1. Aims and Scope

Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia is a peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal that publishes original research articles and invited reviews across the pharmaceutical sciences. Subject coverage includes, but is not restricted to, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics, pharmacology, toxicology, pharmaceutical biotechnology, analytical and bioanalytical methods, and clinical pharmacy.

Continuously published since 1953 (under its earlier titles Bulletin of Pharmacy and Acta Pharmaceutica Turcica), the journal appears in four issues per year and has been published exclusively online since October 2023. The journal accepts manuscripts written in clear, concise English. Its purpose is to advance pharmaceutical knowledge by offering a reliable and ethically governed venue for high-quality scientific work.

2. Editorial Independence and Governance

Editorial decisions at Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia are reached on scholarly grounds alone and are independent of the publisher, commercial interests, and any individual or institution. The Editor-in-Chief holds final responsibility for what the journal publishes. The relationship between the publisher and the editorial board rests on a principle of editorial autonomy: the publisher provides the operational framework but does not influence the assessment of individual manuscripts.

The editorial board is responsible for setting and maintaining the journal's policies on submission, review, evaluation, and research integrity; for safeguarding the confidentiality of the review process; and for protecting the intellectual property of authors. Board members are appointed for their subject expertise and are expected to act impartially and in the interest of the scholarly record.

3. Editorial and Peer Review Process

Every submission is first checked by the editorial office for compliance with the journal's formatting requirements and for textual similarity. Manuscripts that fall within scope and meet the formal requirements are forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief, who may refer them to a subject (field) editor then to language and statistics editor (if needed).

Manuscripts judged suitable for review undergo double-blind peer review, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are withheld from one another. At least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise are invited to assess each manuscript. Reviewers are asked to evaluate originality, methodological soundness, the validity of the conclusions, clarity, and the contribution to the field, and to declare any conflicting interest before accepting an invitation.

On the basis of the reviewers' reports, the handling editor recommends a decision (acceptance, minor or major revision, or rejection) to the Editor-in-Chief, who communicates the final decision to the corresponding author. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers. Direct contact between authors and reviewers is not permitted; all correspondence passes through the journal's submission system.

Indicative processing times are published on the journal website and are currently: Those involved in the admin process complete their checks within two weeks. Articles that have completed the admin process are sent to the editor-in-chief, and the editor-in-chief completes the section editor assignment process within two weeks. Editors assign reviewers, and the time frame may vary depending on the reviewers' decisions (accepted, minor, major, rejected). The review process is completed in approximately six weeks; and time from acceptance to publication, approximately six months. These figures are averages and may vary with reviewer availability and the volume of submissions.

When an editor is an author of, or has a competing interest in, a submitted manuscript, that editor is excluded from all decisions concerning it, and the manuscript is handled by another editor with no conflicting interest.

4. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship of a manuscript should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the work. In line with the ICMJE recommendations, each named author is expected to satisfy all of the following conditions:

• a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the study, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data;
• drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• approval of the final version submitted for publication; and
• agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions about the accuracy or integrity of any part are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributors who do not meet all four criteria (for example, those who provided technical help, writing assistance, or general supervision) should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section rather than listed as authors. Authors are encouraged to describe each person's contribution using a recognised contributor-role framework (such as CRediT).

The corresponding author acts on behalf of all co-authors in correspondence with the journal and confirms that every listed author has seen and approved the submission. Any change to the authorship of a submitted or published article (addition, removal, or reordering of names) requires the written agreement of all authors, including the person being added or removed, and must be explained to the handling editor. The journal addresses authorship disputes in accordance with COPE guidance and does not arbitrate the order of authors, which is a matter for the authors to settle among themselves.

5. Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest exists where financial or personal relationships could be perceived to influence the conduct, assessment, or reporting of research. The journal requires all parties to disclose such interests so that they can be managed transparently.

