Editorial Policies

Aims and Scope

Urologia Interdisciplinaris is an academic journal established in response to the challenges of contemporary clinical practice and fundamental science. We proceed from the postulate that the human organism constitutes an integral system, and that pathological processes are rarely confined to the boundaries of a single anatomical region or medical specialty. Our primary focus is urology, conceptualized not as an isolated discipline, but as a nexus interconnecting multiple medical fields.
 
The journal specializes in publishing scientific literature that addresses issues at the intersection of allied medical disciplines. The core focus of the journal is urology, examined not in isolation, but in close interrelation with a range of critically important disciplines:
 
  • Gynecology and reproductive medicine: pelvic pathology, infertility, endocrine disorders, and gynecologic oncology.
  • Andrology: male health, sexology, and hormonal status.
  • Oncology and radiation therapy: a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of genitourinary neoplasms.
  • Neurology: neurourology, disorders of pelvic organ innervation, and pain syndromes.
  • Endocrinology: metabolic aspects of urological diseases.
  • Proctology: pelvic pain syndromes and functional disorders of the pelvic organs.
  • Embryology and genetics: the fundamental basis of development and congenital anomalies.
  • Surgery: innovative surgical technologies, transplantation, multidisciplinary management of surgical complications, and integration with general abdominal surgery.
  • Immunology: the immunopathogenesis of inflammatory processes, immunotherapy in uro-oncology, and immunological aspects of reproductive health.
  • Clinical laboratory diagnostics: the discovery and validation of novel biomarkers, molecular genetic testing, precision medicine, and the comprehensive interpretation of laboratory data.
 
We strive to synthesize multidisciplinary expertise into a unified evidence base, to support clinicians who look beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries, and to facilitate the implementation of treatment paradigms that prioritize the patient over the isolated organ system.

 

Peer Review Process

All scientific articles submitted to the journal’s editorial office undergo mandatory double-blind peer review (the reviewer receives no information regarding the manuscript’s authors, and the authors receive no information regarding the reviewers).
 
All engaged reviewers are recognized experts in the subject matter of the materials under review and have published on the topic of the reviewed article within the preceding three years.
 
The peer review of articles is conducted by members of the Editorial Advisory Board and the Editorial Board, as well as by invited reviewers—leading experts in the respective scientific field from Russia and other countries. The decision to select a specific reviewer for the evaluation of an article is made by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Editor, or Managing Editor. The peer review period is 2 to 4 weeks, but it may be extended at the reviewer’s request.
 
Each reviewer has the right to decline a review in the event of an overt conflict of interest that could compromise the objective perception and interpretation of the manuscript’s content. Upon completion of the manuscript’s evaluation, the reviewer provides recommendations regarding its further disposition (each decision by the reviewer must be substantiated):
  • the article is recommended for publication in its current form;
  • the article is recommended for publication after correcting the deficiencies noted by the reviewer, without an additional round of peer review;
  • the article requires revision and a subsequent additional round of peer review;
  • the article cannot be published in the journal even after revision.
 
The journal’s editorial office forwards the text of the reviews to the author. If recommendations for manuscript revision are provided, the editorial office requires the authors to either incorporate them when preparing the revised manuscript or provide a reasoned rebuttal (partial or complete). The revision of the article must not exceed two months from the date the electronic notification regarding the necessity of revisions is sent to the authors. The revised article is then resubmitted for peer review.
 
Should the authors decline to revise the materials, they must notify the editorial office in writing or verbally of their decision to withdraw the article from consideration. The editorial office will be compelled to withdraw the manuscript from consideration if the authors fail to submit a revised version within three months from the date the editorial office sent the notification of the review results containing recommendations for revision. In such situations, the authors are sent a formal notification of the manuscript’s withdrawal from consideration due to the expiration of the allotted revision period.
 
The editorial office conducts no more than three rounds of peer review for each manuscript. If, after three rounds of revision, substantial concerns regarding the text persist among the majority of reviewers or the editorial office, the manuscript is rejected and withdrawn from consideration. In this case, the authors are sent a corresponding notification of the manuscript’s withdrawal.
 
If irreconcilable discrepancies arise between the author and the reviewers regarding the manuscript, the editorial office, in consultation with the Editorial Board and the Editor-in-Chief, may submit the manuscript for additional peer review. In conflict situations, the final decision regarding the publication of the manuscript is made by the Editor-in-Chief at a meeting of the Editorial Board.
 
