Editorial Policy

Authorship Criteria

Pharmaceutical Communications requires that the contribution of each author be clearly mentioned. Authors should be appropriately credited as per the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations. It is assumed that authors are accountable for the parts of the work they have done. Furthermore, it is also assumed that the authors have confidence in the integrity of the whole work presented in the manuscript. ICMJE recommendations relating to authorship can be found here (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html).

Authorship disputes are handled by the journal through the 'Complaint Redressal & Appellate Committee' which can be reached at the following email address.

pharma@rootspress,org

Competing interests

Pharmaceutical Communications requires that the authors, editors, and reviewers should disclose any competing interests that might affect their judgment on the manuscript approval/rejection.

Compliance with community guidelines and mandates

It is important to respect the community standards and relevant guidelines of the communities where the research work is carried out. Pharmaceutical Communications supports and requires adherence to the best practices in research in that community.

Confidentiality and embargos

We strongly believe that all communication among authors, peer-reviewers, and editors should be considered confidential as standard practice.

We ensure that all of our employees and editors are clearly aware of the need for confidentiality whilst the manuscript assessment process is underway and in matters beyond that. Pharmaceutical Communications may provide a media service via which selected papers are confidentially provided to the media, under embargo, before publication.

Consent of human participants

The consent of human participants in research is of utmost importance before taking biometric, biomedical, and clinical data. The participants should be clearly and explicitly informed about the research details, and no form of coercion or manipulation should be involved in order to gain consent.

Correction and Retractions

At Pharmaceutical Communications, it is our duty to ensure that the published literature meets the highest standards of integrity and we must act quickly to address any concerns regarding the work that we publish.

Corresponding authors

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe that the corresponding author should be empowered to act on behalf of all co-authors during the manuscript assessment and publication process.

Diversity Commitment

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe that research is strengthened by diversity. We strive to promote equity, inclusion, and diversity in our internal practices and the content that we publish. We integrate these principles into all our editorial activities and support and foster these values in the research community.

Editorial Independence

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we are of the view that financial and commercial concerns should not play a role in the editorial decision-making process.

Fraud and malpractice

We believe that Pharmaceutical Communications has a responsibility to investigate any instances of fraud or malpractice that it detects.

Funder Affiliations

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe that due credit should be given to the funding sources by the authors. The readers should also be made aware of these funding sources and that the funding sources should have access to the published work that they sponsor.

Institutional Affiliations

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe it should be simple for authors to link their institutions to their publications. The readers should also be able to understand these affiliations and that the institutions should have access to the published work by both past and present employees.

Peer Review

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe that robust and well-conducted peer review supports the advancement of research and discovery by ensuring that research results are robust and trustworthy.

Personal data

We, at Pharmaceutical Communications believe that personal data should be disclosed only with the full permission of the individual to whom the data pertains.

Plagiarism

We believe that Pharmaceutical Communications has a responsibility to investigate any instances of plagiarism that it detects. The journal actively screens all articles for plagiarism using Turnitin before the final publication.

Preprints

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe that sharing preprints can accelerate research and help expedite discovery.

Research data

We believe that Pharmaceutical Communications should support community best practices in the sharing and archiving of research data.

Submitting your manuscript

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we are of the view that researchers should have significant ease in submitting their manuscripts and linked supplementary information and date to the journal.

Third-Party Submissions

At Pharmaceutical Communications, we believe in legal publishing and reuse, and therefore, it is vital to secure the correct rights to third-party content.

Article Withdrawal

The articles that bear infringements of professional ethical practices such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like are withdrawn.  The articles that comprise errors or are later found to be copies of articles that have already been published, or are determined to have breached ethics of publication as termed by the editors (such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be withdrawn from the journal. Withdrawal means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with an HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Journal Policy on Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.

Image Integrity

Adding, removing, enhancing, obscuring, or introducing features into images is not allowed. Adjusting color, contrast, and brightness are acceptable if and only if they do not obscure the content that is depicted in the original image. To improve clarity, image manipulation is acceptable. However, manipulation for other purposes could be seen as scientific and ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly.