Principles of Transparency and Publishing Ethics
International Pharmacy Acta, published by the Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics Core Practices and follows the standards established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Readers, authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to observe these policies throughout the editorial and publication process. For detailed recommendations, consult the Committee on Publication Ethics resources at https://publicationethics.org.
Principles of Transparency
Peer-Review Process
International Pharmacy Acta employs a double-masked peer-review system for all submitted research manuscripts. An editorial committee comprising the Editor-in-Chief, Section Editors, and consulting editors conducts an initial assessment to verify scope alignment, adherence to formatting instructions, original contribution, and clarity. Submissions are screened with text-similarity detection software before review. Qualified manuscripts are assigned to an Associate or Section Editor, who coordinates external evaluation by at least two independent subject-matter experts. The identities of authors and reviewers remain concealed from each other throughout the review. The journal peer-review policies and procedures are outlined at https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/acta.
Governing Body
The journal maintains an Editorial Board consisting of qualified academic specialists across diverse pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. Names and institutional affiliations of board members are accessible at https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/acta/about/editorialTeam.
Contact Information
Direct contact coordinates for the journal administrative and editorial offices are listed at https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/acta/about/contact.
Author Fees and Access Model
The journal operates under a Diamond Open Access model. The full text of published articles is made available without subscription fees or access barriers. Authors are not required to pay submission charges, article processing charges, or publication fees. Operational support is provided through Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.
Copyright and Licensing
Authors publishing in International Pharmacy Acta retain copyright under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license permits sharing and adaptation of the work for non-commercial purposes, provided proper scholarly attribution is given to the authors and original publication venue.
Publishing Schedule
International Pharmacy Acta publishes articles continuously within an annual volume framework, presenting works online upon completion of peer review, author revisions, and technical formatting.
Archiving
Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and cooperating international indexing databases maintain long-term digital preservation and open backup repositories, ensuring permanent access to published content.
Conflicts of Interest
All participating authors must disclose any financial associations, funding sources, commercial consulting positions, personal rivalries, or academic relationships that might introduce bias or the appearance of bias into their work. Disclosure is completed via the journal Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form upon submission.
Duties of Editors
Impartiality and Editorial Freedom
Editors evaluate all submitted manuscripts strictly on their scientific merit, intellectual substance, methodological rigor, and relevance to the pharmaceutical sciences. Editorial assessments proceed without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious convictions, ethnic background, citizenship, or political viewpoint.
Confidentiality
The Editor-in-Chief, handling editors, and editorial staff members will not disclose information concerning a submitted manuscript to anyone other than invited reviewers, consulting experts, and production staff as necessary for publication processing. Reviewer identities remain confidential within the double-masked framework.
Managing Editorial Submissions
An editor who authors or coauthors a manuscript submitted to the journal must not participate in the handling, reviewer selection, or evaluation of that paper. A senior handling editor manages the manuscript independently, and all deliberations remain obscured from the author-editor.
Integrity of the Scholarly Record
When reliable evidence indicates that a published article contains serious errors, calculation flaws, or reporting omissions, the handling editor, following written consultation with the authors, arranges the immediate release of a formal Correction or Erratum. If evidence demonstrates data fabrication, uncredited text replication, or major ethical violations, the editor initiates formal retraction procedures in line with Committee on Publication Ethics guidance.
Duties of Reviewers
Professional Contribution
Qualified peer-review evaluation is central to maintaining scientific standards. Qualified scientists are expected to commit a reasonable portion of their professional time to conducting thorough and timely manuscript evaluations.
Competence and Timeliness
An invited reviewer who feels insufficiently qualified to assess the manuscript content, or who cannot provide a completed assessment within the requested timeframe of two to four weeks, must inform the editor promptly and decline the review request.
Declaration of Competing Interests
Reviewers must recuse themselves from evaluating any manuscript in which they hold conflicting or collaborative personal, financial, or academic affiliations with any authors or associated institutions. Potential conflicts should be reported immediately to the handling editor.
Confidentiality of Privileged Information
All manuscripts, associated datasets, and related communications received for peer evaluation are confidential. Reviewers must not copy, retain, share, or disclose manuscript contents, nor may they apply unpublished arguments, hypotheses, or results in their own research without direct written author consent and formal attribution. Reviewers may not transfer or delegate review tasks to students, lab members, or colleagues without prior written approval from the Editor-in-Chief.
