About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Ukrainian Biopharmaceutical Journal is a scholarly periodical established for the purpose of developing the national research potential in the areas of Pharmacy, Biopharmaceuticals, and Biology as well as its integration into the world’s research community attracting eventually international authorship and readership who follow the chosen topics.

The journal publishes original, review, and experimental articles devoted to the products of medical and biological research carried out in the pharmaceutical industry. Preference is given to research in the fields of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Pharmacology and Phytochemistry applying biological methods of research, as well as the biopharmaceutical and technology studies where the biological methods are used.

Peer Review Process

Review Policy of the Manuscripts Submitted for Publication in a Scientific Periodical “Ukrainian biopharmaceutical journal”

General Regulations

All the articles (manuscripts) received by the Editorial Board undergo the review procedure, except the reperts an informational nature. The purpose of the review is to provide the most objective assessment the scientific article content, to determine its compliance with the requirements of the journal, a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the materials, to make specific recommendations for their improvement, as well as the selection of actual and original author's manuscripts for publication. Only those articles that have scientific value and contribute to the solution of actual problems and tasks are accepted for printing. The main purpose of the review procedure is to improve the quality of scientific research; to provide and to ensure the sequence and balance of interests of authors, readers, editorial board, reviewers and the institution where the research was carried out is agreed upon and observed. Reviewers evaluate the theoretical and methodological level of the article, its practical value and scientific significance. In addition, reviewers determine the article compliance with the principles of scientific publications ethics and give recommendations on how to eliminate cases of their violation.

Ethical Obligations of Reviewers

The purpose of the review policy of the scientific periodical “Ukrainian Biopharmaceutical Journal” is to support the high ethical standards of scientific research, according to which the reviewer should be aware of the requirements for ethics in scientific publications. The review process of the manuscripts submitted for publication is organized according to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): http://publicationethics.org and the experience of leading scientific communities is taking into account in order to improve the quality of publishing materials , to overcome bias and injustice in the rejecting or accepting the articles.

General Requirement for the reviewing manuscripts

The scientific periodical "Ukrainian Biopharmaceutical Journal" is a peer-reviewed journal, which practices the selection of manuscripts for publication on the basis of their evaluation by independent experts in the field of pharmacy, biopharmacy, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology through the use of double-blind review (the authors do not know the reviewers names, the reviewers do not know the authors names of the manuscript).
Manuscripts that have passed the preliminary assessment by the responsible secretaries of the publication and the editors of the defenite journal section for compliance with the requirements of the publication to the structure, content and design of manuscripts are submitted for review. Manuscripts that do not meet the accepted requirements are not registered and are not allowed for further consideration, and their authors should be informed about it.
Reviewers for manuscripts are chosen by the editorial board members and authors, readers and scientists, who are competent in the field of publishing in the absence of conflicts of interest on the subject of the manuscript and who work on a voluntary and gratuitous basis.
One reviewer, who is competent in the research subject matter, takes part in the review procedure.
Scientists whose research topics correspond to the profile of the publication are selected as reviewers, and the scientometric indicators correspond to the item. 6 Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine No. 32 dd. 15.01.2018.
Prior to the beginning of the review procedure, the reviewer must provide consent and thus confirm the absence of a conflict of interest on the subject of the manuscript. The term of the review is 2 weeks from the moment the reviewer's consent is given.
The review process takes place in the form of a closed questionnaire survey of reviewers on the journal's website.
During the review process, the reviewer evaluates the manuscript on the aspects outlined in the review, can give a textual comment on the manuscript or make a version of the manuscript for the editorial office with proposed amendments.
When the review process is carried out, the reviewer is able to make a decision on the recommendation:

- manuscripts for publication without revision;

-publication the manuscript after elimination of insignificant remarks (grammatical and stylistic mistakes, design of drawings and tables, design of article bibliographies, etc.);

- manuscripts for publication after the reviewer's serious remarks have been finalized and the procedure of repeated review has been completed;

- manuscript rejecting.

The rejection of the manuscript is possible in the following cases: the subject matter does not correspond to the direction of the publication; there is no scientific novelty, theoretical and practical importance; unreliable and unreasonable results of the research are presented; the text of the manuscript was published earlier, and so on.

10. The manuscripts sent to the author in order to finalize serious remarks, after the repeated submitting should be sent to the reviewer, who was reviewing the first version of the article at the previous time, a second review procedure must be realised.

11. In case of contradictions between the author and the reviewer and if it is impossible to eliminate the comments, the editorial board may decide on the appointment of the manuscript review procedure with the involvement of another reviewer.

12. The final decision on the publication of the manuscript is made by the editorial board and approved by the Academic Council of the National University of Pharmacy.

13. Responsibility for copyright infringement and failure to comply with existing standards in the materials of the article lies with the author of the article. The author and the reviewer are responsible for the reliability of the given facts and data, substantiation of the conclusions and recommendations made, the scientific and practical level of the article.

Publication Frequency

Journal is published four times per year.

Open Access Policy

This journal is practicing an open access policy in accordance with the Budapest BOAI Initiative (http//www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org), which provides authors and readers with the right to read, download, copy, distribute materials of journal, as well as to find or attach them to full texts of relevant articles, use for indexing and use for other legitimate purposes in the absence of financial, legal and technical barriers, with the exception of those governing direct access to the network internet.

Payment

The authors pay only the cost of providing services for the editorial preparation of articles for printing. The payment is made only after receiving a positive review of the article and the adoption by the editorial board of the decision to publish in the journal, which the journal is informed by the responsible secretary of the journal. The cost and procedure for rendering services for editorial preparation (editing, correction, layout of texts) of manuscripts of articles submitted for publication, are fixed in the calculation of services, which is calculated by the planning and financial department of National Pharmaceutical University. The editorial preparation of the manuscripts filed for publication does not involve the translation of the manuscript by English.

