Submissions

Author Guidelines

This Journal is dedicated to promoting knowledge and views on questions associated with Human Health, giving priority to those related to the Portuguese and other lusophone (Portuguese speaking) communities. The intention therefore is to catalyze a productive dialogue and exchange of experiences between researchers and health professionals and from the lusophone communities and their projection on, and interchange with the international scientific community.

In order to attain such objectives, it has become indispensable to establish, since the beginning, a set of norms that guarantee a publication which respects the internationally established criteria for publications in the biomedical field. The main norms, which have been adapted to the above mentioned objectives, have the document “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted you the Biomedical Journals”  [see more here] as their main orientation and are as follows:

I. The “Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Research” (BBR) publishes original research, as well as other works of a pedagogical and scientific nature, in the main domains of Health Sciences, under the general sections of Biomedical Sciences and Biopharmaceutical Sciences, in Portuguese and English languages. Our scope intends to reflect a fundamental / integrative research character. At the editor’s discretion, research on more applied topics may be included.

II. It also publishes news, information, minutes, and/or reports, as well as abstracts and proceedings of works presented in meetings, courses, or congresses.

III. The authors have the final responsibility for the content of their publications.

IV. Only works that contain original material will be evaluated, as long as they have not been integrally or partly published (including tables and figures), and also have not been submitted for publication to other journals or periodicals, or in another language. This restriction does not apply to press notes or summaries published in the realm of scientific meetings. Original materials posted to recognized, non-peer-reviewed community preprint servers (e.g., bioRxiv and PeerJ Preprint) are acceptable, however, authors should disclose any existing or scheduled preprinting (including accession number or doi) with manuscript submission. 

V. All published articles become the property of the BBR. Once accepted, articles cannot be published in a similar form in other places, and in any other language, without the express consent of the BBR. If the manuscript was previously posted to a community preprint server, it should be updated with a link to the final published version.

VI. The periodicity of this Journal is semi-annual, and the dates of submission and publication should be consulted in the respective portal. Depending on the Editorial initiative, other numbers might be edited along the semester.

VII. Before submitting a manuscript to BBR, authors must obtain all necessary authorizations for the submitted material to be published, and when applicable, according the publication norms from the journal. Several types of papers are considered for publication in BBR:

1. Original articles of original research

The text must not exceed 4,500 words or ten A4 pages (per language, excluding references and tables) and is organized with the following structure - introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, conclusions (optional), acknowledgements, authors contributions, interest disclosure and bibliographical references.

All articles of original research must have abstracts structured as the manuscript (no section titles), followed by keywords that aim at a clear identification of the work, respective indexation and research.

2. Brief articles and communications (short papers)

This type of publication is focused on the divulgation of preliminary results of research. The text must be organized as the articles of original research, include a maximum of ten references and not to exceed five A4 pages per language.

3. Review Articles

These are articles whose objective is to describe “the state of the art”, reflecting the progress in the diverse domains of health sciences and technologies. This type of publication must be directed especially towards health professionals and students.

Along with the pedagogical nature, the aim is to alert the readers for the impact of this progress on health care service.

4. Case Studies

The publication of case studies (of clinical or other nature), has both pedagogical objectives and the transmission of experiences. They must, consequently, be studied and discussed in an exemplary form, and the text must be organized with those objectives in mind.

5. Study Protocols

BBR also publishes prospective research as study protocols. It is mandatory to have formal ethical approval and funding from an independent research-funding body (public or private, as long as not intramural). Respective statements and identification references/codes are required in the text. Study Protocol articles are peer-reviewed having in mind that intention is not to modify the study design, rather to confirm that the study is scientifically sound and ethically credible and that it is presented with adequate detail transparency and rigor.

Study Protocols should be structured in accordance with the Manuscript Format (ahead).

For clinical studies, authors must follow the SPIRIT guidelines [see more here] and checklist. Protocols from systematic reviews must use the  PRISMA-P reporting guideline and be registered in the PROSPERO database [see more here]. Study Protocols are not considered if other articles relating to the study are already published or in review, if it reports any research data from the study, or for any pilot or feasibility study.

BBR accepts other texts based on multiple humanistic aspects that are involved in health care service as well as those related to history, ethics, anthropology, sociology, law, or even opinion letters and letters to the editor, that are of relevance to health sciences and technologies.

Manuscript Format

(a) The instructions to be followed by authors for submission of papers to BBR, are listed below and are according to the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” (available at URL: www.icmje.org).

