Peer Review Guidelines
1. All materials submitted for publication in «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» are subject to registration with the executive secretary of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» stipulating the date of receipt of the manuscript to the editor’s office of the Series. The decision for publication (with the date of the publication) / refusal for publication / sending of the manuscript to the author for follow-on revision should be made by the editor in chief and reported to the author no later than 60 days from the date of receipt of the manuscript by the editor’s office of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine».
2. All materials (research papers, bibliographic and thesis reviews, and so forth) received for publication in the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» are subject to preliminary review by the editor in chief of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» for compliance with the specified: formal requirements to published materials (matching of the content of the article to the topic announced in the title, allowable volume, structure, design, availability of key words and abstracts in Russian and English, bibliography, correctness of use of digital data, formulas, calculations, etc., availability of the necessary contact information, written confirmation of will of co-authors for publication of the material in the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine», recognition of actual contribution of each author to creation of the article and so forth), as well as for the presence of evidence of unauthorized borrowing of text, illustrations, tables, etc. in the manuscript. Preliminary review of the received manuscript by the editor in chief of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» is carried out within a period not exceeding 15 days from the date of receipt of the manuscript by the editor’s office of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine». In case of rejection of the presented material according to results of the preliminary review, a written notification is sent to the author.
3. All materials not rejected as a result of the preliminary review are subject to mandatory independent scientific peer review by at least two experts in the field as close as possible to the subject of the material received for publication, hold the degree of Doctor (Candidate of Science or Doctor of Science) assigned by the leading Russian universities or similar degrees assigned by leading foreign universities.
By decision of the editor in chief of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine», repeated and additional review (by previous or new reviewers) can be carried out, including the case of resubmission of the material by the author after its completion.
4. The scientific review may be carried out by any qualified (preferably — external) experts, including the members of the editorial board of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» (at least one of the reviewers of the published material should not be an employee of St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU)), provided there is no conflict of interest (official subordination of the author and the reviewer, or scientific supervision or co-authorship, etc.). All reviewers must be recognized experts on the subject of peer-reviewed material and have publications on the subject of peer-reviewed articles in the past three years. A reviewer shall notify the editor of a conflict of interest, opting out of reviewing, and the author of the presented material may indicate undesirable reviewers.
5. Unless otherwise agreed in writing with the reviewer, the author is not communicated the information about the reviewer.
6. As a result of peer review, the part of the review intended for the author (composite author) is sent to him/her, with a consolidated list of comments and suggestions of the scientific reviewers with the recommendation to take them into account when finalizing the material, and determination of the conditions for publication of the material.
7. Conducted peer review of manuscripts should lead to reasoned answers to of the reviewers to the following questions:
1) is there, and if so, what is the scientific and information novelty (originality) of the material;
2) is there, and if so, what is the information novelty (originality) of the material;
3) what is the ratio of the material under review with the available literature, published data and current research on the issue;
4) are there any signs of improper borrowing or other forms of violation of scientific ethics by the author when writing the material;
5) is there, and if so, what is the practical significance of the material;
6) how clearly is the material presented — whether the findings and conclusions correspond to the data obtained, whether the material corresponds to general and special requirements to the structure of publication, language and style of presentation, terminology used, visibility of tables, charts, figures and formulas, satisfactory form of the footnotes, correctness of bibliography, etc.;
7) whether the peer-reviewed material is of interest to the reader (if so, to what extent).
The editorial board of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» draws up a standard questionnaire for reviewers that includes, in addition to yes-no questions, the questions requiring detailed reasoned narration, necessary information about the terms and conditions of the scientific peer review, confidential treatment and so on. The review should consist of two parts, one of which is intended to be sent to the author of the peer-reviewed material, while the second — to the editor’s office of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine».
8. According to the results of the scientific peer review, the reviewer should give one of the following recommendations:
1) Recommendation for publication of the material as presented (no comments);
2) Recommendation for publication of the material with providing the author with proposals to take comments and suggestions of the reviewer into account (at the discretion of the author);
3) Recommendation for publication of the material exclusively with mandatory incorporation of the reviewers' comments by the author;
4) Recommendation to reject the submitted material with the right to resubmission;
5) Recommendation to reject the submitted material without the right to resubmission.
Not more than two revisions of the material submitted for publication are allowed. The manuscript submitted by the author after its follow-on revision after the expiry of 4 months from the date the review was sent to the author is considered to be submitted anew.
9. The editor’s office of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» is obliged to ensure confidentiality preservation by the reviewers of any information about the manuscript provided for scientific review. The reviewer must confirm in writing acceptance of the obligation on privacy of the fact of creation of the paper and its content, any information about the author became known to him/her, etc. The reviewer is not allowed to discuss the reviewed manuscript with any third parties. Before publishing of the materials, the reviewers may not use or rely on peer-reviewed papers.
10. The editorial board of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» defines the criteria according to which decisions for publication of materials should be taken.
11. A positive review is not sufficient for publication of the paper. The final decision on worthwhileness of publication is received by the editorial board of the series, which is reflected in the minutes of the meeting of the editorial board.
12. Reviews are stored in the editor’s office of the «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Medicine» for 5 years from the date of publication of the material or the date of the decision to reject the manuscript. Editorial board of the Series has to send copies of peer-reviews to the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation in the case of submission of the relevant request to the Executive (chief) editor.
