Biologichni Studii / Studia Biologica

Focus and Scope

Біологічні студії/ Studia Biologica is a leading journal in Ukraine, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research that seeks to advance our understanding of fundamental processes in biology. The Journal publishes original research articles, review articles, brief reports, reports on technical advances, book reviews, comments on all areas of biological sciences (biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, environmental biology, genetics, medical biology, microbiology, physiology, zoology, agrobiology etc). Chief Editor Prof. Rostyslav Stoika is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal aims to disseminate and communicate scientific knowledge to researchers, academics, policy makers and the public worldwide.
Біологічні студії/ Studia Biologica welcomes original and significant contributions from across the field — from single-cell to populations and whole-ecosystem analyses; from molecular, to biophysical, to computational approaches; from molecular to the organism-scale studies.
The Journal was launched in 2007 and publishes 4 issues per year.

The electronic version of the Journal is located on the portal of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and on the website of the Library of Ukraine named after V. I. Vernadsky.
The articles are published in the Ukrainian and English languages.
All publications contain summaries reflecting the main results identical in Ukrainian and English.

Section Policies

Experimental works

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Methods

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Science history

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Announcements

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Conference

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Editorial Evaluation Timeline
All submissions are initially evaluated in depth by the editors. Papers that are not deemed by the editors to be strong candidates for publication will be returned to the authors without detailed review, typically within 3–5 days. Otherwise, the manuscripts will be sent to the reviewers. The editors try hard to reach a decision on these papers within 3–4 weeks of the submission date. If revisions are a condition of publication, editors will carefully evaluate the reviewers’ comments and, whenever possible, will provide guidance on the important concerns to be addressed. We generally allow 2 months for revision and consider only one revised version of the paper. Accepted papers will be published in print within 3 months of acceptance and, in most cases, the online version appears ahead of the print version 4-5 weeks after submission. Any major changes after acceptance are subject to review and may delay the publication.

Presubmission Inquiries
If the authors would like editorial input on whether their paper might be a strong candidate for consideration at Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica, they can send a presubmission inquiry. This should include an abstract plus a brief description of the results and an explanation of the interest and significance to broad readership of Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica, and should be addressed to igor.starunko@lnu.edu.ua. We will try to respond within 2–5 days.

Status Inquiries
You may e-mail igor.starunko@lnu.edu.ua with specific questions on the status updates as progress through the editorial process.

Peer Review Process
The Біологічні стурії / Studia Biologica follows a single blind process of peer review. 
The manuscript is reviewed by two chosen by the editor independent experts in the corresponding field of biology. If two positive reports are obtained, the paper is accepted for publication. Authors have a right to appeal against a reviewer’s decision. In this case, the paper will be sent to an independent referee or to an adjudicating member of the Editorial Board for assessment. A final decision on the appeal remains on the Editorial Board. The Editor informs the authors about the decision not later than 2 months after submission. Once the reviewers’ reports have been received, the authors have 7 days to revise the paper. The revised paper along with a point-by-point response to the reviewer reports and with the explanations on any changes made in the paper should be returned to the Editorial Office. Any corrections made to the text should be marked in different color. The revised paper approved and signed by reviewers and Scientific Editor is considered as the final version. Any changes to the text, figures or tables are not permitted thereafter. If the manuscript is returned in a period of more than 2 months, the work will be considered as a new submission.
In the case of negative review, the Editorial Board sends a written notice and reviews to the corresponding author.

Authors may suggest the names of four potential independent reviewers for their work, as well names of reviewers with conflict interests. The Editorial Board regards such wishes with understanding, though reserves the right to assign reviewers capable of the most qualified analysis of the work.
The Journal guarantees confidentiality at all stages of submission, reviewing and preprint preparation. The Editorial Board kindly requests authors not to share correspondence with the Journal to third parties, to not post reviews, or editors’ comments on any web sites without the agreement with the editorial staff, regardless of whether the manuscript was published.

