Instructions for Authors for information on how to prepare and submit your manuscript.

Please submit your manuscript electronically at https://www.editorialmanager.com/sajcn.

 

CPD Questionnaire and CEUs

Authors can earn CEUs for published articles. The CPD questionnaires and CPD certificates can be found at https://www.mpconsulting.co.za.

Authors, co-authors and all SAJCN peer reviewers are requested to add their HPCSA registration number to their SAJCN Editorial Manager account. 

CEUs will be allocated as follows:
        Authors and co-authors: at the point of acceptance.
        Reviewers: at the conclusion of the review process.

 

Copyright

Material submitted for publication in the SAJCN is accepted provided it has not been published elsewhere. Copyright forms will be sent with acknowledgement of receipt and the SAJCN reserves copyright of the material published.

The SAJCN does not hold itself responsible for statements made by the authors.

 

Authorship

All named authors must give consent to publication. Authorship should be based only on substantial contribution to: (i) conception, design, analysis and interpretation of data; (ii) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (iii) final approval of the version to be published. All three of these conditions must be met (Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals; www.icmje.org/index.html).

 

Conflict of interest

Authors must declare all sources of support for the research and any association with the product or subject that may constitute conflict of interest.

 

Disclosure statement

Please include a disclosure of interest statement, using the subheading "Disclosure of interest." If you have no interests to declare, please state this (suggested wording: The authors report no conflicts of interest). For all NIH/Wellcome-funded papers, the grant number(s) must be included in the disclosure of interest statement. Read more on declaring conflicts of interest.