Scope | Article types | Preparing your article | Authorship and contributorship | Author affiliations | Policy on prior publication | Open access | Publishing ethics | Competing interests | Supplementary materials | Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools | Acknowledgements | ORCID | Author Hub | English language editing services

The British Actuarial Journal (BAJ) contains the sessional research programme of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries along with transcripts of the discussions and debates. It also contains Presidential addresses; memoirs and papers of interest to practitioners.

Article types

The BAJ publishes the following types of article that are related to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) sessional research programme:

• Sessional Papers (produced by IFoA working parties and presented at sessional meetings) - peer-reviewed.
• Sessional Meeting Discussions (transcripts of sessional meetings) - editorially reviewed.

In addition, the BAJ welcomes the independent submission of: 

• Contributed Papers  (research papers with a practitioner focus of relevance to the journal, submitted outside of the IFoA's sessional meeting process) - peer-reviewed.
• Addresses from the President are also occasionally published.

All article types in this journal are published Gold Open Access, with no charge to the author.

Preparing your article

All papers should be written in English (UK). The style should be reasonably formal, but should be as clear and understandable as possible. Enough information should be included to allow a reader to reproduce any mathematical or numerical results.

Each paper must include an abstract, keywords and contact details of relevant authors. The abstract, which should be about 100-200 words, should be written so that others are encouraged to read the paper. It should give the main objectives and conclusions of the paper.

Papers should be submitted electronically, using pdf format. If the paper is accepted, a Word or .Tex version (with pdf) will also be required and all diagrams and figures provided electronically in tif, gif, jpeg or eps format. Authors should follow the below style guide for the formatting of their paper.

All published work should be acknowledged, and references given. The author is responsible for securing written permission to include any copyrighted material. Notwithstanding any scrutiny and any alterations made, authors remain solely responsible for the accuracy of all material provided and views expressed. Submitted papers should not have been copyrighted or submitted for possible publication elsewhere at the same time as being submitted to BAJ. Any previous publication, for example in conference proceedings, should be notified at the time of submission.

As of November 2024, authors should submit their work through the BAJ ScholarOne site. 

Templates

BAJ uses a standard Cambridge University Press template to structure articles. Authors have the option but are not required to use the following:

• CUP's medium template on Overleaf (a collaborative authoring tool)
• Authors who prefer to write and submit using LaTeX can download the CUP medium template files from Overleaf

BAJ style guide for formatting of papers

Please supply copies of original application files – namely, Word or .Tex files following the standard layout for a BAJ paper (Text files must be accompanied by a PDF, as a guide for the typesetter).

Order of paper

Each paper contains:

• title
• author(s) name(s)
• date and place of presentation (if appropriate)
• abstract
• keywords
• correspondence details
• introduction
• text (all paragraphs should be numbered)
• acknowledgements
• references and
• appendix(ces)

Title

The title of the paper has an initial capital only, e.g.:

Pensions and mortality data

Author’s name(s)

The author or authors’ name(s) are below the title with an asterisk denoting the corresponding author e.g.:

Robert Smyth* and Len Brown

Date and place of presentation

This follows directly on from the author names in the format, e.g.:

[Presented to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, London: 23 September 2013; Edinburgh: 18 November 2013]

Abstract

All papers require an abstract. This should be a summary of the paper, in one long or two or three short paragraphs. e.g:

Abstract
Mortality data are often classified by age…………………………………………………………etc

The abstract should not contain references and should be between 100-200 words.

Keywords

Choose keywords that give an indication of what is of interest in the paper, normally not more than five words or short phrases, e.g.:

Keywords
Pension shares; Valuation methods; Market values; Funding; Pricing

Note that keywords should have an initial capital.

Correspondence details

The name, institution, department, city and country of the corresponding author, with e-mail address, must be given at the bottom of the first page as, e.g.:

*Correspondence to: Robert Smyth, Department of Statistics, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Main text

All sections are numbered and each section (apart from the introduction) should be divided into numbered sub-sections. All paragraphs need to be numbered within each section/subsection as a reference point during the discussion at sessional research meetings.

1. Introduction
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.

2. The quick brown fox
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.

2.1. The quick brown fox again
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.

3. etc

N.B. If using acronyms the full name/title must be given at the first mention followed by the initials in brackets e.g. Pensions Management Institute (PMI) which can then be subsequently referred to as PMI.