Authors must declare any financial or personal relationships relevant to the submitted work (including employment, consultancies, honoraria, patents, grants, and holdings) in a Conflict-of-Interest statement within the manuscript. Where no such interest exists, the authors should state this explicitly. Reviewers must decline to assess any manuscript in which they have a competing interest and must treat the manuscript as confidential. Editors must recuse themselves from handling any submission in which they have a personal, professional, or financial interest. Sources of research funding must additionally be disclosed under the Funding section (see Section 10).

6. Research Ethics: Human and Animal Subjects

Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia upholds internationally recognised standards of research ethics, and authors are responsible for ensuring that their work complies with them. Research involving human participants must conform to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects). Research involving animals must follow the WMA Statement on Animal Use in Biomedical Research and internationally accepted standards for the humane care and use of animals.

6.1 Ethics committee approval and supporting documents

Approval of the research protocol by an appropriate ethics committee is required for all experimental, clinical, and drug studies, and for case reports where applicable. Authors must state the name of the approving committee, the approval number, and the date of approval in the Materials and Methods section. The journal requests that the ethics committee report, or an equivalent official document, be uploaded together with the submission, and the editors may require this document before a manuscript proceeds. Where a study does not require ethics-committee approval (for example, a review article), the authors must state explicitly that such approval was not necessary.

For research involving human participants, authors must confirm that written informed consent was obtained after the procedures had been explained to the participants. For participants who are children or who lack legal capacity, the assent of a parent or legal guardian must be obtained. Authors are responsible for protecting participants' anonymity; for any photograph or other material that could identify an individual, a signed release from the person or their legal representative must be provided. For animal studies, the measures taken to minimise the pain and suffering of the animals must be described clearly.

6.2 Principles of research integrity

In designing and conducting research, authors are expected to observe the following principles:

• integrity, quality, and transparency at every stage of the research, from design through to reporting;
• full information to participants about the aim, methods, anticipated uses, and risks of the study;
• voluntary participation, free from any form of coercion;
• protection of the confidentiality, autonomy, and dignity of participants and of the data they provide;
• avoidance of any foreseeable harm to participants;
• approval from the host institution or organisation where the study is carried out; and
• a clear declaration of the independence of the research and disclosure of any conflict of interest.

6.3 Reporting guidelines

Authors should prepare their manuscripts in line with the ICMJE Recommendations and follow the reporting guideline appropriate to the study design. Examples include CONSORT for randomised controlled trials, STROBE for observational studies, STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy, PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and ARRIVE for experimental animal studies.

7. Plagiarism and Similarity Screening

Submitted manuscripts must be original and must not reproduce the wording of other works (including the authors' own earlier publications) without appropriate attribution. Every manuscript is screened for textual similarity using Turnitin software. The maximum acceptable similarity index is 20%, excluding the methodology and reference sections. Manuscripts that exceed this threshold are returned to the authors for revision or are rejected.

Where the editors carefully review a study's data and find that statistical results do not conform to accepted research-integrity standards, the submission is rejected without entering the editorial process. If data are found to have been fabricated or falsified, the manuscript is rejected and the matter is reported to the authors' institution. Editors and reviewers may request the raw data underlying a manuscript at any stage.

8. Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

Generative artificial-intelligence tools and large language models do not satisfy the criteria for authorship and must not be listed as authors, because they cannot take responsibility for the content or integrity of a work. Where such tools have been used in preparing a manuscript (for example, in drafting text, generating figures, or analysing data), the authors must disclose this in the Methods or Acknowledgements section, naming the tool and describing how it was used. The authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the entire manuscript, including any part produced with the assistance of such tools. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts or any part of them to generative-AI systems, as doing so would breach the confidentiality of the review process.

9. Data Sharing and Availability

The journal encourages authors to make the data underlying their findings openly available wherever this is ethically and legally possible, so that results can be verified and reused. Authors are encouraged to deposit their datasets in a recognised public repository and to cite the dataset, with its persistent identifier, in the reference list.

