Editorial Policies

Aims and Scope

Acta Naturae is an international journal on life sciences based in Moscow, Russia.

Our goal is to present scientific work and discovery in molecular biology, biochemistry, biomedical disciplines and biotechnology. These fields represent the most important priorities for the research and engineering development both in Russia and worldwide. Acta Naturae is also a periodical for those who are curious in various aspects of biotechnological business, innovations in pharmaceutical areas, intellectual property protection and social consequences of scientific progress. The journal publishes analytical industrial surveys focused on the development of different spheres of modern life science and technology.

Being a radically new and totally unique journal in Russia, Acta Naturae is useful to both representatives of fundamental research and experts in applied sciences.

 

Sections

Reviews

The journal publishes reviews of literature, including systematic reviews of clinical trials in different directions of life sciences.

The main purpose of a review manuscript should be a discussion of actual data or presentation the original author's view on a problem. It shouldn't be a simple enumeration of previously published data. Thus, the discussion is a mandatory part of the review manuscript (it can be isolated in a separate section or place systematically throughout the text).

Authors should indicate all the sources of primary information in the manuscript (names of the full-text and references databases, keywords and other search settings).

The manuscript of literature review should be structured into sections and contain graphic materials.

Research Articles

The journal accepts manuscript containing results of experimental studies, observational and clinical trials, and meta-analyzes in the area of life sciences.

Editorial board will select for publication only manuscripts of clinical and experimental studies which were conducted in accordance with international biomedical ethics and deontology principles. In case of human studies Editorial board asks the authors to describe within the manuscript that presented trial was conducted in accordance with international GCP standards: voluntary signing of an informed consent by all of participants; approval of the study protocol by the local ethics committee (the distinct name of ethics committee, the meeting date and protocol number should be indicate in a manuscript), etc.

The detailed study protocol should be presented in the manuscript. Authors should give so many details of a study protocol as need for it fully replaying. In the case of meta-analyze authors should describe in details the procedure of information search: names of databases, filters and keywords, as well as any additional search settings for primary sources collecting.

In compliance with the ethics policy editorial board asks authors to indicate the source of funding of their work (study preparation, writing and publishing the manuscript, etc.), and declare of apparent or potential conflicts of interests. Please note that the presence of obvious or potential conflict of interest (including the financial interest of the authors) or affiliation of any organization (public or private) with conduction of the research is not a reason for a manuscript rejection. Rather, it gives additional advantages of manuscript under evaluation by reviewers and will cause more interest and trust from readers.

Short communications

The journal is looking for manuscripts with short communications on original studies data, brief reports on finished and planned trials, case reports, letters to the editors, announcements and so on.

Forum

History of Science

 

Peer Review Process

The journal publishes articles that have passed the selection process. Article selection process is based on single-blind peer-review.

The Role of Journal Editors in Reviewing and Approving Material that is Published

The role of Editors in the reviewing process may be described by the following approved steps making the process transparent strictly avoiding any unregulated actions:

  1. The editors of Acta Naturae arrange the first line peer-review process by studding the overall importance of the paper tacking into account the field, the general quality of results and adequate presentation of the material.
  2. The editors select the appropriate members of the editorial board (in the most cases two members) and send them the MS with some preliminary comments made on step N 1.
  3. Editors consider the replies from the Editorial board members and take the decision on rejection or sending for the external review. In the last case they select two reviewers or ask members of editorial board to provide them with appropriate candidates.
  4. Editors are responsible for studding the situation with conflict of interest in evaluation process. They pay attention to avoid any situation when Editorial board members or reviewers may have connection (as former coauthors) with any authors of the manuscript under investigation. In case when a paper is going from the Editor’s Lab the provisional role of the Editor is transferred to the one of the Editorial board members. In case if authors declare they scientific contradictions with any members of the Editorial board or potential reviewers, Editors take the responsibility to exclude these persons from the list of potential persons involved in the evaluation process of this Manuscript.
  5. Editors collect extramural reviews and make preliminary decision. In case of contradictions of two reviewers they take the decision to send the manuscript for the 3rd review.
  6. All manuscripts with the intramural and extramural reviews are subjected to the consideration on the Editorial board session which take place regularly 4 time per year (one month before the start of the publication procedure of the next volume of the journal).
  7. All reviews are transparent and available for authors excluding the blind information specially written for editorial board members.
  8. Editors are responsible for evaluation of rebuttal letters from authors and evaluation of these letters as well as for evaluation of the second and 3rd rounds of review process after the presentation of additional set of experiments made by authors of the manuscript upon the request of reviewers. Editors send the reviewer’s comments and editorial board members to the authors of the manuscript.

