Peer-review
ELBA Bioflux is an international peer-reviewed journal. All published articles undergo independent evaluation by two scientific reviewers and at least one linguist. The journal applies a double-blind peer-review policy, ensuring that neither authors nor reviewers are aware of each other's identities. Manuscripts are screened for plagiarism using specialized software. The acceptance rate is approximately 65%, and submission is exclusively electronic.
Each manuscript is assessed by two independent expert reviewers with respect to scientific quality, methodology, and originality. In addition, a specialist in foreign languages evaluates the text to ensure clarity, grammatical accuracy, and readability for an international audience. The editorial process includes plagiarism detection to uphold academic integrity. Electronic submission enables efficient monitoring of manuscripts throughout the review process. Authors are informed of the editorial decision (acceptance or rejection) within 3–8 weeks after submission, while the average time from submission to publication is approximately 10 weeks.
Due to the frequent withdrawal of manuscripts in their final stage prior to payment of publication fees, the journal revised its policy on 20 February 2019. The former publication fee was replaced with a processing fee of 100 USD, payable after preliminary evaluation rather than at the end of the process. The evaluation procedure consists of two stages: (1) a preliminary editorial assessment resulting in initial acceptance or rejection, and (2) an external double-blind peer-review leading to the final decision. If a manuscript is not accepted for publication, the processing fee is refunded to the author or their institution, except in cases involving inadequate author feedback or withdrawal/rejection due to multiple submissions. Final decisions are communicated within 3–8 weeks from submission, and the overall average duration from submission to publication remains approximately 10 weeks. Authors may opt for expedited processing by paying an additional priority fee of 50 USD.
Statement of human and animal rights
When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors - "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals"- February 2006 – cited by Pubmed, Medline database).
Statement of informed consent
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' 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 a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should identify individuals who provide writing assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance. Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors - "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals"- February 2006 – cited by Pubmed, Medline database).
Conflict-of-interest statement
Public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of published articles depend in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making. Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author's institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from those with negligible potential to those with great potential to influence judgment, and not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. The potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors - "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals"- February 2006 – cited by Pubmed, Medline database). However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition or intellectual passion, and the Chief Editor will do his best to avoid them, using specific policies in the process of peer-review.
Authors responsibilities
- All authors have significantly contributed to the research
- All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes, in case of detection
- List of references should be provided by authors
- Information on financial support should be provided by authors in Acknowledgement section
- It is forbidden to publish same research in more than one journal.
Peer-review, publication policies and publication ethics
- Judgments is external and objective
- Reviewers have no conflict of interest
- Reviewed articles are treated confidentially prior to their publication
- Bioflux Publishing House takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred
- In the event that the publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct the publisher or editor shall deal with allegations appropriately
- Corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies are accepted. Correction of any published article after the official publication date is not allowed in the same document. A scientific journal is not a website. Corrections, clarifications and apologies written by the authors are allowed by separate Note or Erratum. Retracting of a manuscript is made by publisher in the case when plagiarism or other particular issues are reported.
-Post-publication discussions are encouraged and may take the form of letters to the editor, commentaries, or formal responses to published articles. Such contributions are subject to editorial evaluation and, where appropriate, peer review. The journal reserves the right to publish author replies to comments.
- This is an open-access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- In the case that our journal is no longer published, Bioflux Publishing House has agreements with several databases which are allowed to conserve and republish the old content at any time and unlimited number of copies, both as electronic and hardcopies. Bioflux Publishing House is archived by The Legal Deposit Bucharest (National Library) and by The County Legal Deposit in Cluj-Napoca (Octavian Goga Library).
Data Sharing Policy
1. Policy Statement
ELBA Bioflux is committed to promoting transparency, reproducibility, and integrity in scientific research. We support responsible data sharing as an essential component of scholarly communication and encourage authors to make the data underlying their findings openly available whenever possible.
This policy applies to all manuscripts submitted to the journal and is consistent with international standards for editorial best practices and research transparency.