Formulae

If formulae are numbered, do so consecutively after each formula with the number placed in brackets e.g.
^bΦ_ij(l;t) = P[Z(t) = j|Z(0) = l], (1)

Disclosure statements (Contributed Papers only)

Authors of Contributed Papers must provide a competing interest, data availability and a funding statement in the manuscript ahead of the references. 

Acknowledgments (optional):

Authors can provide an acknowledgments statement that recognises associates and colleagues who contributed to the article but do not meet the criteria for authorship, as well as other kinds of non-financial support from individuals and organisations. This is optional and it should not contain information that would otherwise be in data availability, competing interest and funding statements, which are required.

Competing Interests 

Authors must include a Competing Interest statement in their manuscript:

• Competing Interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
• Competing Interests do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Competing Interests in order to be transparent about the context of their work.
• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Competing Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
• Example wording for a Competing Interest declaration is as follows: “Competing Interests: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Competing Interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing Interest: Author A and Author B declare none”.

Data availability statement 

Articles must include a Data Availability Statement, even if this is a statement that data availability does not apply to this study. Where possible authors are encouraged to make data and code available via repositories and the statement should explain how data and other resources were created, from where they are available, along with information about any restrictions on the accessibility of data and other resources. See the BAJ Research Transparency policy for details and example statements. 

Funding statement 

This must detail the sources of financial support for all authors in relation to the article, including grant numbers, or declare that no specific funding exists. The statement should also make it clear whether the funder had a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

For example: 

“This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under research grant XXXX. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” 

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: “This work received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.” 

Submission system

Submission of papers should take place via ScholarOne Manuscript Central system . Please address questions on the submission process to [email protected].

References

References in the text should be in the following form:

Smith & White (1990)
or
(see Jones et al., 1975).

If there are two authors ‘&’ should be used between surnames, if more than two, only the first named author’s surname should be used followed by et al., see above example.

Place brackets around the year if appearing in the text, if appearing within bracketed comments, a comma should follow the authors’ names before the year, see above examples.

List of references

The full references must be given in this section and ALL references must be cross-referenced within the text. References are in alphabetical order by first author, and in date order for any one author. If URLs are given, the date of access must be shown.

References

Jones, E.F., Hughes, G.H. & Thomas, J.K. (1975). The Lazy Brown Dog. Fox Publishing.

All authors’ names must be shown, with surname first, followed by initials, & before the last name, year in brackets followed by a full stop.

Journal references – full title of paper, followed by journal name in full and in italics. Volume number follows in bold, followed by page numbers (not in bold).
Smith, A.B. & White, C.D. (1990). The Quick Brown Fox. British Actuarial Journal, 10, 71-139.

Book references – book title in italics, followed by edition (where given), formatted as e.g. 4^th ed. Publisher name next, followed by place, formatted as e.g. Wiley, Chichester.

If the same author(s) and year of publication are referred to more than once they must be distinguished by a, b etc. e.g.
Brown (2008a, b) in text and in references list as
Brown, B. (2008a). Pensions crisis. Annals of Actuarial Science, 2, 21-46.
Brown, B. (2008b). Pensions. Cambridge University Press.

If URLs are used the access date must be included e.g.
COSO (2004). Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated Framework.
www.coso.org/.../ERM/COSO_ERM_... [accessed December 2009].

If a paper was presented some time ago, please check if it has subsequently been published in a journal, if so the journal reference needs to be given.

See http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm for further information on referencing.

Appendix(ces)

Appendices must follow the references.

Figures, tables and illustrations

When using figures, tables and illustrations throughout the paper, please follow these guidelines.

General guidelines

• All figures and tables should be numbered throughout the paper, and should have a heading or caption.
• Please use explicit references to the figures and tables in the text (e.g. ‘see table 4’). Avoid words like ‘above’ and ’below’, as after typesetting the figures and tables might not appear as they do in the manuscript.
• All figures should be supplied as separate files. Please do not embed the figures in the text.
• Please ensure that the material you submit is of the best possible quality – see below for more details.
• Please do not use tinted panels or surrounding borders.
• Figures, tables and illustrations can be published online in either black and white or full colour. Please submit illustrations in the format you wish them to be published (ie black & white illustrations in black and white and colour illustrations in colour).

