Research by Dr Helen McAneney, Professor Mike Clarke and colleagues from the BMJ (Amy Price and Sara Schroter) was presented as a poster at the prestigious biannual 8^th International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication in Chicago, USA on 10-12 September 2017. 

Almost 3000 authors, reviewers and readers of BMJ Publishing Group journals responded to their survey, which investigated the role of supplementary material in journal articles. They gathered important new data on how these people would like to access supplementary materials, who they think it is of use to, and where it should be published.  All three groups (authors, peer reviewers and readers) were more supportive of using the supplementary material to provide additional tables and figures, rather than for giving access to other information such as checklists showing compliance with reporting guidelines or the raw data from the studies. 

The presentation generated great interest, and the findings will be used by healthcare journals when considering roles, resource needs and strategic placement of supplementary materials for optimal usage.