(b) All papers should be submitted in English and Portuguese. Authors should use the BBR submission model [here] to avoid delays in processing. 

(c) The general organization of the manuscript must respect the following sequence in both English and Portuguese, beginning with English.

- On the first page indicate: 1) name(s) of author(s) (without indication of academic degrees or honorific titles); 2) the institutional affiliation of each author at the moment when the work was carried out; 3) the name and contact of the author who should receive correspondence, including the @mail. Authors should suggest up to three reviewers appropriate to the subject of the study, and can also indicate their preference for the Executive Editor to manage the review process.

- On the second page, indicate the title (full and short title) and provide the abstract (maximum of 200 words). The abstract should be structured as a single paragraph (no section titles) and indicate the objectives/scope, methods, results and conclusions. Each abstract will contain the respective keywords (up to five) on the same page.

- Manuscript text should follow the keywords. The text must be structured with Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and Acknowledgements. Additional declarations of Authors Contributions and Conflicts of Interest are required. Small adaptations to the structure are admitted (inclusion of sub-paragraphs in Material and Methods, for example) according to the nature of the work presented. Manuscripts with experiments on live vertebrates (or higher invertebrates), humans or human samples must include a statement of ethical approval in the Methods section and full compliance with the reference guidelines. 

- References/Bibliography

BBR uses a numbered citation format. Citations are to be consecutively numbered, using Arabic numeration and enclosed in parentheses. Uniformly formatted references should be listed after the main text in accordance with the order of their citation. Articles from periodicals should listed as:  EachAuthorSurname, Initials (publication year). Title in sentence case. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range. DOI or URL. Please see the submission model for examples to cite from other sources.

- Legends, Tables and Figures

Legends of Tables and Figures must be placed on the pages immediately following the bibliography, clearly identified and in order. The legend of each table or figure must be followed by a heading and explanatory notes (e.g., definitions of abbreviations) in order to be understood and interpreted independently of the text.

Tables and Figures must be presented after the legend section, individually, on separate pages, suitably and sequentially identified. Tables and Figures should be individually numbered (with separate and sequential Arabic numeration for Tables and Figures, respectively) and must be ordered in accordance with the order of are reference in the text. Note that it is the practice of BBR to include both English and Portuguese within each figure or table. In rare cases, a version in each language is necessary.

Photographs, illustrations, or other originals such as radiographic images must be converted into an electronic format (JPEG, PNG, or TIFF) after digitalization and inserted into the file of tables and images.

Submission

Documents for publication are exclusively submitted in electronic form [see Submissions | BBR - Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Research (alies.pt)]. Related correspondence should be made through the platform or electronically addressed to bbr@alies.pt.  Resubmissions (under review) will be identified by an automatically generated Tracking-ID.

Requirements prior to submission

(a) Competing or conflicting interests

The authors of any submitted manuscript must declare the existence of any competing or conflicting interests, or declare their inexistence, at the close of the text body. This includes authors who are Executive or Associate Editors of this journal. The potential conflict areas are described in the document: “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” [ see more here ].

(b) Previous authorization for submission

Before submitting a manuscript to the BBR, the authors must have in their possession the following documents that could be requested by the editorial staff:

- declaration of interest by all co-authors;

- in clinical research works, the informed consent of each individual patient whose data or photographs are presented, even when attempts at hiding their respective identity have been made;

- authorization for use of previously published material;

(c) For any other missing indications in these instructions, please consult: “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals”.

Submission and publication costs

This journal does not charge costs or fees for submission and publication of manuscripts from Portuguese-language speaking authors. For other authors, only an English version is required for submission. However, BBR does not accept automatic translations (GoogleTranslate, DeepL, among others), meaning that the Portuguese version will be the direct responsibility of the Editorial Office. In this case, a fee will be charged to ensure that purpose as follows:

– up to 4500 words (tables and figures not included) - 300€

- for more than 4500 words, a 100€ fee will be added for each additional 1000 words. Special requirements might involve additional costs, however the Editorial Office will always provide a proper quote before final confirmation.

- a waiver policy is available, applied on a case-by-case basis

Reproduction Rights

The publication of any article in the BBR will only be authorized after reception of the respective document that concedes the Rights of Reproduction, signed by the author held responsible for the work. [available at URL: Form_Direitos_Reproducao(BBR).pdf (alies.pt)]