Declaration on Ethics and Good Publication Practice 

(Editorial policies, including ethics, for this publication comply with the principles of the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit PERK [see more here])

Ethical guidelines for the journal publication

The publication of an article in the peer-reviewed journal Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Research (BBR) is an important piece in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct image of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing - the author, the journal editor and the editorial board, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society.

ALIES, a non-profit organization that acts as editor of BBR, takes very seriously all its duties and responsibilities regarding all stages of publication, including the ethical aspects involved. We are committed to ensure that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, ALIES and the BBR Editorial Board will assist in communication with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful and necessary.

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.

Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are regarded as unethical behaviour and therefore unacceptable.

Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective. Editorial opinions should be clearly identified as such.

Data access 

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if possible. 

Originality and plagiarism 

Authors are personally responsible for ensuring that they have entirely written original works, and if authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, including passing off another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper without attribution, and to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

BBR recommends that authors apply proper tools to verify the originality of scientific works.  Applications such as Turnitin [see more here] compare potential similarities with published texts provide a detailed analysis of the content reducing the risk of plagiarism.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. If admissible, and clearly declared by the author, this and the editors will agree on the secondary publication. This publication will contain data and interpretation of the primary publication, and that should be clearly referred in the secondary publication.

Acknowledgement of sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. This signifies that authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Author Contributions and Authorship  

An Authorship Declaration Statement is required upon submission for transparency. Each individual contributions to the paper should be outlined using the relevant CRediT roles - conceptualization; experimental design; data curation; analysis; funding acquisition; administration; resources; software; supervision; validation; visualization; writing - draft; writing - review; writing - final version approval. Statements should be formatted with full author initials first.

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the (1) conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors (Acknowledgements). The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication.

Upon acceptance, the list and order of authors is considered final. After this time any changes to the list and order of authors will not be accepted. 

Involvement of human participants or experimental animals

Involving the use of human participants or experimental animals, authors must state that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and guidelines and have been approved by the appropriate institutional committee (Ethical or equivalent). Authors must also declare the informed consent and the observation of the privacy rights for all human participants.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review are mandatorily kept confidential and cannot be used for personal advantage.

Other examples of possible conflicts of interest that should be disclosed involve employment relationships, including consulting, ownership of shares, fees, expert opinions, patent applications/registrations and grants or other financing.

The editors should not decide on manuscripts in the face of any potential conflict of interest of any kind in which they may be involved, including professional or personal relationships with any of the authors. In this case, another Editor will be invited to lead the review process, ensuring that the Editor in question does not participate in the decision. The same principle is adopted if an Editor is an author/co-author of one of the manuscripts under submission; in this case, the author will declare in the respective section that the editor did not participate in the review or decision process. 

Peer review Policies

Procedures are based on current COPE´s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, which you may consult [see more here] for more details.

Open access statement 

BBR adopts the Open Access Declaration, according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative [see more here].

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI ((Budapest Open Access Initiative) definition of open access.

Reproduction rights and publication

This journal adopts the CC BY-NC (Creative commons) distribution license [see more here].