Policy

Policies

Open access policy

The Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas complies with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI, 2002). Under this policy, users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of articles, or to use them for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inherent to accessing the Internet (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/translations/spanish-translation).

Content licence

This site is published under a Creative Commons Licence of the Attribution–NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) type. This licence permits users to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material), subject to the following conditions: appropriate credit must be given to the authors, and the material must not be used for commercial purposes.

For further information, please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en

Digital preservation policies

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas adheres to the information-preservation and IT-security policies established by the National Centre for Medical Sciences Information (INFOMED) for the Health Network.

Policy on file preservation

The journal uses its own file-preservation system, supported by the provider of the Open Journal Systems platform, on Infomed's servers (Cuba's health network). Infomed's servers, in turn, have their own file-preservation mechanism based on their own policies and procedures.

This publication uses the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archive across participating libraries, enabling them to create permanent archives of the journal for its preservation and retrieval.

Publication charges

This journal DOES NOT APPLY ARTICLE PROCESSING OR PUBLICATION CHARGES.

Anti-plagiarism policy

This journal uses an electronic text-matching detection system as part of its editorial management, to safeguard the quality of the publication and prevent possible cases of plagiarism.

All articles received by the Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas are checked by the editors, before and during the publication process, using dedicated tools to detect textual overlap.

The editorial committee will examine each individual case of suspected ethical misconduct and take appropriate action. On receiving a report of plagiarism, or on detecting it, the Editorial Committee will convene a panel of experts to investigate and rule on the matter; if plagiarism is confirmed, the article will be formally retracted.

Policy on the journal's sections

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas mainly accepts original research articles. It also publishes other research or opinion articles that address topics falling within its subject scope and that comply with its established requirements.

Policy on the editorial process

This journal uses an electronic system to manage its editorial process. All stages of publication are carried out on the platform, and submissions or personal correspondence via other channels are not accepted.

On submitted manuscripts

As part of its adoption of the universal principles of Open Science, aimed at ensuring the credibility and transparency of research findings, Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas accepts manuscripts deposited on preprint servers (see the policy on prior submissions). Authors are responsible for declaring that their manuscripts are held on such repositories. Submitted manuscripts undergo an initial screening to confirm that their subject matter falls within the journal's scope and that they meet its established requirements. Documents that fail to meet these initial requirements will be returned.

Policy on manuscript evaluation

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas carries out a scientific evaluation of all submitted manuscripts through a double-blind peer-review system. Occasionally, and whenever circumstances allow, it will also use open review methods.

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening proceed to scientific arbitration. If a manuscript is accepted subject to revisions, the authors must return the corrected version within the specified deadline; otherwise, they must submit the manuscript afresh, and the process will begin again. The evaluation process will not exceed 90 working days, which is the deadline for issuing a verdict.

Approved manuscripts will be published no later than one year after the date of submission.

On the technical process

The technical process comprises copy-editing, design, and typesetting of the manuscript, following which authors receive the corrected and typeset versions for approval. Authors must confirm their approval of these versions within 72 hours of receipt. After this deadline, the article will be held pending.

Policy on authorship

The journal recognises as authors those individuals who meet the criteria universally established for scientific articles, namely those who have made:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data;
  • Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
  • Given final approval of the version to be published;
  • Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions relating to the accuracy or integrity of any part of it are properly investigated and resolved.

Authors will regularly be asked to submit a signed authorship declaration setting out their role in the research. The editorial committee reserves the right to accept particular authors on the basis of their declared role and the scale of the research involved. The authorship declaration follows the CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy) system.

CRediT – Contributor Role Taxonomy

Policy on copyright

This journal protects copyright from the moment of submission. However, by publishing under a Creative Commons 4.0 licence (CC BY-NC), the author transfers certain economic rights, permitting the material to be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon), provided that the journal publication is credited as the sole source. The material may not, however, be sold or exploited for commercial gain.

