Editorial Policy of the Journal

Biological Communications invites for publication original manuscripts that are neither previously published, nor being under consideration for publication elsewhere. The criteria for selection are scientific excellence, originality and interest across disciplines within Biology and, more broadly, Life Sciences. Submissions should be prepared in a format that corresponds with the journal’s requirements.

The authors of accepted articles sign License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University’s Publishing House granting partial rights to the Licensee. The authors retain the right for distribution of their articles in the final format in the way of self-archiving at their personal home pages, institutional repositories, or professional networks like Academia or ResearchGate.

The published articles thus appear under immediate Open Access free from any article processing charges. The recommended size of a submission is between 15−60 thousand characters, including spaces. Biological Communications accepts color illustrations free of charge; however, we reserve the right to charge authors for extra size and outnumbered figures.

The manuscripts are usually reviewed by three referees, who may open their names to the authors. The current manuscript acceptance rate in Biological Communications is 42 %.

Biological Communications is an official scientific journal of Saint Petersburg State University, therefore the right to first press release belongs to Saint Petersburg State University, and the press releases are made by its Press Office. All accepted articles are embargoed for any printed and electronic mass media until the date following the first press release by Saint Petersburg State University.

Exception is made for preprint servers. Biological Communications allows author’s posting the manuscript at an acknowledged biological preprint server, like bioRxiv.org, arXiv q-bio, F1000Research and others, which are indexed in Prepubmed and encourage parallel submission to our journal. The final printed journal version can be later uploaded as the final version at the preprint server or elsewhere. In turn, we will keep the link to the earliest version of the manuscript published in bioRxiv.org in the final publication in Biological Communications. In this case press release on the published article is not issued by the Press Office as the materials are already known to the public. We do believe that this way may help authors to substantially improve the manuscripts given the feedback on the preprint. Generally, it is the author’s decision whether to submit a manuscript just to the journal or to a preprint server as well.

Editorial Board Members Selection

Members of the Biological Communications Editorial Board are selected by the Editor(s) of the journal with the input from the Publisher. The Editorial Board of a journal can influence its quality, so Biological Communications editors should meet the following criteria:

• Members of the Editorial Board should have a PhD degree and experience in publication as corresponding authors in high-ranking journals.
• Members of the Editorial Board should have an h-index of 10 or higher.
• The expertise of Editorial Board members should accord with the scope of the journal.
• Representatives of key research institutes should be appointed.
• Former special issue guest editors, key reviewers, and authors of top review papers can be invited to the Editorial Board.

Actual Editorial Board members may propose new candidates.

Interested in working on the Editorial Board? Biological Communications welcomes volunteers who share our mission, values, and commitment to providing our contributors with high-quality experience. Please, send your CV via e-mail: biocomm@spbu.ru

Advertising policy

Biological Communications does not publish advertisements or any other advertorial materials. Authors should not cite advertisements or any other advertorial materials.