Editorial Ethics

General guidelines

Publishing ethics policy of the Journal is the code of conduct and guidelines which should be followed by all participants of the academic publication process, including authors, peer reviewers, editors, publishers, distributors, and readers.

The Editorial Board abides by the copyright law and anti-plagiarism regulations of the Russian Federation as well as the set of the ethical principles shared by the community of academic publishers; Editorial Board is responsible for publishing and disseminating manuscripts.

Publishing ethics policy of Biological Communications follows the guidelines designed by the international Committee on Publication Ethics (СОРЕ).

All participants of the academic publication process must clearly state all possible conflicts of interests: financial, non-financial, personal, and professional that occurred within 5 years of starting the research. The authors must indicate such conflicts in the “Competing interests” section of the Manuscript at the submission stage while peer reviewers, editors, publishers, and distributors must immediately inform the Editorial Board if the conflict of interests arose.


Ethical guidelines for editors

Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board are responsible for publishing manuscripts, which means that they should adhere to the following basic guidelines:

  • Editors’ decisions to accept or reject the manuscript should be based on the validity and academic importance of the study;

  • Editors should consider research characteristics of the manuscripts regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnicity, nationality, social background or political beliefs of the author;

  • Previously unpublished data disclosed in the manuscript should not be used for personal purposes or forwarded to third parties without written consent of the author;

  • Information or ideas obtained in the course of editing process, leading to any kind of benefit, should be kept confidential and should not be used for personal advantage;

  • Editors should not publish the information if there is reasonable ground to suspect that it was plagiarised;

  • Editor and publisher shall respond to every appeal concerning submitted manuscripts or published articles; in case of conflict they shall take all necessary steps to defend violated copyright.


Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers

Impartial peer reviewing of submitted manuscripts should be guided by the following principles:

  • The manuscript submitted for peer review should be regarded as a confidential document, which cannot be transferred to third parties for review and discussion unless the permission therefor was obtained from the Journal;

  • Peer reviewer should provide objective and sound evaluation of the conducted research, refraining from making personal comments about the author;

  • Previously unpublished data disclosed in the manuscripts shall not be used for reviewer’s personal ends;

  • In case the reviewer does not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review of the manuscript or if he/she feels unable to provide unbiased review, (for example, because of the conflicting interests with the author or affiliated institution), the reviewer should inform the editor and decline to review the manuscript.


Ethical guidelines for authors

Author (or authors) shall be responsible for originality and validity of research they submitted, which means they have to abide by the following guidelines:

  • The authors should report valid research results, refraining from fabrication or falsification of data;

  • The authors should guarantee that the results presented in the submitted work are original;

  • Microscopic images and gels’/blots’ photographs should be minimally processed and must correctly represent the original data. Unprocessed data and raw image files should be retained after the publication and may be requested by the Editors. Image processing software should be named in the Methods and any manipulations should be indicated in the figure legends.

  • Each borrowed fragment and statement should be acknowledged and referenced, with the indication of its author and the source of information: citation manipulation as well as plagiarism of any kind, including hidden or disguised quotations, paraphrasing or usurpation of copyright is unethical and unacceptable;

  • It is compulsory to acknowledge the contribution made by all those who influenced the research in any way; the academic works that affected the author’s research, should be cited in the manuscript;

  • The authors should not submit the manuscripts, which are currently under consideration for publication in any other journal or have already been published elsewhere;

  • All major contributors to the research should be listed as authors; it is not allowed to list those who did not contribute to the current research as authors;

  • If the author discovers an error or inaccuracy in any submitted or published work, he or she should declare that immediately to the editorial staff.