Policy on prior publication and conference presentations

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas will not consider any original research work, or any part of one, that has already been published or is simultaneously under consideration elsewhere. Theses and dissertations are not regarded as prior publications. The journal recognises the deposit of research articles on non-profit scientific preprint servers such as SciELO Preprints, arXiv.org, bioRxiv.org, ChemRxiv.org, medRxiv.org, and similar platforms. Distribution over the Internet by other means may be regarded as prior publication and may compromise the originality of an article submitted to a scientific journal. While manuscripts are under peer review, they must not be published on any platform. Where press coverage of a manuscript's content occurs, it is recommended that this take place only after the article has been published.

Policy on preprints

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas, committed to the principles of Open Science and to COPE's best practice, accepts manuscripts previously deposited on preprint servers, on the understanding that these do not constitute prior publication provided they are transparently disclosed at the time of submission. When submitting a manuscript, authors must inform the editor whether the work has previously appeared as a preprint, stating the server used, the DOI or permanent link, the date of posting, and the version deposited, together with any substantial differences between the preprint version and the version submitted to the journal. Authors must also ensure that the preprint licence does not conflict with the copyright requirements of the journal. The journal recommends the following preprint servers, selected for their editorial rigour, traceability, interoperability with Open Science repositories, and alignment with international quality standards: medRxiv (health sciences and medicine), bioRxiv (biology and life sciences), arXiv (exact sciences, physics, mathematics, and computing), OSF Preprints (multidisciplinary, integrated with the Open Science Framework platform), Preprints.org (MDPI, multidisciplinary), Research Square (with a preliminary peer-review service), SciELO Preprints (health sciences and social sciences, in Spanish and Portuguese, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean), Libraserv (health sciences in Spanish, specialising in the Ibero-American region), SocArXiv (social sciences), EarthArXiv (Earth and environmental sciences), ChemRxiv (chemistry), and PsyArXiv (psychology). The use of servers that do not identify authors, do not provide a DOI or permanent link, do not show a posting date, lack a clear licensing policy, or do not permit linking to the peer-reviewed published version, is discouraged. The journal does not regard preprints as prior publication precluding peer review, unless the preprint has already appeared in a peer-reviewed journal or constitutes an accepted final version. Wherever technically feasible, the journal will promote linking between the preprint and the published article to safeguard the traceability and transparency of the scientific record, in line with COPE's recommendations on the importance of clear, publicly available policies on preprints and their relationship to published articles.

Authors are encouraged to use the SciELO Preprints server for this purpose: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/index

Policy on conflict-of-interest declarations

In accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas requires submission of a standardised form (the ICMJE Conflict of Interest form), obliging authors to declare specifically their financial relationships (fees, grants, patents) and non-financial relationships over the preceding 36 months.

Policy on ethical misconduct

This journal adheres to all international good-practice initiatives for scientific publishing and applies the algorithms of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to resolve all cases of publication misconduct.

Policy on publication frequency

The journal publishes on a continuous basis.

Policy on languages of publication

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas is a Spanish-language journal committed to the principles of Open Science, equitable access to knowledge, and linguistic diversity in scholarly communication. In line with the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021) and the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication, the journal recognises that linguistic diversity enriches scientific knowledge, extends the reach of research, and fosters wider participation by scientific communities worldwide.

The principal language of Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas is Spanish. All accepted manuscripts are published in Spanish, reflecting the journal's linguistic and cultural identity and its commitment to serving the Spanish-speaking health-science community in Cuba, Latin America, the Caribbean, and beyond.

Recognising that 98% of peer-reviewed scientific literature is published in English, and mindful of the challenges faced by researchers whose first language is not English in publishing in high-impact journals, Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas accepts original manuscripts written in English, subject to the following conditions:

- The manuscript must be original, and must not have been published, nor be simultaneously under consideration, elsewhere.

- It must fall within the scope and aims of the journal (public health, epidemiology, health policy, and related fields).

- Priority will be given to assessing scientific content (significance, originality, validity of the study, methodological clarity) over command of the language.

- Accepted manuscripts will be translated into Spanish by the journal's editorial team, with the assistance of translators specialising in the health sciences.

- Authors will be given the opportunity to review the Spanish translation before final publication.