Preparation of illustrations

• Illustrations should be provided in TIFF (.tif) or vector EPS (.eps) format.
• If you wish to use shading to differentiate areas on the figure, please check your software to see if there are options such as patterns, textures or a range of tones (tints) within black.
• The range of tones (tints) in greyscale illustrations should not be less than 15%, and not more than 85%. When creating a scale or using different densities to highlight areas in the illustration, it is best to use increments of 15 or 20%. Any increments of less than this may be hard to differentiate.
• Colour illustrations should be saved in CMYK colour mode
• The descriptions of figures in text and captions must be sufficiently clear.

Photographs

• Colour and halftone images must be saved at 300dpi at approximately the final size. If you are unsure of the final size, please save at a higher resolution to allow for resizing.
• Please supply original photographs in TIFF format, saved at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi at the correct size for reproduction in the journal. If a TIFF format file is not available, please provide a high resolution JPEG file.
• Images downloaded from the internet tend to be ‘low resolution’, that is 72 or 96 dpi. This means that they will not be of adequate quality when published. If you wish to use an image which appears on a website, please contact the site’s administrator, or the creator of the image, and obtain a copy of the high resolution original.
• If you are providing scanned copies of the original image, please make sure that you scan at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, at the size (or larger than) they will be reproduced.
• If you wish to reuse an illustration or photograph from a printed book, you must obtain a copy from the original artwork rather than scan from the printed copy. Please remember it is the author’s responsibility to seek the relevant permissions.

Line illustrations

• Please provide the original file in either TIFF format, saved at 800 - 1200 dpi (dots per inch), or vector EPS format, at the correct size for reproduction in the journal.
• In line drawings, do not use line weights that will be less than 0.5 points at final size to ensure clarity
• Please set figure labels in 9pt Arial, Helvetica or a similar sans-serif font. Labels should be set in lower case with an initial capital (e.g. 'Energy levels').
• Maths labels should be typed exactly as they appear in the text. For example if a symbol appears in italic in the text or equation, it should also appear in italic in the figure.
• All fonts should be embedded.
• Common packages such as Adobe Illustrator have options which allow you to output to TIFF or EPS, and we would prefer it if you could supply your files in this format.
• Submit figures sized to fit the actual column or page width of the journal so that reduction or enlargement is not necessary.
• Submit multipart figures in one single electronic file.

Note that some software packages are generally NOT suitable for publication and these include:

• Microsoft PowerPoint files
• Images created in Microsoft Word
• GIFF images downloaded from the web

General Cambridge instructions for artwork may be found at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/authors/journals/journals-artwork-guide

Third Party Material

In order to include a figure from a third party source in your article it must either: a) already be available under a Creative Commons license or; b) you must have gained permission from the rights holder to use it in your work.

A sample letter is available here to help authors obtain permission to re-use figures and other material from third parties.

If you obtain permission to republish third party material and it is under copyright, please indicate the copyright holder in your article, e.g. in the figure caption
Republished with permission from Small et al. (1996), Developmental Biology (© Elsevier, 1996, All Rights Reserved). Reuse not permitted.

If the third party material is available under a Creative Commons license, this should be noted in the caption e.g.
© 2009 Greg Grossmeier, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Open Access

As of January 2017 (Volume 22) newly published articles in BAJ are Open Access:

• Freely available for anyone to read and share, immediately upon its publication, in PDF and HTML format
• Published under Creative Commons licensing that allows anyone to make copies of, redistribute and re-use the work without asking for permission, provided that proper attribution is given

The journal will also publish in an online-only format from 2017. BAJ’s archive (Volumes 1 to 21) remain pay to access. The cost of publishing open access in BAJ is funded by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA). There are no article processing charges or other author-facing fees.

Publishing ethics

Cambridge University Press is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows the COPE Guidelines for resolving authorship disputes and other ethical issues in relation to publishing. For more information see this page.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

• to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s).
• to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
• to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript.
• must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission.

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organisers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that that any type of funding information or financial support is listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can be recorded separately (see here).

We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section, along with a declaration that the author(s) are entirely responsible for the scientific content of the paper and that the paper adheres to the journal’s authorship policy. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors, AI tools and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. Examples of how to acknowledge assistance in drafting manuscripts:

• “The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."
• “The author(s) made use of [AI system/tool] to assist with the drafting of this article. [AI version details] was accessed/obtained from [source details] and used with/without modification [specify and/or expand as appropriate] on [date(s)].