 

Publication Frequency

The journal publish regular issues quarterly, four times per year.

 

Open Access Policy

The publications in the Journal are available to all interested from the moment of publication. So, this journal provides immediate Gold Open Access (in accordance with Budapest Open Access Initiative) to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Also the editorial board belives that it provides free public access to the results of research and contributes to the advancement of science and medicine.

Free Full-text access to all articles can be observed via several websites — http://www.actanaturae.ru, www.elibrary.ru, PubMed Central. All accepted articles publish with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licensee (CC BY 4.0) for more freely distribution and usage worlwide.

 

Archiving

The journal uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) to digitally preserve all the published articles. The PKP PN is a part of LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content.

Also, the journal makes full-text archives on the Russian Science Electronic Library (http://elibrary.ru/) platform.

 

Indexation

The journal currently indexing in:

  • Web of Science
  • SCOPUS
  • Russian Science Citation Index
  • Google Scholar
  • PubMed Central

 

Publishing Standards and Ethics

The Ethic policy of "Acta Naturae" journal is based on recomendations from international commettees:

Reporting standarts

The Acta Naturae journal editorial team ask authors of reports of original research to present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial opinion works should be clearly identified as such.

Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Authorship clarified

The Journal and Publisher assume all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.

The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines (based on ICMJE guidelines):

All authors whose names appear on the submission:

  1. made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work AND
  2. drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content AND
  3. approved the version to be published AND
  4. agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Anyone who contributed to the research or manuscript preparation, but is not an author, should be acknowledged with their permission.

Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be considered.

Research Ethics and Patient Consent (Statement of Human and Animal Rights)

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.

Hazards for Human or Animal Subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the authors should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

When reporting experiments on animals, authors have to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Research involving human embryos, gametes, and stem cells

Manuscripts that report experiments involving the use of human embryos and gametes, human embryonic stem cells and related materials, and clinical applications of stem cells must include confirmation that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations (See also Research involving human participants and/or animals)

The manuscript should include an ethics statement identifying the institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee) approving the experiments and describing any relevant details. Authors should confirm that informed consent (See also Informed consent) was obtained from all recipients and/or donors of cells or tissues, where necessary, and describe the conditions of donation of materials for research, such as human embryos or gametes. Copies of approval and redacted consent documents may be requested by the Journal.

We encourage authors to follow the principles laid out in the 2016 ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation.

In deciding whether to publish papers describing modifications of the human germline, the Journal is guided by safety considerations, compliance with applicable regulations, as well as the status of the societal debate on the implications of such modifications for future generations. In case of concerns regarding a particular type of study the Journal may seek the advice from the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group.

The decision to publish a paper is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal.

Use of inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, should contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of race, sex, culture or any other characteristic, and should use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, for instance by using 'he or she', 'his/her' instead of 'he' or 'his', and by making use of job titles that are free of stereotyping (e.g. 'chairperson' instead of 'chairman' and 'flight attendant' instead of 'stewardess').

Conflicts of Interest

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Conflicts include the following:

  • Financial — funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work;
  • Affiliations — being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work;
  • Intellectual property — patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization;
  • Personal — friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections;
  • Ideology — beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work;
  • Academic — competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.

