Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is committed to attaining the highest standards of service to authors in its journals' submission and peer-review processes. In keeping with this philosophy, when the editors of a journal decide they cannot offer to publish a paper, the author(s) can, if they wish, directly resubmit it to another journal published by NPG without needing to re-enter all the submission information ("metadata") a second time.

This service is offered by NPG to save authors time and effort, and to ensure that the authors, not the journal, have control over their manuscripts.

This service is provided purely as an administrative convenience for authors; it does not imply any commitment to publication by the editors of the 'receiving' journal. All journals published by NPG are editorially independent; the editors of the 'receiving' journal will treat the manuscript as a new submission and communicate with the author accordingly. In the event of publication in the receiving journal, the published 'received date' will be the date when the receiving journal receives the transferred manuscript.

This manuscript transfer service is offered to authors only when a paper has been declined by a journal. It is not possible for authors to appeal decisions or enter into correspondence with the journal that has declined their paper, while simultaneously transferring the paper for consideration by another journal. Authors of a paper can submit to and correspond with only one journal at a time.

If an author uses this service, if the manuscript has been peer-reviewed before being declined for publication, referees' reports and correspondence between author and journal will automatically be attached to the manuscript. Authors who do not want this information to be attached to their manuscript when resubmitting it to another journal should not use this transfer service but should use the usual submission procedure for the journal of their choice.

Alternatively, authors may wish to revise their paper before resubmitting to another journal, perhaps in response to reviewers' comments. In this event, authors should use the usual submission procedure of their journal of choice and not this manuscript transfer service.

If authors use the usual submission procedure for any journal published by NPG, the editors of that journal will not automatically have knowledge of any prior submissions to other journals unless the author chooses to reveal this information. The receiving journal editors will know a manuscript has been previously considered by another journal only if the authors use this manuscript transfer service or otherwise inform the receiving journal.

For more details, see Nature Cell Biology: Journal transfer made easy

To assist authors in deciding whether to transfer a manuscript to another journal's submission system, NPG has a site index of publications and resources. Alternatively, you can "browse by subject".

Our subject area index page provides a list of research disciplines covered by NPG journals. Clicking on the discipline closest to your own will lead to a page of NPG publications in that discipline. This may help you to decide whether NPG publishes a journal in your field appropriate for resubmission of your work.