Constructive Criticism and Citation Integrity
Reviewers should evaluate papers objectively, framing comments clearly and constructively. Personal or derogatory criticism of authors is impermissible. Review observations must be supported by verifiable reasoning and relevant citations. Reviewers must refrain from requesting that authors include citations to the reviewers' own publications unless essential to addressing a genuine methodological or scholarly gap.
Identification of Ethical Infractions
Reviewers are expected to notify the editor promptly if they detect substantial overlap between the manuscript and published works, duplicate submissions, altered figures, or fabricated experimental records.
Duties of Authors
Reporting Integrity and Reproducibility
Authors must present an accurate account of their primary investigation, accompanied by objective interpretations of findings. Methodological sections must provide sufficient procedural precision, references, and chemical or biological specifics to enable qualified peers to replicate the study.
Data Retention and Access
Authors should be prepared to make primary research data, spectroscopic traces, and experimental records accessible to editors upon reasonable request during the evaluation process. They should preserve such data for an adequate post-publication interval.
Originality and Avoidance of Plagiarism
Manuscripts submitted to International Pharmacy Acta must represent original work. Plagiarism in any form, including unreferenced appropriation of phrases, concepts, or unpublished designs, as well as unacknowledged recycling of an author's previously published material, constitutes scientific misconduct and is not permitted.
Multiple and Redundant Publications
Authors must not submit a manuscript describing substantially the same work to more than one journal concurrently. Unwarranted division of a single unified study into fragmented parts should be avoided.
Authorship Attribution
Authorship is restricted to researchers who contributed substantially to study conceptualization, design, experimental execution, data acquisition, analysis, or manuscript drafting, and who approved the final version and agreed to take accountability for all aspects of the work. Contributors providing ancillary assistance, technical support, or laboratory space alone should be recognized in an Acknowledgments section rather than as coauthors. All coauthors must review and endorse the submitted manuscript. Deceased researchers who fulfilled authorship requirements must be listed, accompanied by a footnote recording their date of death.
Commercial and Self-Referential Content
Submissions organized solely to advance commercial promotions are inappropriate. Authors may not write published discussions concerning their own articles except in instances of authorized replies or formal closures to published critiques.
Misconduct Definitions, Investigations, and Sanctions
Categories of Misconduct
Plagiarism involves the intentional or reckless use of another author's words, data, or concepts without attribution. Verbatim replication of text, including self-plagiarism, without citation is considered a violation.
Data Fabrication and Falsification entails inventing datasets, outcomes, or observational logs, or intentionally altering raw results, figures, or spectra to present ungrounded conclusions.
Redundant or Concurrent Submissions involves submitting identical or largely identical manuscripts to multiple journals simultaneously, or splitting interrelated outcomes into small pieces to inflate publication metrics.
Citation Manipulation includes artificially injecting citations to inflate citation counts for a particular researcher, research group, or journal without scholarly justification.
Investigation Procedures
When an ethical breach is alleged or suspected, the Editor-in-Chief follows established Committee on Publication Ethics flowcharts. The editor first contacts the corresponding author in writing, details the specific concerns, provides supporting documentation, and requests a factual response within a defined period. If the explanation resolves the issue through documentation of honest error, an appropriate Correction or Corrigendum is published. If the response is deemed unsatisfactory or reveals deliberate scientific misconduct, the case is referred to the Research Ethics Committee of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center or Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.
Sanctions
When an ethical violation is formally established, International Pharmacy Acta applies proportionate administrative sanctions, which may include the following:
Immediately reject the infringing manuscript and terminate review of any other manuscripts submitted by the involved authors that are currently under review at the journal.
A formal prohibition barring all implicated authors from submitting new manuscripts to International Pharmacy Acta for a period of up to thirty-six months, with potential extension to sixty months in severe cases involving deliberate data fabrication.
Removal of the authors from the journal Editorial Board, consulting panels, or peer-reviewer registers.
Formal communication detailing the verified misconduct addressed to the authors' institutional leadership, departmental heads, or national research oversight offices.
For published articles containing verified fabrication, pervasive plagiarism, or redundant publication, publish an official Retraction Notice linked to the original article, with the online paper clearly marked as retracted in accordance with international archiving standards.