There is no fee for submitting and reviewing articles in the journal.

Plagiarism

All manuscripts submitted for publication are subject to compulsory examination to prevent academic plagiarism. To perform the analysis of documents in National Pharmaceutical University, software Anti-Plagiarism (licensee – Khmelnytsky National University) is used.

The criteria for the originality of the text in the manuscripts are defined in the Regulations on Measures for the Prevention of Academic Plagiarism (POL A 2.8-03-101) and have the following indicators:

over 90% – the text of the manuscript is original (insignificant amount of borrowing);
from 80 to 90% – the originality of the text is satisfactory (insignificant amount of borrowing), however, it is necessary to make sure that the quotations and references to used sources are correct;
from 60 to 80% – the manuscript is accepted for consideration after completion by the author (authors) and the availability and correct execution of quotes and references to used sources, since it has a significant amount of borrowing;
less than 60% – the manuscript for consideration is not accepted and can not be recommended for printing (protection), since it has a significant amount of borrowing, which is treated as plagiarism.

Publication ethics

The scientific periodical “Ukrainian biopharmaceutical journal” adheres the recognized standards of publication ethics. The following editorial policy “Ukrainian biopharmaceutical journal” is based on the International Committee on Publication Ethics – СОРЕ – http://publicationethics.org, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors – ICMJE (“Vancouver group”) – http://www.icmje.org/, World Association of Medical Editors – WAME – http://www.wame.org/, Directory of Open Access Journals – DOAJ – https://doaj.org

Ethical responsibilities of editors

The editor is responsible for publishing the author’s material, therefore, it is necessary to abide by the following basic principles:

- the editor has the authority to accept (reject) the manuscript;

- the editor may reject the manuscript without a review if it does not correspond the journal field;

- the editor must not have the conflicts of interest for articles accepted (rejected) to publish;

- the editor has no right to use in his own researches unpublished materials presented in the submitted manuscript without the written consent of the author. Confidential information or ideas received during the review should not be disclosed by the editor or used for personal gain;

- when deciding to publish the manuscript the editor is guided by the reliability of the data presented and the scientific significance of the work under consideration;

- the editor should not allow the publication of information if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is a plagiarism;

- the editor, together with the publisher, should not remain without the response the claims relating to the manuscripts or published materials, as well as if conflict, all the necessary steps must be taken to restore the infringed rights;

- the editor is able to guide by the journal Editorial policy, decisions of the journal Editorial Board, being limited by current legal norms concerning defamation, copyrighting and plagiarism.

Ethical responsibilities of reviewer

The reviewer carries out a scientific examination of the author's materials, as a result of which, he must adhere to the following principles:

-the aim of the reviewer is objective assessment of the article quality and its correspondence to definite scientific, literary and ethical standards;

- if the chosen reviewer is not sure in his qualification and its correspondence to the level of the research presented in the manuscript, he must immediately refuse to review;

- the reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasonable assessment of the results of the study; personal critics of the author is not acceptable;

- the reviewer should not have a conflict of interest with regard to the research, authors or research sponsors;

- if any conflict of interests in the results of the research connecting with the private development of the reviewer or if any professional or private relationships among the author and the reviewer, which may influence the reviewer’s point of view, the manuscript must be returned to the author, the conflict of interests must be spelled out;

- the manuscript sent to be reviewed , is considered to be confidential and it is forbidden to pass it for review or discussion to third parties who do not have editorial authority;

- to ensure the right of each author to the intellectual property, without the author’s permission the reviewer cannot use any author‘s arguments and conclusions received;

- if the reviewer has doubts about plagiarism, authorship or data reliability, he must obligatorily apply to the editorial board for a collective review of the manuscript author's version;

- support for the constant periodical publication of a scientific journal requires a reviewer’s high self-discipline, which is disclosed through the timely submission of the manuscript reviewing and in respect for the authors of (in a case of incivility to the authors, providing consistently the reviews of poor quality or delayed submission of reviews - the relationship with this reviewer stopped);

- when a reviewer is not allowed to use and to disclose unpublished information or the author's argument, it is not considered contradictory to the ethical rules of termination of some of his own research reviewers if, to his mind, they are considered to be ineffective.

Requirement for the periodical and for the authors

- to deliver quality references;

- to publish data on financial support for research;

- to avoid plagiarism and fraudulent data;

- to avoid publishing the same results more than in one journal.

Ethical responsibilities of authors

Authors are responsible for the article content, novelty and data reliability of the scientific research; the fact of publishing requires adhering the following principles:

- the author having a publication in the journal may participate in the process of reviewing the other authors manuscripts;

- co-authors of the article should be all those persons who have made a significant scientific contribution to the work submitted and share the responsibility for the results obtained. The author who submits the manuscript to the publication is responsible for ensuring that the list of co-authors includes only those persons who meet the authorship criteria and assumes responsibility for the other authors consent of publishing the article in the journal;

- all the authors should provide the errors refutation or correction in a case of their detection; if there are significant errors or inaccuracies in the article at the stage of its consideration or after its publication, the author should inform the editorial board as soon as possible;

- the author must provide reliable results of the research; known wrong or false allegations are considered to be unacceptable;

- the author should not submit to the journal a manuscript earlier sent and/or published in another edition;

- the author must ensure that the results of the study, set out in the attached manuscript, are completely original; the borrowed fragments or statements must be spelled out with the obligatory indication of the author and the original source; excessive borrowing, as well as plagiarism in all forms, including unformed citations, rephrasing or assigning rights to the results of others' research, are unethical and unacceptable.