About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering is a peer-reviewed journal that aims to publish original research articles, reviews, and short research reports in the diverse fields of bioresearch including the applied biology, biotechnology, and biomedical engineering. The journal involves a systems approach to integrate the scientific thought of researchers with distinct areas of expertise who specializes on projects in the life sciences area.

We consider manuscripts for further evaluation only when they demonstrate a significant biological (biomedical) contribution. Works exclusively focused on information technologies, mathematical modeling, or clinical medicine are beyond the scope of the journal.

The scope of the journal encompasses:

Applied Biology & Biotechnology: research of biological objects at all levels of the organization of living matter, aimed at creating products and technologies useful to mankind; development of innovative biotechnologies for various purposes; biosafety problems.

Bioengineering & Biomedical Engineering: biochemical, cellular, and tissue engineering; biomaterials and biocompatible materials; electronic and computer bioengineering, biomechanical and rehabilitation engineering, bionics.

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering are read by the associate editor. Only those papers that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria and the content of which match with the journal’s aims and scope are sent for formal review.

When assigned a new submission, the associate editor checks the one for its completeness and adherence to the Guide for AuthorsOur journal will first check the plagiarism of a manuscript by using UniCheck after it is submitted. The high level of similarity could cause the manuscript rejection (we read the whole paper and check which part is taken from other papers).

The corresponding author is notified by e-mail when the editor decides to pass a paper for review. The author is normally informed within 10 days of assignment to the associate editor.

Authors may indicate a limited number of scientists who should not review the paper. Excluded scientists must be identified by name. Authors may also suggest referees; these suggestions are often helpful, although they are not always followed.

All submitted manuscripts are sent for double-blind peer review to two expert reviewers. By policy, authors remain anonymous to the referees throughout the consideration process and referees are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the referee.

Alternative reviewers may also be invited to review the manuscript at any time. Authors will be informed when editors decide further review is required.

Typically the manuscript will be reviewed within 30 days.

The revised version is sent back to the original referees for re-review. The revised manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter that includes a point-by-point response to referees' comments and an explanation of how the manuscript has been changed.

The final decision to recommend the manuscript for publication is taken by the editorial staff on the basis of the referees' reports. Authors of papers are notified promptly.

Handling papers from editorial board members

The member(s) of the editorial board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. This represents a potential conflict of interest, especially in cases of submissions from decision-making editors. 

During the review process, submitters will not engage in the selection of reviewers and decision process. The review process will be supervised and decisions made by a senior editor who will act independently of other editors. In some cases, the review process will be handled by an outside independent expert to minimize possible bias in reviewing submissions from members of the editorial board.

In order to ensure transparent and impartial treatment of such manuscripts, they will be subject to the following:

(1) Member(s) of the editorial board manuscripts will be subject to the double blind peer review and the Editor(s) will not have access to information regarding their papers beyond that available to all authors.

(2) Member(s) of the editorial board manuscripts will be reviewed by a minimum of two external peer reviewers.

(3) Member(s) of the editorial board manuscripts are treated as all submissions to the journal and may be subject to the full range of editorial decisions: reject without peer review, multiple revisions, reject after revision and/or accept.

(4) If accepted, member(s) of the editorial board manuscripts will carry a note to the reader showing how transparent the reviewing process had been.

Open Access Policy

Journal Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering is a fully open access publication. All articles are available on the internet to all readers immediately upon publication. They will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy, distribute, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without subscription barriers to access and without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. We don’t charge any fees for any reader to download articles.

Publication fee

Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering is published as an "golden" open-access journal, whereby individuals anywhere in the world can read, download and share our peer-reviewed articles free of charge. Such unrestricted online access ensures that authors can have their work read by a much larger audience than is typically possible through more traditional subscription-based journals.

Article publication charge is USD 50 and will be required after the article has been accepted for publication. The submission of manuscripts and the review process are free.

Authors working in developing or low-income countries (according to the International Monetary Fund http://www.imf.org) can qualify for a partial waiver (up to 40% of the base charge).

Favorable factors for obtaining the maximum waiver are participation of young scientists (under 35 years) in the authors' team, high citation index of the authors' publications, as well as the experimental nature of the article.

Authors from Ukraine can qualify for a waiver up to 60% of the base charge.

Waivers for grant-supported publications are not considered.

Should you wish to get waiver on publication fee, please, make request when submitting the article ("Comments for the Editor").

Publication ethics

National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" as the publisher of the scientific journal Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering recognizes the principles developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The Journal subscribes to the general criteria for publication detailed in Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Vancouver Guidelines) by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. And furthermore, the Journal is guided by Code of Honour of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”.

It is essential that all who participate in producing the journal, who conduct themselves as authors, reviewers and editors, strictly adhere to the highest level of professional ethical standards. The journal Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering expects that editors, authors, and reviewers will observe high standards with respect to publication ethics. We encourage our editors, authors and reviewers to work in accordance with the Code of Conduct adopted by the COPE.

In issuing the journal, we abide by the relevant laws and regulations for the protection of intellectual property rights and copyrights.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must adhere to high standards with respect to publication ethics, remain in good communication with the editor(s), the publisher and any co-authors. Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavor.

By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author explicitly confirms that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards from the author and coauthors including proper statistical investigations and thorough ethical reviews by the data owning organizations.

We consider unacceptable:

(1) Plagiarism (and self-plagiarism) in whole or in part without proper citation. All the citations should be correct. An author need to have written permission from the copyright owner for any reproduced figures or tables – exceptions exist under the fair dealing concept. An author must guarantee his/her submission is original, owned by the author, that no part of it has been previously published (partly or in full), and that no other agreement to publish it or a part of it is outstanding. The manuscript must not be under consideration elsewhere.

Manuscripts submitted to Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering are screened with UniCheck anti-plagiarism software in an attempt to detect and prevent plagiarism.

(2) Falsification or fabrication of data. No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support conclusions. Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. If an author uses secondary data (datasets gathered by someone else), he/she need to obtain copyright clearance before data can be reproduced (exceptions exist under the fair dealing concept).

(3) Misappropriation of others’ work. All the contributors to an article are to be included and all acknowledgments should be up-to-date. An author(s) should acknowledge the work of others used in the research and cite publications that have influenced the direction and course of the study.

(4) The deliberate exclusion of information regarding financial support that would be viewed as a conflict of interest. An author should openly to disclose any conflict of interest – for example, if publication were to benefit a company or services in which the author(s) has a vested interest.

The manuscript should be approved by all co-authors and responsible authorities at the institute or organization where the work has been carried out.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he/she has done, a corresponding author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage may be justifiably warranted. A letter must accompany the revised manuscript to explain the role of the added and/or deleted author(s). Further documentation may be required to support the request.

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and the statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

For manuscripts reporting studies involving human subjects, statements identifying the committee approving the studies and confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects must appear in the Materials and Methods section. All experiments on live vertebrates or higher invertebrates must be performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. Investigations involving humans will have been performed in accordance with the principles of Declaration of Helsinki. If the manuscript contains photos or parts of photos of patients, informed consent from each patient should be obtained. Patient’s identities and privacy should be carefully protected in the manuscript. The ARRIVE guidelines must be followed when reporting experiments on animals. The journal reserves the right to reject papers where the ethical aspects are, in the Editor's opinion, open to doubt.

When authors discover a serious error in their work, they must report this to the Managing Editor as soon as possible in order to modify the work, withdraw it, retract it, or publish a correction or erratum notice.

Allegations of unethical conduct will be discussed initially with the corresponding author. In the event of continued dispute, the matter will be referred to the author's institution and funding agencies for investigation and adjudication.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

The Editorial Board of Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering should continuously work to improve the Journal.

Members of the Editorial Board are required to ensure the confidentiality of all manuscripts received and of their content until they have been accepted for publication. Editors must not share information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers.

In addition, no member of the Editorial Board may use data, lines of reasoning or interpretations in unpublished manuscripts for his or her own research, except with the authors' express written consent.

Our Editors should decline to use reviewers who submit reports that are of poor quality, erroneous or disrespectful, or that are delivered after the agreed deadline.

Editors should not publish or publicize peer-reviewers’ comments without permission of the reviewer and author. Our journal policy is to blind authors to reviewer identity and comments are not signed. Due to this, identity must not be revealed to the author or anyone else without the reviewers’ expressed written permission.

Confidentiality may have to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is alleged, but editors should notify authors or reviewers if they intend to do so.

Editors should do all they can to ensure timely processing of manuscripts with the resources available to them. If editors intend to publish a manuscript, they should attempt to do so in a timely manner and any planned delays should be negotiated with the authors. If a journal has no intention of proceeding with a manuscript, editors should endeavor to reject the manuscript as soon as possible to allow authors to submit to a different journal.

Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration. Other editorial staff members who participate in editorial decisions must provide editors with a current description of their financial interests or other conflicts (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which a conflict of interest exists. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain.

Allegations of unethical conduct will be discussed initially with the Editor. In the event of continued dispute, the matter will be referred to the Editor’s institution for investigation and adjudication.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal are subject to mandatory peer-review. Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering expects that reviewers will observe high standards with respect to publication ethics. 

Reviewers should only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner.

Reviewers are expected to respond promptly to requests to review and to submit reviews within the time agreed. Reviewers’ comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.

Reviewers should keep manuscripts, associated material, and the information they contain strictly confidential. Reviewers must not publicly discuss the authors' work and appropriate authors' ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should destroy paper copies of manuscripts and delete electronic copies after submitting their reviews.

Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they're reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.

Reviewers should report any breach of publishing ethics they identify directly to the Editorial Office. The following may constitute a breach: plagiarism, self-plagiarism, manipulated images/photos/figures, biased reference list, duplicate publication, data from a previous publication reused without proper referencing, redundant publication, unstated conflicts of interest or funding, etc.

Allegations of unethical conduct will be discussed initially with the reviewer. In the event of continued dispute, the matter will be referred to the reviewer’s institution for investigation and adjudication.

Dealing with Allegations of Misconduct

We take seriously all possible misconduct. If an editor has concerns that a submitted article describes something that might be considered to constitute misconduct in research, publication or professional behavior, we will discuss the case in confidence among our editorial team.

If the case cannot be resolved by discussion with the author(s) and the Editor still has concerns, the case may be reported to the appropriate authorities. If, during the course of reviewing an article, an editor is alerted to possible problems (for example, fraudulent data) in another publication, the editor should immediately alert the Editor-in-Chief here: ibb@kpi.ua.

Readers that suspect misconduct in a published article are encouraged to report this to the Editor-in-Chief here: ibb@kpi.ua.

Interest Disclosure

Authors must to disclose all relationships/activities/interests that are related to the content of the submitted manuscript. "Related" means any relation with for-profit or not-for-profit third parties whose interests may be affected by the content of the manuscript. If an author in doubt about whether to list a relationship/activity/interest, it is preferable that (s)he does so.

Interests within the last 36 month of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 36-month time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work.

Interests that should be considered and disclosed but are not limited to the following:

Funding: Every submitted article must state each source of financial support for the particular research it describes: research grants or contracts from any entity and/or research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, provision of study materials, reimbursement for attending symposia, medical writing, article processing charges, etc.) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.

Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.

Financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication of the manuscript; consulting fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of the manuscript.

Any involvement by pharmaceutical or medical device company employees or medical writers supported by a pharmaceutical or medical device company in the writing of an article must be clearly defined and disclosed in the Interests Disclosure section of the manuscript.

Non-financial interests: Authors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interests, personal relationships or personal beliefs.

When authors have nothing to declare the appropriate statement are required as well.

It is important to note that this policy and the disclosure statements will not be regarded as creating a presumption of impropriety in the existence of financial interests or other relationships of a commercial nature.

Failure to disclose relevant information at the submission stage may result in termination of the review process or reversal of acceptance decisions. If the paper is already published, the Journal reserves the right to post a note on the IBB’s website notifying readers that the authors of the paper violated the IBB disclosure policy.

Self-archiving policy

Author's Original Version

The author's original version (submitted version) is defined as the un-refereed author version of an article. Authors may reuse the original version of the article anywhere at any time (on their own personal website and/or that of their employer and/or in free public servers of original version articles in their subject area), providing that once the article is accepted they provide a statement of acknowledgement, and that once the article has been published this acknowledgement is updated to provide details such as the volume and issue number, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and a link to the published article on the Journal’s website:

"This article has been accepted for publication in Innov Biosyst Bioeng."

Version of Record

The version of record (published version) is defined as a fixed version of the journal article.

Articles in the Journal are published under a CC BY licence. Authors are free to post and distribute their links anywhere including social media such as Facebook, blogs, and Twitter, as well as commercial repositories immediately upon publication. When posting, distributing or reusing articles, the journal should be clearly attributed as the original place of publication and correct citation details should be given. Authors should also deposit the URL of their published article in any repository, in addition to the PDF version. Preferably, the link should be, or include, the DOI.

The journal strongly encourages authors to deposit the version of record instead of the original version.

Correction and retraction policy

Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering (IBB) believes in protecting and maintaining the integrity of the academic record. Articles officially published in IBB are considered as the "Version of Record". When the scientific information in an article is substantially undermined then it becomes necessary for IBB to publish corrections to, or retractions of articles published in the journal, at the discretion of the editors.

Article correction: This action is reserved to notify readers of an important error that has a negative impact on the version of record or the scientific integrity of the article, or on the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Corrections to peer-reviewed content are divided into:

Publisher correction ('erratum'): error made by the journal staff.

Author correction ('corrigendum'): error made by the authors.

Addendum: an addition to the article by its Authors to explain inconsistencies, to expand the existing work, or otherwise explain or update the information in the main work.

We expect authors to inform the journal’s Managing editor (details on the Contact section of the journal website) of any major mistake or error in their article after it has been published online.

Corrections are made at the journal's discretion, sometimes with advice from Reviewers, Advisory Board members or Editorial Board members. A correction will be issued by the editors when it is determined that the scientific community would be better served by a correction than a retraction. Editors will contact the authors of the article concerned with a request for clarification, but the final decision about whether a correction is required and if so which type rests with the editors.

