Acta Biomedica is committed to maintaining the highest standards of editorial independence, integrity, and transparency in scientific publishing. Editorial decisions are made autonomously and are not influenced by commercial, institutional, or personal interests.
The journal ensures that all submitted manuscripts are evaluated fairly, objectively, and without discrimination based on sex, gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion, political views, or socioeconomic status.
All editorial practices—including ethical policies, author guidelines, and peer review procedures—are regularly reviewed and updated to ensure compliance with internationally recognized standards of fairness, rigor, and scientific integrity.
The journal adheres to the recommendations and best practices established by leading international organizations (http://publicationethics.org), including:
Manuscripts must be submitted electronically by the corresponding author and prepared in clear, grammatically correct English.
Submissions are considered on the condition that:
All authors are expected to:
The corresponding author assumes responsibility for the manuscript as a whole, including authorship integrity and data accuracy.
The Editor-in-Chief conducts an initial screening to assess:
Manuscripts failing to meet these criteria may be rejected without external peer review (desk rejection).
Submissions from members of the Editorial Board are handled with strict confidentiality and full transparency, in accordance with guidelines of Council of Science Editors CSE (https://www.council scienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/publication-ethics/2-1-editor-roles-and-responsibilities), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE- http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html), and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE- https://publicationethics.org/files/A_Short_Guide_to_Ethical_Editing.pdf).Such manuscripts are managed independently to avoid conflicts of interest.
The journal adopts a rigorous and unbiased peer review process.
Each manuscript is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers selected according to the following criteria:
This process ensures objectivity, scientific rigor, and international diversity.
Authors are encouraged to complete the following checklist prior to submission to ensure compliance with journal requirements:
Each submission must include a cover letter containing:
Authors are encouraged to use the journal’s standardized cover letter template to facilitate the submission process. To facilitate this procedure, the Authors are requested to use the sample cover letter that can be downloaded by clicking here.
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data must be conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and must receive prior approval from an appropriate Ethics Committee (Institutional Review Board, IRB).
A formal statement confirming ethical approval must be included in all research articles within the Materials and Methods section. This statement should specify the name of the Ethics Committee, the approval reference number, and the date of approval.
In cases of retrospective (“non-interventional”) studies granted exemption from ethics approval, this exemption must be clearly stated in the manuscript. Acceptance of such manuscripts remains at the discretion of the Editor. Manuscripts may be rejected if the research is deemed not to comply with appropriate ethical standards.
As of May 2023, Acta Biomedica no longer accepts research involving animal subjects.
For all studies involving human participants, informed consent must be obtained from all individuals included in the study, or from their parents or legal guardians if they are minors under 18 years of age. A statement confirming this must be included in the manuscript.
All reasonable measures must be taken to protect participant privacy. Identifiable information, such as names, initials, hospital or Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personal data, must not be disclosed.
Patient images should not be used unless essential for scientific purposes. When images are included, appropriate precautions must be taken to minimize the risk of misuse. For pediatric subjects, only appropriately anonymized and ethically suitable images should be used. Participants (or their guardians) should be informed that images may be accessible through search engines.
When images are fully anonymized and do not contain identifying details (e.g., radiological images, ultrasound scans, pathology slides, laparoscopic images), formal consent for publication may not be required. However, informing the patient remains best practice. The final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief.
The corresponding author, on behalf of all co-authors, must disclose any potential conflicts of interest, including financial, institutional, personal, ideological, academic, or other relationships that could influence the work.
Any such conflicts must be clearly stated at the end of the manuscript, prior to the references.
If no conflicts exist, the following statement should be included:
"Each author declares that he or she has no commercial or financial relationships (such as consultancies, stock ownership, equity interests, or patent/licensing arrangements) that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest in relation to the submitted article."
A supplement is a collection of articles addressing specific topics or thematic areas. Supplements serve educational and scientific dissemination purposes and may be published as separate journal issues.
As of January 1st, 2024, no more than one supplement per year will be considered.
Supplement Publication Process
Special issue proposals must be approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Guest Editors are responsible for selecting contributions and ensuring that all manuscripts comply with the same rigorous ethical standards and peer-review procedures as regular submissions.
Guest Editors must be recognized experts in the relevant field and are accountable for the scientific quality and integrity of the supplement. In cases of non-compliance or unethical practices, the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to cancel the supplement.
All funding sources must be transparently disclosed and approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Personal remuneration from sponsors to Guest Editors is not permitted.
The corresponding author is responsible for all communication with the journal throughout submission, peer review, and publication. He must ensure compliance with all journal requirements, including authorship criteria, ethical approvals, clinical trial registration (where applicable), and conflict of interest disclosures.
The corresponding author must also remain available after publication to address any queries or critiques.
An Author Contributions Statement must be included after the conflict of interest declaration.
Authorship must comply with the ICMJE criteria. All authors must:
Contributions should be reported using author initials and must accurately reflect individual roles. The corresponding author is responsible for completing this information at full submission, and we expect that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time.
The Acknowledgements section should recognize contributors who do not meet authorship criteria and disclose funding sources.
Scientific publishing is based on integrity, transparency, and trust. Authors are encouraged to use plagiarism detection software prior to submission.
If the plagiarism is observed by the editor for an individual similarity index of around 20%, without citations, the corresponding author(s) are invited to rewrite the text or quote the text exactly and cite the original source. If major plagiarism is detected, the manuscript is rejected, and the authors are advised to revise and resubmit it as a fresh manuscript. A copyright violation in the submission may lead to rejection if the problematic pieces cannot be removed. Duplicate, redundant, or fraudulent publications are not permitted.
Copyrighted material (e.g., tables or figures) may only be used with proper permission and citation.
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, redundant or duplicate publication, the publisher, in close collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question following the COPE flowchart guidelines (including evaluating a response from the author of the article in question).
It is assumed by the Reviewers and Editors that the Authors report work based on honest observations. However, if there is substantial doubt regarding the honesty or integrity of the work, submitted or published, the Editor will inform the Authors of any concern and may ask for clarification by the author’s sponsoring institution and/or employing institution. Therefore, in case that the published paper is considered misleading, it will be retracted by the Acta Biomedica. Whenever this method of investigation fails to reach a satisfactory conclusion, the Editor may choose to conduct his own investigation and to publish a note of concern about the conduct or integrity of the paper. The Editor-in-Chief may decide to report the situation to the authors’ institution in accordance with the procedures recommended by the COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/).
While the Editors and Reviewers strive to ensure the accuracy and quality of published content, responsibility for the scientific integrity of the work rests solely with the authors.
(Last update version: 5 May 2026)
Editor-in-Chief: Maurizio Vanelli
Language: English
Frequency: 6 issues/year
ISSN: 0392-4203 | eISSN: 2531-6745
CiteScore (Scopus): 3.4 (2024) (75th centile)
SNIP 2024: 0.754 - SJR 2024: 0.505
Indexed in: Scopus, SJR, Portico, EMBASE, Elsevier BioBASE, Bibliovigilance, Biosis, Europe PMC, Google Scholar
Time to First Decision: 13 days
Rejection Rate: 57%
Acceptance Rate: 43%
