Review Process

Researchers are encouraged to submit a final report to the UKMED team within the ‘Submission period’ for it to be appraised before the review date. An outcome from the Research Subgroup will be communicated to the UKMED Researcher by the review date.

The Research Subgroup will consider reviewing outputs for:

  • Presentation of preliminary findings at conferences (Abstract submissions for conferences or poster presentations must include at least an interim report to be reviewed by the Research Subgroup.); and
  • Submission of a final report for publication in a journal.

If you are planning to present findings at a conference or poster presentation, then you must submit an interim report for the Research Subgroup to review. UKMED will not approve standalone abstracts for conference or poster presentations.

The 2023/2024 dates for reviewing UKMED research outputs are:

Submission Period Review Date
1 June 2024 – 1 September 2024 (Virtual review) 27 September 2024
2 September 2024 – 4 November 2024 (Meeting review) 2 December 2024

Review outcomes

The Research Subgroup Chair will make the final decision on each output. We will provide you with a response on the review date shown in the table above.

The following final decisions will be made following the review:

Suggested changes required Reviewers have identified areas that require revisions essential for correctness. The final report will have to undergo further review after the revision.
Suggested changes recommended Reviewers have suggested some enhancements that could improve the final report. No further review by the Research Subgroup is required.
Approved The output from the final report is cleared for publication in conferences/the manuscript is released for submission to a journal. At least 30 days before you make a submission to publish we require a confidential copy of your paper.

Depending on the types of changes required we will either:

  • Consider revisions at the next review date; or
  • Consider revisions by Chair’s action upon resubmission, you must allow 10 working days for this.

Conferences and poster presentations

If the interim report is approved, then you may proceed with presenting your findings at conferences and poster presentations. However, if there are any outstanding required or recommended changes then you must apply the required changes to be reviewed at the next review window. The changes must be reflected in the materials to be presented at the conference.

Please note, the Research Subgroup reserve the right to refuse approval to present inaccurate or flawed results at conferences and poster presentations.



When your project has received support of the UKMED Advisory Board to publish the results you are expected to submit your research to a peer-reviewed journal for publication within one year. Should you not wish to do so, or when one year has elapsed, then your full final report will be published on the UKMED website. Below is a checklist of steps that you need to complete prior to submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

    Checklist
  • Tables, charts, variables and codes are labelled in a way that makes them easy to understand.
  • UKMED statistical disclosure controls for tabular data and visualisations have been applied. There are no small counts or individually identifiable data points on charts and tables.
  • Provided a confidential copy of the paper to UKMED 30 days prior to submission to ukmed@gmc-uk.org.
  • Is UKMED referenced in the title or abstract for the paper?
  • For the purposes of publications and presentations, please use the data source acknowledgement: Source - UK Medical Education Database (“UKMED”) [project number] extract generated on [date as per zip in the zip haven]. Approved for publication on [DD/MM/YYYY]. I am grateful to UKMED for the use of these data. However, UKMED bears no responsibility for their analysis or interpretation. The data includes information derived from that collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited (“HESA”) and provided to the GMC (“HESA Data”). Source: HESA Student Record YYYY/YYYY and YYYY/YYYY Copyright Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited. The Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited makes no warranty as to the accuracy of the HESA Data, cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived by third parties from data or other information supplied by it.


Tabular data

When UKMED users have completed their analysis, outputs intended for the public domain, for example a table of results, will be reviewed by the GMC using the following statistical disclosure controls :

  • 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0;
  • All other numbers are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5;
  • Percentages based on fewer than 22.5 individuals are suppressed;
  • Averages based on 7 or fewer individuals are suppressed.

The above requirements relate to headcounts, Full-Person Equivalent (FPE) and Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) data. Financial data are not rounded.

Charts and visualisations

Charts and visualisations should also apply statistical disclosure controls to reduce the risk of reidentification. Consider:

  • Histograms
    • Aggregating categories to distributions with long tails and small numbers;
    • Masking the scale of the X and Y axis by omitting all values and using the maximum or minimum values;
  • Box plots and scatter plots
    • Grouping together or averaging the minimum and maximum values as outliers may be attributable to a single observation.
    • Grouping together or averaging the original data to generate scatter plots.