Reviewing Procedure

1. The submitted manuscript is registered by the Editorial Staff at the time of receipt of the electronic version by e-mail.
2. Scientific Editors take a decision as to who will be assigned to review the manuscript, according to the field of research.
3. The manuscript is sent to the assigned reviewers.
4. Once the reviewers`s reports have been received, the Editorial Staff sends these reports to the authors. If two positive reports are obtained, the paper is accepted for publication. If revision is required, the authors revise the paper, considering all reviewers’ observations and recommendations.
5. The revised version of the paper then enters a second round of the peer review.
6. If positive reviewers’ assessments are reported, the paper is then approved by the Scientific Editor and afterwards is considered and approved by the Editorial Board.
7. The manuscript approved by the Editorial Board is sent to the Editorial Office to be prepared for publication.

Publication Frequency

 Quarterly*
*In some cases, one joint issue (N 3–4) of the journal may be published at the end of year. In that case, the articles will appear for the preview on the journal’s website as soon as they have been accepted by the editorial board.

Open Access Policy

Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica accepts the policy of open access to published content in accordance with the principle of free dissemination of scientific information and global exchange of knowledge for universal civil progress (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/  and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License)

The Journal provides full immediate open access upon publication. There are no submission, publication, and reading charges (Diamond Open Access publishing model). Full-text access to scientific articles of the journal is presented on the official website in Archives (http://publications.lnu.edu.ua/journals/index.php/biology/issue/archive).

Archiving

The full archive of the Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica is freely available without any prohibition at Library of Ukraine named after V. I. Vernadsky of Ukraine. Its on-line archive is posted on the portal of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.

Open Journal Systems supports the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system to ensure a secure and permanent archive for journal content. The LOCKSS Program is an open-source, based at Stanford University Libraries. It provides libraries and publishers open source digital preservation tools to preserve and provide access to persistent and authoritative digital content.
LOCKSS Publisher Manifest

Publication Fee

Publication in the journal Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica is free of charge!

Authorship

Authors are kindly requested to sign an Open Access license agreement. All articles are distributed under Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which means that Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica’s readers are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate or display these articles provided that:  
1) the original authorship is properly and fully attributed;  
2) the journal and publisher are attributed as the original place of publication with correct citation details given;  
3) in case an original work is subsequently reproduced or disseminated in part or as a derivative work, it should be clearly stated.

Authors are permitted to deposit all versions of their paper in an institutional or subject repository:
● Preprint.
● Author’s Accepted Manuscript.
● Published article (Version of Record).

Bioethical Standards

The Journal follows the rules recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). (Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals). If animals were used in the study, the authors should indicate the conditions of animal treatment during the experiment, methods of anesthesia and euthanasia, indicating the number and date of the protocol with the permission of the Bioethics Commission for research using animals and patients. The protocol of the experiment (s) must be approved by the relevant Bioethics Committee and comply with international standards. For works on the use of human materials - the Declaration of Helsinki (1975) with additions (2000 and 2008).

Publication Ethics

The Editorial Board of the Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica journal  agree upon standards of publishing ethics for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals, accepting the provisions of the ethics of scientific publications (Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) [http://publicationethics.org/], White Paper on Publication Ethics [http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/wp-content/uploads/entire_whitepaper.pdf]). Elsevier Publishing Ethics (https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics). Ukrainian authors should also follow the "Ethical Code of the Ukrainian Scientist" (URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/rada/show/v0002550-09#Text )

Anti-plagiarism Policy
For all manuscripts submitted for review, the level of uniqueness of the author's text is determined using appropriate software that analyzes the level of uniqueness of the article, the use of information sources and partial coincidence of the text with other works (StrikePlagiarism, Google images).
In case of plagiarism, the article is rejected without consideration for publication in the journal.

Declaration of Ethics
1. Publication and Authorship*: 
- reference list and funding information should be provided;
- no plagiarism and no fraudulent data.
* Permissions Guidelines. Written permission from the copyright holder is requested for reproducing any text, tables, or figures from previously published work. Permissions must be submitted together with the manuscript, and the publication from which the material is taken must be noted in the reference list.

Copyright. Біологічні cтудії / Studia Biologica accepts the policy of open access to published content in accordance with the principle of free dissemination of scientific information and global exchange of knowledge for universal civil progress (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/  and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License). When the manuscript is accepted, no paper presenting the same information can be published elsewhere. If a part of contribution has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the authors must specify the details in the comments of their submission. Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to different journals is not acceptable. Authors should name the funding organization in the accepted version of the manuscript and acknowledge all financial support and any other personal connections.