A correction notice is published as soon as possible. There will be links from the online version of the article to the Erratum/Corrigendum and vice versa. Publishable amendments receive a DOI.

IBB may consider correcting the actual article online (PDF), at the editor’s discretion. We will add a correction notice at the end to say what has been changed since it was first published and publish an erratum.

Article Retraction: This action is reserved for articles that are seriously flawed and so the findings or conclusions cannot be relied upon. Journal editors should consider retracting an article if:

  • it contains infringements of professional ethical codes, such as bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, double publication, any other practice or act considered potentially harmful to the scientific community;
  • it contains major errors (e.g. miscalculations or experimental errors) or the main conclusion is no longer valid or seriously undermined as a result of new evidence coming to light of which Authors were not aware at the time of publication;
  • it contains errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty).

For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the retraction notice. The retraction notice will be linked to the retracted article and the article will be clearly marked as retracted (the original article is retained unchanged except for a watermark which is included on each page of the article PDF indicating that it has been "retracted").

A retraction note titled "Retraction: [Article Title]" is published in a subsequent issue of the journal and is listed in the table of contents of this issue.

We may consider an expression of concern notice if an article is under investigation.

Note that if the authors retain copyright for an article this does not mean they automatically have the right to retract it after publication.

Article Replacement: In cases where an article, if acted upon, may pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original paper may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. Under such circumstances, the above procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the article retraction notice will contain a link to the corrected re-published article together with a history of the document.

Any suggestions or comments on this Policy are welcome and may be sent to:

ibb@kpi.ua

Informed consent

Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering (IBB) is committed to apply informed consent under research ethics, based on Declaration of Helsinki: Statement of Ethical Principles for Medical Research and ICMJE's Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper.

Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published.

Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication.

Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. If identifying characteristics are de-identified, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such changes do not distort scientific meaning.

Patient identifiers will not be published in IBB, unless written informed consent is given and the content is essential for the scientific purpose and merit of the manuscript.

Photographs of subjects showing any recognizable features must be accompanied by their signed release authorizing publication, as must case reports that provide enough unique identification of a person (other than name) to make recognition possible.

The journal requires at the point of submission that a consent form has been completed for any case report or clinical image in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified.

When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article. A statement addressing informed patient consent must be included as part of the manuscript in the section "Materials and methods" under the subheading "Informed consent".

Completed consent forms are not to be submitted to the journal. Completed forms should be held by the treating institution according to locally approved procedures. The consent form should be made available to the journal editor if specifically requested.

If the patient or relatives of a deceased patient cannot be traced and consent cannot be obtained, the case report can only be considered for publication if it is sufficiently anonymised.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject papers for which the ethical aspects are, in the Board’s opinion, open to doubt.

Authorship

Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering (IBB) follows the recommendations on authorship presented in the Council of Science Editors (CSE) White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications.

AUTHORSHIP

Authors are individuals identified by the research group to have made substantial contributions to the reported work and agree to be accountable for these contributions.

Individuals who contributed to the work but whose contributions were not of sufficient magnitude to warrant authorship should be identified by name in Acknowledgments section.

Who should be listed as an author and the order of author listing are determined by the authors.

As a general guideline, persons listed as authors should have contributed substantively to (1) the conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting of the article or revising it critically for important content; (3) final approval of the version to be published.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have agreed (1) to be authors and to be listed in the order specified by the submitting author; (2) to the manuscript's content; (3) to its submission to IBB.

If any changes to authorship are proposed after the manuscript is submitted, the corresponding author must provide the Editorial Office with signed documentation from each author on the manuscript, including those being added or removed, affirming that the authors all agree to the changes.

Please contact ibb@kpi.ua regarding any authorship changes. IBB accepts no responsibility for deciding matters of authorship, including but not limited to the names of the authors and listed order. IBB reserves the right to not publish the manuscripts that are in dispute.

GROUP AUTHORSHIP

Group authorship may be appropriate when a group of researchers has collaborated on a project, such as a multicenter trial, a consensus document, or an expert panel.

The submitting author must identify any group named as an author as well as the named individuals from that group who accept responsibility for the article.

If all individuals belonging to the group take responsibility, then the group itself is an author and all members must be named. In this case the group name should appear in the byline, and the names of all members should appear in a note.

If the group is the only author, then at least one author must be identified by name who will be responsible for manuscript communications, and who will respond to inquiries about the published article. This author's name and contact information should be presented as the Corresponding Author in a note on the title page.

If a subset of group members is taking responsibility for the article, then these individuals must be named. In this case, the named members should appear in the byline along with the group name. Other members who are not authors may be listed in the Acknowledgments.

Sponsors

Faculty of Biotechnology and Biotechnics