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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- All reviews are transparent and available for authors excluding the blind information specially written for editorial board members.
- 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.