Conflicts of Interest. All authors of the submitted manuscript must recognize and disclose any existing conflict of interest, or potential conflict of interest, that may bias their work.

Scientific Misconduct. Research misconduct which includes fabrication of data, falsification of data, plagiarism, and unethical treatment of research subjects should be avoided, and special statement in that regard should be presented together with the manuscript. The “research misconduct” means any actions that involve purposeful manipulation of the scientific record so that it no longer reflects the observed truth, or mistreatment of research subjects. If the editorial staff suspects misconduct by the authors or reviewers to both published and unpublished papers, it can ask the employers of the authors or reviewers, or other appropriate body to investigate the appearing case, or it can conduct the investigation by itself. The editorial staff will make all reasonable attempts to get an acceptable resolution of the problem.

2. Authors’ Responsibilities*:
- authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process;
- all authors should have a significant contribution to the research;
- statement that all data in the manuscript are real and authentic should be presented;
- all authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

*Transparency:
• authors should read and understand the Author Guidelines;
• authorship statement explaining who did what should be provided;
• funding information should be given; 
• competing interest should be declared; 
• permission should be obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web); 
• documentation should be provided for any citations to unpublished work (e.g. articles in press/personal communications); 
• information about previous submissions to other journals (e.g. name of journal, reviewer comments) should be provided; 
• confirmation that the manuscript has been submitted solely to journal and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere, should be presented in the Letter to the Editor.

3. Reviewers’ Responsibility in the Peer Review Process*: 
- reviewers’ judgments should be objective;
- reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders;
- reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited;
- reviewed articles will be treated confidentially.

*Relationship with Reviewers:
• reviews should be conducted objectively;
• personal criticism of the author is inappropriate;
• Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and references as necessary, and not be defamatory or libellous;
• Reviewers should declare any competing interests;
• Reviewers should decline reviewing manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers; 
• Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of material supplied to them and should not discuss unpublished manuscripts with colleagues or use the information in their work;
• if a Reviewer wants to pass a review request onto a colleague, they should get the editor’s permission beforehand.

Reviewers will be asked to address ethical aspects of the submission such as:
• has the author published the results of this research before?
• has the author plagiarised another publication?
• is the research ethical and has the appropriate approval/consent been obtained?
• is there any indication that the data has been fabricated or inappropriately manipulated?
• have the authors declared all relevant competing interests?

4. Editorial Responsibilities*:
- editors have a complete responsibility and authority to either reject or accept an article;
- editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept;
- editors will accept a paper only when reasonably certain;
- when errors are found, publication of correction or retraction will be promoted;
- anonymity of reviewers will be preserved.

*An Authorship Policy
• statements of each individual’s contribution to the research and publication are required;
• checklists should be used to prevent ghost authorship (see PLoS: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000023#s4)
• all authors are required to sign an authorship declaration;
• all authors should be included in communications (e.g. acknowledging receipt of a submission) not just the corresponding author;
• authorship should be clearly specified (CRediT taxonomy);
• details of ethical approval and informed consent for studies in humans should be provided;
• for randomised controlled trials registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry should be noted;
• details of approval for animal experimentation should be provided.

5. Publishing Ethics Issues*:
- monitoring/safeguarding publishing ethics will be carried out by the editorial board;
- guidelines for retracting articles are noted below;
- integrity of the academic record should be maintained;
- compromising intellectual and ethical standards should be precluded from business needs;
- publication of corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies will be performed when needed.
- plagiarism and fraudulent data are forbidden.

* Institutions where the paper authors work should:
• inform journals about cases of proven misconduct that affect the reliability or attribution of work that they have published;
• respond to journals if they request information about issues, such as disputed authorship, misleading reporting, competing interests, or other factors, including honest errors, that could affect the reliability of published work;
• initiate inquiries into allegations of research misconduct or unacceptable publication practice raised by the journal;
• have policies supporting responsible research conduct and systems in place for investigating suspected research misconduct.

