Vancouver guidelines

The Vancouver guidelines (in full: Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication) are a set of principles drawn up by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors to give guidance to authors and medical journals in the presentation of medical research and the criteria for authorship of articles.

History
A small group of medical journal editors met in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. These were first published in 1979. The group became known as the Vancouver Group and later expanded to form the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The guidelines have been revised a number of times; the current revision as of 2006 dates from 2005.

The guidelines
The Uniform Requirements are published on the ICMJE's website.