Each research article should include a Data Availability statement indicating whether the supporting data are openly available, available from the authors on reasonable request, or subject to restrictions (for example, on grounds of participant confidentiality or third-party rights), together with the conditions for access. Where data cannot be shared, the reason must be stated. Editors and reviewers may request access to the underlying data during the assessment of a manuscript.

10. Funding Disclosure

Authors must declare all sources of financial support for the research and its publication (including grants, fellowships, donations, and sponsorships) in a Funding section, giving the name of the funding body and, where applicable, the grant or award number. Where the research received no specific funding, the authors should state that the work was not supported by any external grant. Funders have no role in the journal's editorial decisions.

11. Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct

The journal takes seriously every concern about research or publication misconduct, including plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, redundant or duplicate publication, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and disputed authorship. Concerns may be raised at any time, whether before or after publication, and should be sent in writing to the editorial office (editor@actapharmsci.com) with enough detail to allow the matter to be examined.

Behaviours regarded as misconduct include, among others, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, image manipulation, redundant or duplicate publication, salami slicing, citation manipulation, gift or ghost authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and breach of copyright. All manuscripts found not to meet accepted ethical standards are removed from consideration or, if already published, addressed through correction or retraction (see Section 14).

Allegations are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief following the relevant COPE flowcharts. The editors gather the necessary information, give the author or other party concerned a fair opportunity to respond, and maintain confidentiality so far as is consistent with a proper investigation. Where misconduct is confirmed, the journal takes proportionate action, which may include correction or retraction of the article and, where appropriate, notification of the author's institution. The journal does not retaliate against people who raise genuine concerns in good faith.

12. Appeals Against Editorial Decisions

The journal handles appeals in accordance with COPE guidance. Authors who believe that a decision on their manuscript rested on a factual error, a misunderstanding of the science, or a procedural irregularity may submit a single appeal. The appeal should be sent by email to the editorial office and should set out, point by point, the specific grounds for reconsideration, responding directly to the editors' and reviewers' comments. The Editor-in-Chief (or, where appropriate, an editor or external adviser who was not involved in the original decision) reviews the appeal and may seek further independent advice. Where a case cannot be resolved internally, an independent ombudsperson may be invited to help reach a resolution. The Editor-in-Chief is the final authority, and the outcome of the appeal is final. Appeals do not take priority over the assessment of new submissions and may take additional time to resolve.

Appeals should be addressed to: editor@actapharmsci.com (the journal's editorial-office address, listed on the journal homepage).

13. Complaints

Complaints about the conduct, policies, or procedures of the journal, its editors, or its staff (for example, undue delay, discourteous handling, or a failure to follow the journal's stated processes) are handled in accordance with COPE guidance. A complaint differs from an appeal, which concerns the scientific decision on a specific manuscript. Complaints should be submitted in writing to the editorial office and will be acknowledged promptly. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for investigating complaints and for responding to the complainant with the outcome, and may appoint an independent ombudsperson where a complaint cannot be resolved internally. Where a complaint remains unresolved, it may be escalated to the publisher.

Complaints should be addressed to: editor@actapharmsci.com (the journal's editorial-office address, listed on the journal homepage).

14. Corrections, Retractions, Expressions of Concern, and Withdrawal

The journal maintains the integrity of the published record and corrects it whenever necessary, following the guidance of COPE and the ICMJE.

14.1 Post-publication corrections

All requests for a post-publication correction are subject to editorial review. The Editorial Board decides whether a correction is necessary and appropriate, taking into account the nature of the error, its potential effect on the article, and the supporting evidence, and may consult the authors, reviewers, or other experts as needed. A correction is classified either as an erratum, where the error was introduced by the publisher, or as a corrigendum, where the error originated with the authors. Once approved, the correction is published as a notice that is linked to the original article, which remains in place in the journal's archive.