In keeping with COPE's Guidelines on Good Practice, republication of an article in another language is acceptable, provided that full and prominent disclosure of the original source is made at the time of submission, and that it does not amount to redundant publication.

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas adheres to the principles of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) promoted by COPE. It recognises that multilingualism in scientific publishing is not merely an ethical imperative, but also a catalyst for innovation and wider dissemination of knowledge.

Policy on the referencing system

The journal uses the National Library of Medicine (NLM) style, also known as the Vancouver style, for the bibliographic referencing of articles. The correct format for in-text citations is explained in the Instructions for Authors.

Privacy policy

Names and email addresses entered on this journal's site will be used solely for the purposes stated therein, and will not be disclosed to third parties.

Policy on post-publication errors

Published documents are immutable. Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas asks authors to check the final version of their manuscript carefully before publication. Any errors discovered subsequently will be corrected by means of an erratum or corrigendum linked to the original document.

Policy on special issues and supplements

Special issues or supplements meet the need to communicate specifically about a particular topic or event, although in the case of the latter, so-called "proceedings" already exist.

Publication of a special issue in Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas is subject to the circumstances outlined above. The structure and length of the issue will be determined by the Editorial Committee together with the editorial-production unit, or Publisher (Editorial Ciencias Médicas). An ad hoc team may also be formed to carry out this work.

On the publication of commercial advertisements or promotions

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas does not carry advertisements for commercial products or sponsors. Nevertheless, within the sphere of scientific activity, the journal's pages may serve as a means of legitimate dissemination. Courses, workshops, and events related to the journal's core subject matter may be given limited space for presentation within it.

Policy on Open Research Data

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas promotes the opening of research data, provided that confidentiality requirements allow it. As part of its compliance with the principles of Open Science, authors may deposit their research data on any of the servers available internationally for this purpose, ensuring compliance with the FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability).

The following are recommended: DataCite, The Dataverse Network, Zenodo, SciELO Data.

Policy on interoperability between information systems

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas uses the Dublin Core metadata schema and the OAI-PMH exchange protocol, which facilitate access to, and transmission of, metadata between the data provider and harvesters. This enables retrieval, filtering, reporting on conditions of use, authentication and assessment, preservation, and interoperability.

Policy on the use of Artificial Intelligence

Recent advances in large language models — sophisticated generative artificial-intelligence algorithms trained on vast volumes of language data — have given rise to widely available writing tools, such as OpenAI's popular chatbot, ChatGPT, which can analyse text and generate new content from user instructions. This technology has significant and immediate implications, both for academics writing articles and for the journals that publish them.

Large language models have a powerful capacity to search and reorganise information from their training data in a variety of formats and styles defined by users. They are used to generate ideas, produce outlines for academic articles, and even draft complete articles. Because current AI tools are highly trained to imitate human speech and writing styles, their output closely resembles that of a human author, conveying a sense of precision, authority, and emotional connection.

Requirements for reporting the use of AI technologies in manuscripts submitted to Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas, in accordance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors:

  • Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas requires authors to declare any use of AI-assisted technologies at any stage in the preparation of the submitted work.
  • Artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies must not be listed as authors or co-authors of a manuscript.
  • Artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies must not be cited as a reference, as a primary source, or as the author of a reference.
  • Human authors are responsible for any submitted material produced with the assistance of AI technologies, as well as for its correctness, completeness, and accuracy.
  • Authors must ensure that no plagiarism exists in the article, whether in the text or in images generated by AI technologies, and must ensure the correct attribution of all material, including full citations where required.
  • Peer reviewers must not upload manuscripts to software or other artificial-intelligence tools that cannot guarantee confidentiality.
  • Even where AI-assisted technologies are used in a manner that preserves manuscript confidentiality, reviewers who use such technologies to assist their review must declare their use and nature, and are responsible for ensuring that all AI-generated information or content included in reviews is correct, complete, and impartial.

Policy on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (IDEIA)

Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas publishes scientific articles selected through a rigorous peer-review process, without discriminating against any submission. It also fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion in research and in the dissemination of scientific findings.