The journal should:
• publish the contact details of the editor-in-chief who should act as the point of contact for questions relating to research and publication integrity;
• inform institutions if it suspects misconduct by their researchers, and provide evidence to support these concerns; 
• cooperate with investigations and respond to institutions’ questions about misconduct allegations;
• be prepared to issue retractions or corrections (according to the COPE guidelines on retractions) when provided with findings of misconduct arising from investigations;
• have policies for responding to institutions and other organizations that investigate cases of research misconduct.

Cases involving multiple institutions or journals:
• in collaborative research involving multiple institutions, one institution should be nominated to coordinate investigations and act as the point of contact unless there is an obvious leading institution (e.g. that administers the grant or employs the researchers). Disputes between institutions over the authorship or data ownership may require adjudication by an independent arbitrator agreeable to all parties.
• cases of plagiarism, breach of copyright or redundant publication usually involve several journals who should therefore cooperate with each other and share information as required (e.g. about submission dates and copyright transfer agreements) to resolve the issues.

Investigating previous publications:
• research and publication misconduct may not be an isolated incident. In many cases, when serious misconduct comes to light, investigation of the researcher’s earlier work reveals further problems. Therefore, when a researcher is found to have committed serious misconduct (such as data fabrication, falsification or plagiarism) the institution should review all the individual’s publications, including those published before the proven misconduct took place. In such cases, previous employers will be alerted to enable them to review work carried out by the discredited researcher when working at their institution, to determine the reliability of publications arising from that work.

6. Publication Retracting*:
Journal Editors will consider retracting a publication if: 
• they have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error); 
• the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication); 
• it constitutes plagiarism; 
• it reports unethical research. 
• they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors; 
• there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case; 
• they believe that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be fair and impartial or conclusive; 
• investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time. 
• a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error); 
• author / contributor list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

*The purpose of retraction:
• retraction is a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to publications that contain such seriously flawed or erroneous data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon. Unreliable data may result from honest error or from research misconduct.

Retractions are also used to alert readers to cases of redundant publication (i.e. when authors present the same data in several publications), plagiarism, and failure to disclose a major competing interest likely to influence interpretations or recommendations.

The main purpose of retractions is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity rather than punish authors who misbehave;
• the reasons and basis for the retraction will be noted; cases of misconduct from those of honest error will be distinguished; specification who is retracting the article will be noted. This information will be published in all versions of the journal (i.e. print and/or electronic); 
• retracted articles will not be removed from printed copies of the journal (e.g. in libraries) nor from electronic archives but their retracted status will be indicated as clearly as possible.

Complaints and Appeals

Appealing the Editorial Decision
The Editor-in-Chief handles editorial decisions based on submitted manuscripts relevance to the aims and scope, similarity checks, readability, reviewer comments, and authors’ responses. Extra efforts are made to provide professional service to authors who seek quality publication in Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica. However, a large number of submissions are often outright rejected due to drawbacks in study designs, poor structures of scientific hypotheses, a priori statements, and violations of globally acceptable research publication ethics norms. Related editorial decisions are not subjected to appeals and re-consideration. All other appeals can be forwarded to studia.biologica@lnu.edu.ua
The authors of rejected manuscripts may apply to reconsider editorial decisions if they are dissatisfied with the editor/reviewer comments and can justify their point of view by referring to available evidence based data and logical considerations. The Editor-in-Chief will discuss the appeal with other handling editors and may forward the rejected manuscript for new sets of external reviewers.
If the authors are dissatisfied how the Editor-in-Chief handles their requests, they may forward their letters to other handling editors and editorial board members.

Handling Complaints and Appeals
The Editor-in-Chief and other handling editors are guided by the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics. The authors are reassured that there are policies in place to provide professional service to appealing authors whose justified requests will be treated fairly and confidentially within a reasonably short period of time. Potential authors of Біологічні студії / Studia Biologica are advised to carefully consider specific aims and scope of this Journal and strive to submit publishable manuscripts meeting all quality and ethics standards.

Errata

An erratum refers to a correction of errors introduced to the article by the publisher. All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication. Authors who noticed an error should contact the Journal Support Manager. 

ISSN: 2311-0783