Duties of Editors
Fair play and editorial independence
Editors at the International Journal of Biological and Biomedical Research evaluate submitted manuscripts solely on their academic merit, including importance, originality, study design, validity, and clarity. Decisions are independent of authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy, or institutional affiliation. Publication decisions are not influenced by governmental policies or external agencies. The Editor-in-Chief retains full authority over the journal's editorial content and publication timing.
Confidentiality
Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Editors and editorial board members must not use unpublished information from submitted manuscripts for their own research without explicit written consent from the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained during the manuscript handling process must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts where conflicts of interest arise due to competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. In such cases, another editorial board member will be assigned to manage the manuscript.
Publication decisions
All manuscripts considered for publication undergo a rigorous peer-review process involving at least two expert reviewers in the field. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision, based on the validation of the work, its relevance to researchers and readers, reviewer comments, and legal requirements concerning libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may consult with other editors or reviewers as needed.
Involvement and cooperation in investigations
Editors in conjunction with the publisher, will take prompt action when ethical concerns are raised regarding submitted or published papers. Every report of unethical publishing behavior, regardless of when it is discovered, will be investigated. The International Journal of Biological and Biomedical Research editors adhere to the COPE Flowcharts for suspected misconduct cases. If an ethical concern is substantiated, a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other relevant notice will be published in the journal.
Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review is crucial for assisting editors in making informed publication decisions and for helping authors improve their manuscripts. As an essential component of scholarly communication, peer review contributes significantly to scientific endeavor. The International Journal of Biological and Biomedical Research believes that all scholars contributing to the scientific process have a responsibility to perform their fair share of reviewing.
Promptness
Any invited referee unable to review the reported research or anticipating an inability to provide a prompt review should immediately inform the editors and decline the invitation. This allows alternative reviewers to be contacted without delay.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such. They should not be shared with or discussed with others unless authorized by the Editor-in-Chief, which would occur only under exceptional and specific circumstances. This confidentiality obligation also applies to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively, with observations clearly articulated and supported by arguments, enabling authors to improve their manuscripts effectively. Personal criticism of the authors is strictly inappropriate.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers are expected to identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement derived from or previously reported in published literature should be accompanied by the appropriate citation. Reviewers should also inform the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Any invited referees with conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript must immediately notify the editors, declare their conflicts, and decline the review invitation so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer's own research without the authors' express written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. This applies equally to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
Duties of Authors
Reporting standards
Authors of original research must provide an accurate account of the work performed and its results, followed by an objective discussion of its significance. The manuscript should include sufficient detail and references to enable replication by others. Review articles should be accurate, objective, and comprehensive, while editorial 'opinion' pieces must be clearly identified as such. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are considered unethical and are unacceptable.
Data access and retention
Authors may be requested to provide the raw data of their study for editorial review and should be prepared to make this data publicly available if practicable. Authors must ensure that such data remains accessible to other competent professionals for at least 10 years post-publication (ideally via an institutional or subject-based data repository), provided participant confidentiality is protected and proprietary data rights do not preclude release.
Originality and plagiarism
Authors must ensure that their submitted work is entirely original. If the work and/or words of others have been used, they must be appropriately cited. Publications that significantly influenced the reported work must also be cited. Plagiarism, in all its forms—including "passing off" another's paper as one's own, copying or paraphrasing substantial parts without attribution, or claiming results from research conducted by others—constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Authors should not submit manuscripts that have already been published in another journal. Concurrent submission of a manuscript to multiple journals is unethical and unacceptable. The secondary publication of certain article types (e.g., clinical guidelines, translations) is sometimes justifiable if specific conditions are met: authors and editors of concerned journals must agree to the secondary publication, which must accurately reflect the data and interpretation of the primary document, and the primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.
Authorship of the manuscript
Authorship is attributed only to individuals who meet all the following criteria and can take public responsibility for the content: (i) significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; (ii) drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for intellectual content; and (iii) having seen and approved the final version and agreed to its submission for publication. Individuals who made substantial contributions (e.g., technical help, writing assistance, general support) but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section with their written permission. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate coauthors are included, no inappropriate coauthors are listed, and all coauthors have approved the final manuscript for submission.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest that might influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript at the earliest possible stage (typically by submitting a disclosure form and including a statement in the manuscript). Examples include financial interests (honoraria, grants, speaking bureaus, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, patent-licensing) and non-financial relationships (personal or professional affiliations, knowledge or beliefs). All sources of financial support, including grant numbers, must be disclosed.
Acknowledgement of sources
Authors are responsible for properly acknowledging the work of others and citing publications that significantly influenced their reported work. Information obtained privately (conversations, correspondence, discussions) must not be used or reported without explicit written permission from the source. Authors should not use information gained from providing confidential services (e.g., refereeing manuscripts or grant applications) unless explicit written permission from the author(s) of the work involved has been obtained.
Hazards and human or animal subjects
If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment with unusual inherent hazards, authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. For work involving animals or human participants, authors must ensure all procedures complied with relevant laws and institutional guidelines, and that appropriate institutional committee(s) approved them. The manuscript should include a statement to this effect, along with a statement that informed consent was obtained for human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.
Peer review
Authors are obligated to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by promptly responding to editors' requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, patient consents, and copyright permissions. If a first decision is "revisions necessary," authors should systematically address reviewer comments point-by-point in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript by the given deadline.
Fundamental errors in published works
When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, they have an obligation to promptly notify the journal's editors or publisher and cooperate to correct the paper (via an erratum) or retract it. If editors or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, authors are obligated to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence of its correctness to the journal editors.
Duties of the Publisher
Handling of unethical publishing behaviour
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification, or, in severe cases, the retraction of the affected work. The publisher, along with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.