For more information on conflicts of interest, see the guidance from the ICMJE and WAME.

Funding and Acknowledgement of Sources

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/  

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism takes many forms, from passing off another paper as the author(s) own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another(s) paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Only original works are acceptable for publication in "Acta Naturae" journal. The journal does not allow any forms of plagiarism. Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution. All sources must be cited at Acta Naturae journal take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. All the submitted articles are evaluated with plagiarism-checking software (Antiplagiat). Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgment, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to:

  • publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction);
  • retracting the article;
  • taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author’s institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies;
  • or taking appropriate legal action.

Also you can see ORI Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing

Duplicate Submission and Redundant Publication

Acta Naturae journal consider only original content, i.e. articles that have not been previously published, including in a language other than English. Articles based on content previously made public only on a preprint server, institutional repository, or in a thesis will be considered.

Manuscripts submitted to Acta Naturae journal must not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration and must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere. Authors whose articles are found to have been simultaneously submitted elsewhere may incur sanctions.

If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they must cite the previous articles and indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work. Reuse of the authors’ own words outside the Methods should be attributed or quoted in the text. Reuse of the authors’ own figures or substantial amounts of wording may require permission from the copyright holder and the authors are responsible for obtaining this.

Acta Naturae journal will consider extended versions of articles published at conferences provided this is declared in the cover letter, the previous version is clearly cited and discussed, there is significant new content, and any necessary permissions are obtained.

Redundant publication, the inappropriate division of study outcomes into more than one article (also known as salami slicing), may result in rejection or a request to merge submitted manuscripts, and the correction of published articles. Duplicate publication of the same, or a very similar, article may result in the retraction of the later article and the authors may incur sanctions.

Citation Manipulation

Authors whose submitted manuscripts are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, may incur sanctions.

Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.

Fundamental errors in published works, Corrections and Retractions

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the authors obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

When errors are identified in published articles, the publisher will consider what action is required and may consult the editors and the authors’ institution(s). 

Errors by the authors may be corrected by a corrigendum, and errors by the publisher — by an erratum (see more).

If there are errors that significantly affect the conclusions or there is evidence of misconduct, this may require retraction or an expression of concern following the COPE Retraction Guidelines. All authors will be asked to agree to the content of the appropriate notice.

Sanctions

If Acta Naturae journal becomes aware of breaches of our publication ethics policies, the following sanctions may be applied:

  • Rejection of the manuscript and any other manuscripts submitted by the author(s).
  • Not allowing submission for 1–3 years.
  • Prohibition from acting as an editor or reviewer.

Acta Naturae journal may apply additional sanctions for severe ethical violations.

 

Publication Fee

Publication in "Acta Naturae" journal is free for all authors.

The "Acta Naturae" journal charge no publication fees from authors - including those of peer-review management, manuscript processing, journal production, Open-Access, online hosting and archiving.

 

Advertising Policy

  1. The Editorial Board of Acta Naturae take all the responsibility for advertising policy.
  2. The space for advertisement cannot exceed 5% in each volume of the Journal.
  3. Advertisements should be clearly identifiable as advertisements.
  4. All kind of advertisement materials are approved by the Editorial Board at their regular sessions.
  5. All kind of commercial advertisement must be related to life science products applicable in laboratory experiments only. The Editorial Board should avoid any materials advertising pre-clinical and clinical trials, therapeutics and products for human and animal use as well as agricultural commercial application. Journals should not carry advertisements for products proven to be seriously harmful to health. The products of well-known international and domestic companies producing scientific equipment, reagents designing novel methodologies in scientific research are mostly welcomed.
  6. Acta Naturae, both as a hard copy and in electronic version, publishes announcement of International and National scientific events in the field of Life Science.
  7. The Editorial Board consider all comments of scientific community concerning advertising materials and may stop all kind of agreements with companies in case if publishing process of advertising materials are subjected to specific and documented criticism from scientific community.


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