The Health Sciences Theme is an official OJS theme developed and maintained by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) — the same team behind Open Journal Systems itself. Originally designed for health and medical science journals, it works equally well for any journal seeking a clean, professional, and modern look.

Key Features

• Customizable accent color — the default is a bold turquoise, but you can apply any vivid brand color from the Website Settings panel
• Full OJS 3.3 – 3.5 compatibility, with active maintenance and regular updates
• Bootstrap 5 foundation for a fast, responsive layout across all screen sizes
• Right-to-left (RTL) script support, making it suitable for Arabic, Persian, and other RTL languages
• Large homepage banner image with text overlay — ideal for creating a strong first impression
• Custom footer blocks and navigation menu support for easy content organization
• ORCID badge display on article landing pages
• DOI display in issue table of contents
• HTML galley styling using the theme’s default stylesheet when no custom CSS is provided

OJS Compatibility

Installation

The easiest way to install is directly from the OJS Plugin Gallery: go to Settings → Website → Plugins → Plugin Gallery, find Health Sciences, and click Install. No file transfer needed.

Alternatively, download the latest release from GitHub, extract it to /plugins/themes/healthSciences/, then activate it under Settings → Website → Appearance.

Design Tips

• Use a homepage banner image of 2000 × 1000 px with a dark enough tone so that the white text overlay remains readable
• Keep navigation menus short — fewer items improve findability
• Issue and article cover images should be 210 × 315 px (portrait orientation)
• Avoid overloading the footer with custom blocks; a clean footer reinforces the professional look

License

The theme is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 and is free to use on any OJS installation. The bundled PT Serif and Fira Sans fonts are distributed under the Open Font License.