Legal and postal addresses of the publisher: office 1336, 17 Naberezhnaya Severnoy Dviny, Arkhangelsk, 163002, Russian Federation, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov

Phone: (818-2) 21-61-21
E-mail: vestnik_med@narfu.ru
https://vestnikmed.ru/en/

ABOUT JOURNAL

Ethics Policy

Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of authors, their institutions and editors of the journal. Therefore, it is important that all the parties involved in the publishing process — authors, members of the editorial board, peer reviewers and editors — collaborate on the basis of goodwill, responsibility and impartiality. Journal of Medical and Biological Research ensures that all the parties conform to a certain policy of ethics. Our journal adheres to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. Authors

The journal allows authors to retain the copyright of their papers. Authors grant the publisher the right of first publication and other non-exclusive publishing rights according to the license agreement.

Authors submitting their manuscripts for publication in  Journal of Medical and Biological Research should ensure that their work

•  is original (has not been previously published elsewhere in its current form or with similar content);
•  is not submitted to any other publication and that all conflicts of interest, if any, in terms of copyright and publication of this paper have been settled;
•  does not violate any existing copyright;
•  does not contain any scientific or technical data linked to state, official or trade secret.

• Confirm in writing that their studies involving human subjects:
  – comply with the Declaration of Helsinki,
  – are approved by the organization’s ethics board (committee),
  –  were performed with an informed consent from the participants,
  – were conducted without breaching the confidentiality of the participants’ data;
• confirm in writing that their research involving animals were performed in accordance with Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, as we believe that such studies should be conducted with the same rigour as human subject research;
• notify the Editorial Office of any existing conflicts of interest related to their research or the publication itself.

The following is considered as breach of publication ethics by the author:

1. Plagiarism and copyright infringement

• duplication of the works of others without crediting the authors, citing the source or using quotation marks;
• incorrect paraphrasing of the works of others, changing more than one sentence in a paragraph or section of text or arranging sentences in a different order without proper reference to the source;
• using parts of the works of others (such as figures, tables or text paragraphs) without crediting the author, citing the source or using quotation marks;

2. Self-plagiarism, including duplicate publication (publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published): the authors should specify that their work is published for the first time; if parts of the manuscript have previously been published in another article, including any article in our journal (Journal of Medical and Biological Research or, previously, Vestnik of Northern (Arctic) Federal University. Series “Medical and Biological Sciences”), the authors should refer to the previous work and indicate the fundamental difference of the new manuscript from that earlier one, and at the same time reveal its relationship with the findings and conclusions presented in the previous work. Duplication and paraphrasing of one’s own works are unacceptable.

–  To determine the share of original text in the manuscript, we use the Russian screening system "Antiplagiat.vuz".  

3. Compilation of a manuscript not as a result of research conducted by the author but by putting together fragments of other investigators’ works.

4. Fabrication: inventing data or results.

5. Falsification: manipulating (changing, omitting) research data, equipment, or processes with the intention of giving a false impression.

6. Misrepresentation of involvement contribution:

• honorary authorship (granting authorship to those who played no significant role in the work but have a high status or rank in the organization conducting the research);
• gift authorship (stating someone’s authorship in the absence of involvement as a gift, often in response to a favour);
• ghost authorship (failing to list someone who has made a major contribution as an author, e.g. a junior researcher);
• other cases of misrepresentation.

Dealing with misconduct

If authors’ misconduct is revealed, editors are obliged to investigate the circumstances and take appropriate measures, up to retraction of the article.

Procedure

1. Editors seek a response from those suspected of misconduct. If no response is received, editors may turn to the authors’ employer or relevant institution.

2. If authors prove that misconduct was caused through no fault of their own, editors and authors act together in order to eliminate the problem and offer apologies to those affected.

3. If the fault is insignificant (e.g. self-plagiarism in a minimal degree), editors issue a warning to the authors, who must ensure that the article is in compliance with the journal’s requirements.

4. In case of significant breach of publication ethics by the authors, the article can be retracted.

5. Editors inform the authors, as well as all relevant databases, about the retraction with an explanation as to the reason for retraction.

6. Retracted paper will get a red diagonal Retracted mark in the relevant journal issue.

2. Members of the Editorial Board

• are responsible for everything that is published in the journal;
• should make fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process;
• should guard the integrity of the published record, make corrections when needed and issue grounded rejections to the authors whose manuscripts fail to meet the requirements or research and publication ethics;
• handle editorial conflicts of interest.

3. Peer reviewers

• should assess the manuscripts in a timely manner and respect the confidentiality of peer review;
• should be objective and unbiased in their reviews, proving their opinion by giving reference to the source, if necessary;
• should trace and stop any potential conflict of interest.

4. Editors

• should adhere to the ethics policy and make efforts to prevent its violation;
• should help the authors improve the submitted manuscripts by editing them;
• should not disclose the content of a negative review to anyone other than the author;
• should prevent any disclosure of confidential information obtained in the course of correspondence with the author;
• reserve the right to reject the manuscript in case of violation of the above rules.
• do not request from authors data sets that were used to perform statistical analysis or additional materials for publication beyond the text of the article in online format;
• do not provide a platform for post-publication discussions and corrections on the journal’s website. All post-publication corrections are made upon considering letters to the editor in chief. The journal has a mechanism for retracting articles in the event of information being received about their non-compliance with the requirements.

5. Conflict of Interest Statement

Conflict of interest in publishing exists when authors, peer reviewers or editorial board members may have conflicting interests that can influence the interpretation and perception of the manuscript or the decision whether to publish it. Such conflicts can be personal, political, academic/scientific, religious or financial. Financial conflicts, in their turn, can be direct (e.g., when the financial benefit from publication is received directly by the author) or indirect (e.g., when the financial benefit from publication is received by the organization where the author works). All participants in the publishing process are required to disclose any existing conflict of interest.

6. Authorship

Journal of medical and Biological Research adheres to the following authorship criteria:

– substantial contribution to the conception and design of the study, as well as acquisition or analysis and interpretation of data; authors can specify their contribution to the article;

– preparation of the manuscript and its final revision in terms of significant intellectual content;

– willingness to take responsibility for the research;

– willingness to take responsibility for the final version of the article.

Principles of assigning authorship:

– It is the researchers’ responsibility, not the editors’, to assign the authors and acknowledge those who have made a significant contribution to the study.

– Information about those who have made a significant contribution to the study and preparation of the manuscript, but whose participation was insufficient for attributing authorship, should be included in the “Acknowledgments” section.

– All persons claiming authorship or mentioning in the “Acknowledgments” section should be included in the “Acknowledgments” section; and, vice versa, the authors and persons mentioned in the “Acknowledgments” section must be willing to be acknowledged in these roles.

– Authors and persons mentioned in the “Acknowledgments” section must specify their contribution to the work and make this information available to the readers.

– Persons listed as authors are responsible for the final version of the article published in the journal.

– The key principle of assigning authorship is assigning responsibility for the work.

Published articles violating the journal's ethics policy will be retracted.

INDEXED IN: 

OTHER NArFU JOURNALS: 

Vestnik of NArFU.
Series "Humanitarian and Social Sciences"

Forest Journal 
 

Arctic and North