14.2 Investigations, expressions of concern, and retractions

Allegations of misconduct are reviewed and investigated by the Editorial Board in accordance with the journal's policies and with ICMJE and COPE guidance. To conduct an investigation efficiently, the board may share information with the editors-in-chief of other journals or contact the authors' institutions in order to obtain evidence relevant to the concern. Where an investigation is inconclusive or remains ongoing, the journal may publish an expression of concern to alert readers until the matter is resolved. Where the investigation confirms misconduct, the editors issue a retraction notice, which is published and linked to the article, and the article's record is updated to reflect this status. The article generally remains in the archive clearly marked as “RETRACTED”; in exceptional circumstances involving legal infringement or a serious risk to health, however, it may be subject to article removal. The article's status is also updated in the relevant indexing services.

14.3 Withdrawal of submitted manuscripts

Requests to withdraw a manuscript before publication are reviewed by the Editorial Board. To request withdrawal, the authors must send the journal editor a letter, signed by all authors, stating the request and the reasons for it. The corresponding author can also submit a signed file on behalf of all authors. Withdrawal requests are addressed promptly. Authors who submit such a request in good faith and receive no response within a reasonable period may regard the manuscript as withdrawn even without formal confirmation from the journal. To avoid duplicate submission and any resulting conflict, authors must not submit the work to another journal for evaluation until it has been officially withdrawn.

15. Open Access Policy

Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia is a fully open-access journal, in keeping with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. All articles are freely available online to every reader immediately upon publication, with no subscription or pay-per-view charge. For non-commercial purposes, readers may read, download, copy, print, search, and link to the full text of articles without seeking prior permission from the publisher or the authors, subject to the licence terms set out in Section 16. The journal supports the principle that unrestricted access to research strengthens scholarly exchange and the public benefit of science.

16. Copyright and Licensing

Articles published in Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution–Non-commercial–No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Under this licence, others may copy and redistribute the article in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original authors and the source are properly credited; the licence does not permit the distribution of adapted, remixed, or otherwise derivative versions of the work. The full terms of the licence are available from Creative Commons.

Authors retain the copyright in their work and grant the journal the right of first publication. As a condition of publication, the corresponding author completes the journal's copyright and licensing agreement on behalf of all authors, confirming the originality of the work and the authority to publish it. Where previously published material (such as figures, tables, or extended quotations) is reproduced, the authors are responsible for obtaining the permission of the copyright holder, and the legal and financial responsibility in this regard rests with the authors.

17. Article Processing Charges and Author Fees

All costs of the journal are met by its publisher, İstanbul Medipol University. Publication is free of charge: there are no article processing charges (APCs), no submission fees, and no charges for colour figures or supplementary material. The journal is therefore free both to authors and to readers.

18. Advertising Policy

Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia does not accept or display advertising of any kind. The journal carries no commercial advertisements, and no advertiser has any influence over editorial content or decisions.

19. Revenue Sources

Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia is published by İstanbul Medipol University, which funds the journal's operation in full. The journal derives no revenue from author charges, advertising, or commercial sponsorship. Any sponsorship received for a specific activity, such as a special issue arising from a scientific meeting, is disclosed transparently and does not affect the journal's editorial independence.

20. Long-Term Digital Preservation

Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia secures the long-term preservation of its published content through its publisher, İstanbul Medipol University. Within its own library, the University operates a modern local facility in which a complete and accurate digital copy of the journal's articles is held and protected against loss. The journal's full archive is openly available on its website, where the content is organised in a format compatible with ScienceDirect, and each article carries a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) that provides a persistent and reliable link to the work.

21. Editorial Office and Contact Information

Editorial office: editor@actapharmsci.com

Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Dr. Gülden Zehra Omurtag, gzomurtag@medipol.edu.tr

Production Manager: Bürin Yıldıztekin, burin.yildiztekin@medipol.edu.tr

Publisher: İstanbul Medipol University, Faculty of Pharmacy

Address: İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi, Eczacılık Fakültesi, Kavacık Mah. Ekinciler Cad. No. 19, Kavacık Kavşağı, Beykoz 34810 İstanbul, Türkiye

Telephone: +90 216 681 51 00