Editorial policies
General policies
The sole owner of Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine is Wroclaw Medical University. The journal is managed by Wroclaw Medical University Press, a unit of the organizational structure of Wroclaw Medical University.
The journal publishes no advertisments of any kind in any form.
We follow closely the international, well-established associations that set standards and provide guidelines for best editorial practices:
- ICMJE
- COPE
- WAME
- Council of Science Editors
- Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Publications
- Budapest Open Access Initiative
Original papers, reviews and research letters should be submitted electronically via the journal’s Editorial System. Author(s) declare that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere or is not being considered for publication elsewhere. By submitting your manuscript to this journal you accept that your manuscript will be screened for plagiarism. Editors initially verify the manuscript and decide to review it, send it back for adjustment, or reject it. Editors are allowed to make a desk rejection. Editors send the anonymous version of the manuscript (if it was not rejected at the previous stage) to two (2) or more expert reviewers in the field. After receiving reviews, Editors decide to accept the manuscript, send it back to Author(s) for corrections, or to reject it. Editors are allowed to reject the manuscript even based on a single negative review. Author(s) receive the anonymous version of the review. When the manuscript is returned to the corresponding Author for revision, it should be returned to the Editorial Office within 14 days; otherwise it may be considered withdrawn. Editors reserve the right to reject a manuscript in case the revision is not submitted within 3 months since the decision. Editors send the manuscript for verification by a web-based plagiarism program. All the detected cases of scientific misconduct will be exposed, including notification of relevant institutions.
The manuscript is initially accepted for publication and the corresponding Author receives an email with a link to the License Agreement Creative Commons. Attribution 3.0 Poland (CC BY 3.0 PL). Each Author is required to fill it in, scan and the corresponding Author shall upload the scanned Agreements to the Editorial System. The manuscript will not be published unless we receive the License Agreement from all Authors. At this stage, before the final acceptance of the article for publication, the required payment must be settled.
Editors reserve the right to decide upon the order of publication of the accepted manuscripts without taking into consideration the date of final acceptance, which means that some articles might take priority over others.
Our journal allows Authors to hold the copyright without restrictions. Authors have the right to withdraw the manuscript at any time prior to its publication.
The manuscript is linguistically and/or technically verified and corrected by Editors if such an option was chosen by Author when submitting the manuscript, or later – after the initial acceptance of the manuscript. If Authors decide to prepare the manuscript for publication on their own, they still need to comply with the high standards of the journal. Otherwise, the manuscript may be rejected even at this final stage. Authors receive the galley proof of the manuscript, which should be sent back to the Editorial Office within 3 working days; otherwise, the publication may be withdrawn or published without Authors' corrections. Changes to the galley proof may not exceed 3% of the manuscript volume, unless they have been consulted with Publisher.
When the manuscript is published, its full version becomes available on the journal's website. The assigned DOI (digital object identifier) is activated. The article becomes accessible also via medical databases.
Changes to authorship following the online publication of the manuscript are not permitted.
Usage of artificial intelligence (AI) tools
These guidelines only refer to the writing process (i.e., generating text using an AI tool), and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process. They do not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc.
Authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission, but only to improve the language and readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.
Detailed information should be provided in the cover letter and in a statement at the end of the manuscript (following Conclusions). Such statement will appear in the published work. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled “AI usage in the writing process” and follow this pattern:
During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.
The full prompt used in the production of the work, as well as the AI tool and its version, should also be disclosed.
If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.
Authors are accountable for the accuracy of the work and for ensuring that there is no plagiarism. They must also ensure that all sources are appropriately cited and should carefully review the work to guard against bias that may be introduced by AI. Editors may decline to move forward with manuscripts if AI is used inappropriately.
Polim Med does not permit the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. This may include enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing a specific feature within an image or figure. There are 2 exceptions to this rule. Adjustments of brightness, contrast or color balance are acceptable if they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Another allowed exception is when the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or research methods (such as in AI-assisted imaging approaches to generate or interpret the underlying research data, for example in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is done, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section. This should include an explanation of how the AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the image creation or alteration process, and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. Authors should adhere to the AI software’s specific usage policies and ensure correct content attribution. Where applicable, authors could be asked to provide pre-AI-adjusted versions of images and/or the composite raw images used to create the final submitted versions, for editorial assessment.
Authorship and AI tools – COPE position statement
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT or Large Language Models, in research publications is expanding rapidly. COPE joins organisations, such as WAME and the JAMA Network among others, to state that AI tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper.
AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship, as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.
Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.
The above statement has been published by the Committee on Publication Etics (COPE) and is available on the official website of COPE:
Advertising policy
Polymers in Medicine does not accept advertising and sponsorship. We are funded by Wroclaw Medical University (Poland), which is a public institution.
Open access
Polymers in Medicine is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. All articles are published in Open Access model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) License. License is available at Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Publisher and editors of Polymers in Medicine support the principle of the Budapest Open Access Initiative: https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org
Copyright
By sending the manuscript the Authors confirm that they have not previously submitted it to another journal (except for abstracts of no more than 250 words) or published it elsewhere. All submitted manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover letter including signed confirmation of the above and confirming that this publication has been approved by all co-authors (if any), as well as by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work has been carried out. Materials previously published should be accompanied by written consent for reprinting from the relevant Publishers. The Authors should obtain a consent from persons whose images or statements, or plastic or photographic works of art were recorded within the manuscript, to their use in a manner specified in the license agreement. The authors are obliged to indicate the source and the author of figures, photographs, tables, etc.
Upon manuscript acceptance, the Authors sign a License Agreement, which is available as Appendix No. 9 to the Publishing Rules of Wroclaw Medical University Press. Under the License Agreement, the Authors grant the Publisher a non-exclusive and free-of-charge license to use the manuscript for an indefinite period on the territory of the entire world in the fields of exploitation stated in the License Agreement.
Manuscripts will be removed from the list qualified for publication if all or even one of the Authors fail to send their License Agreements by the indicated date.
Transfer of Authors’ economic rights require for their validity to be made in writing under pain of nullity. Any potential conflict of interest will be dealt with by the local court specific to the Publisher. Legal relations between the Publisher and the Authors are in accordance with the Polish law and with international conventions binding Poland.
Important!
Polymers in Medicine has been signing License Agreements since January 2017. Before that, Authors transferred the copyrights to the article to the Publisher (Wroclaw Medical University).