2. Author Responsibilities
Authors are required to:
Include a Data Availability Statement in all submitted manuscripts.
Clearly indicate whether the data supporting the findings of the study are:
Publicly available,
Available upon reasonable request, or
Restricted due to ethical, legal, or confidentiality considerations.
Ensure that shared data are accurate, complete, and sufficiently documented to allow replication and verification of the reported results.
Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their data in recognized public repositories appropriate to their discipline.
3. Data Availability Statement
All manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement specifying one of the following:
The repository name, persistent identifier (e.g., DOI), and access link if data are publicly available.
The conditions under which data may be accessed if restrictions apply.
A clear explanation if no new data were generated or analyzed.
Example statement:
"The data supporting the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [DOI or URL], or from the corresponding author upon reasonable request."
4. Recommended Data Repositories
Authors are encouraged to use trusted repositories that provide:
Persistent identifiers (e.g., DOI)
Long-term preservation
Public accessibility
Appropriate metadata and documentation
Examples include institutional repositories, discipline-specific repositories, or general repositories such as Zenodo, Dryad, Figshare, or equivalent platforms.
5. Ethical and Legal Considerations
Data sharing must comply with:
Patient privacy and confidentiality requirements
Informed consent provisions
Institutional and national regulations
Ethical approval conditions
Sensitive data involving human participants must be de-identified prior to sharing, unless explicit consent for identifiable data sharing has been obtained.
Where legal or ethical restrictions prevent public sharing, authors must clearly state these limitations.
6. Editorial and Peer Review Access
Editors and peer reviewers may request access to underlying data during the review process to evaluate the scientific validity of the manuscript. Authors must provide such data upon request, unless prohibited by legal or ethical constraints.
Failure to provide requested data may result in rejection of the manuscript.
7. Compliance and Enforcement
Failure to comply with this policy may result in:
Manuscript rejection,
Publication delays,
Retraction of published articles if data integrity concerns arise.
The journal reserves the right to request data verification at any stage before or after publication.
8. Exceptions
Exceptions to data sharing requirements may be granted in cases involving:
Legal restrictions,
Ethical or privacy concerns,
Proprietary or confidential data.
Such exceptions must be clearly justified in the Data Availability Statement.
9. Policy Scope and Alignment
This policy is aligned with international editorial standards and supports the principles of:
Research transparency
Reproducibility
Scientific integrity
Responsible data stewardship
The journal periodically reviews and updates this policy to maintain compliance with evolving indexing and ethical standards.
10. Contact Information
Questions regarding this policy should be directed to the Editorial Office at:
ioan.mag@usamvcluj.ro
Advertising policy
Our journals do not accept or display any form of advertising, sponsored content, or commercial promotions. No third-party advertising networks are used, and there is no advertising revenue associated with our publications.
Statement on the use of Generative AI
Our journal permits the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools in the preparation of manuscripts, provided that:
Transparency – Any substantive contribution generated by GenAI, including text, figures, or data summaries, must be clearly disclosed in the manuscript. Authors should cite the specific tools used and describe the extent of AI assistance.
Author Responsibility – Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of all content submitted. The use of GenAI does not relieve authors from their ethical, legal, or scientific obligations.
Limitations – GenAI outputs may contain errors, biases, or unverified information. Authors must carefully review and validate all AI-generated content before submission. The journal and editors do not assume responsibility for inaccuracies originating from GenAI.
Peer Review – Manuscripts containing AI-generated content will undergo the same rigorous peer-review process as all submissions. Reviewers and editors may request clarification on AI-generated material to ensure scientific validity.
Compliance – Failure to disclose AI usage may be considered a breach of publication ethics and may result in corrections, retractions, or other editorial actions.
Malpractice disclaimer
The publisher and our editors make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the content published. However, the journal, its editors, and publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions, or consequences arising from the use of information contained in this publication. The opinions and conclusions expressed in articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal or its editorial board. Readers are advised to use professional judgment and consult appropriate experts before acting on the information provided.
