Course syllabus
Writing and Reviewing in Biomedical Engineering
About the course:
This course gives the participants theoretical and practical training on certain aspects of writing and reviewing a manuscript, including paper structure, journal submission process, peer review process, journal selection criteria, cover letter writing, and writing and responding to review comments with high scientific quality and professionalism. Further aspects of publishing such as publication strategies and ethical considerations of scientific publishing are discussed as a part of the course.
In this course you will submit your own written manuscript(s) and review your peers' manuscripts. You will also participate in introduction and discussion sessions.
Article submission:
During the course you will submit your own written manuscript(s) together with cover letter(s) for in course-peer review.
Peer-reviewing:
During the course you review of your peers manuscripts. To do this you need to read the article thoroughly and write comments formatted in the same way you would do as in a real journal review. All types of comments are encouraged, in particular scientific comments but suggestions on paper structure and language edits are also welcome.
Authors response:
To fulfill the authors task, you need to read and answer the reviewers comments point-by-point. The comments should be formatted in the same way you would do as in a real journal review.
| The deadlines for any task in this course is normally set to 2 weeks. It is important to keep the deadlines to make sure that you don't create unnecessary delays for your fellow PhD students in this course. |
Introduction lecture:
At every beginning of a term, a introduction session will be arranged. Here, you will get information to supplement the scientific writing courses, including how to write a cover letter, reviewer comments and response to reviewer’s comments.
Discussion session:
At least 3 times per year online discussion sessions will be arranged. Here, different topics will be discussed, such as generally difficult parts of scientific writing and examples of difficult reviewer’s questions to answer to. Participants are encouraged to suggest topics for the discussion sessions.
How to apply:
New students are admitted to the course twice per year, in August and January. The course has a limited number of participants and to select students, the following criteria are used:
- You have a research topic within the field of life science engineering or biomedical research
- You conduct experimental studies on devices, instruments, material or in vitro or in vivo studies as a part of your PhD project
- You have completed at least 2 years of PhD studies
- You have at least one manuscript in preparation at the time of course start, which is estimated to be ready for in-course reviewing within 6 months.Note that for new students the course is given in a 1.5 hp version only (from spring 2026)
Register by sending an email to one of the course responsible
TekNat: Sofia Johansson (sofia.m.johansson@angstrom.uu.se) or Neeraj Katiyar (neeraj.katiyar@angstrom.uu.se)
MedFarm: Maximiliano Arce (max.arce@igp.uu.se)
The next registration deadline is 31st January 2026.
The next introduction session is on 9th February at 10:00-11:30 on zoom.
The next discussion sessions in March 2026