The decision to reject a manuscript for publication is made at a meeting of the Editorial Board in accordance with the reviewers’ recommendations. An article not recommended for publication by the Editorial Board’s decision is not accepted for reconsideration. A notification of rejection and withdrawal of the manuscript from consideration is sent to the author via email; this correspondence includes the reviews and the grounds for rejection.
 
Following the Editorial Board’s decision to accept the article for publication, the editorial office informs the author accordingly and specifies the anticipated publication timeline.
 
The presence of a positive review does not constitute sufficient grounds for the publication of an article. The final decision on publication is made by the Editorial Board. In conflict situations, the decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.
 
Authors have the right to appeal the editorial office’s decision to reject a manuscript and withdraw it from consideration. To do so, they must submit a formal appeal to the editorial office, addressed to the Editor-in-Chief. The appeal must detail the authors’ reasons for disagreeing with the editorial office’s decision (which is based on the reviewers’ reports), provide arguments in favor of reconsidering the decision, and include the revised manuscript (if such revision is deemed appropriate). The consideration of disputed situations and authors’ appeals requesting a reconsideration of the editorial office’s decisions is conducted personally by the Editor-in-Chief at a meeting of the Editorial Board. Decisions made by the Editor-in-Chief are final and not subject to further appeal.
 
The original reviews and manuscript evaluation protocols are archived in the journal’s editorial office indefinitely (for a minimum of five years).
 
Manuscript reviews (as well as correspondence between the authors and the editorial office) are not published in open access and are utilized solely for the internal document management of the editorial office and in communication with the authors. Copies of the reviews may be submitted to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation upon request.

 

Publication Frequency

4 issues per year

 

Open Access Policy

This journal is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers immediately upon publication. Our open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. For more information please read BOAI statement.    

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge (open license Creative Commons ).

Publications from Issue no. 3  2022 are licensed by Creative Commons International Public License: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) , which allows unrestricted use of works for non-commercial purposes, subject to attribution.

You are free to:

  • Share— copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  • Adapt— remix, transform, and build upon the material

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

  • Attribution— You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • NonCommercial— You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
  • No additional restrictions— You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:

  • You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
  • No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

Content published up to and including Issue no. 2  2022 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC BY 4.0)

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You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:

You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.

No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

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Publishing Ethics

When selecting (including reviewing), preparing (editing) and publishing articles in the journal, the editors are guided by international standards of publication ethics.

In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in the journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing) in dealing with allegations.

The Editorial Board of the Journal will carefully and responsibly consider all reasonable requests regarding the detected violations in the published materials.

The editors consider it the duty of the author and the reviewer to inform the editors as soon as possible about the missed errors and violations that they have identified after the publication of the article.

The journal's publisher, RUDN University, is a co-founder and a member of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP), Russia, and supports the ASEP Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications https://rassep.ru/sovet-po-etike/manifesty/deklaratsiya/  

The ethic policy of this journal is based on recommendations from international committees: ICMJE, WAME, COPE, EASE, Council of Science Editors, ORI.

  When developing these rules, the publisher and the editorial board of the journal used not only their editorial and publishing practice but also the experience of the journals published by leading international scientific literature publishers.

Editorial responsibilities

Editors have sole responsibility for acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. The manuscript may be rejected by the editor on the stage prior to peer-review for a solid reason (inappropriate topic for journal, clearly of poor scientific quality, the article was previously published elsewhere, essential contradiction to ethical principles of the Journal was detected). Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain. Editors should guarantee that the quality of the papers conforms to internationally accepted scientific and publication ethical guidelines. If there is conflict of interest of the editor with the author of the article, the article should be transmitted to another editor.

The editor transmits all the submitted manuscripts, which were not rejected according to the reasons stated below, for peer-review. The editor chooses the reviewers out of the most competent specialists on the topic of the article.

Editors should preserve anonymity of reviewers and should not tell the reviewers the names of the authors.

Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record and be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial opinion works should be clearly identified as such.

Advertising Policies

The editorial board adheres to ethical standards in its work and, above all, defending the right to editorial independence. Placement of promotional materials and sponsorship can not influence in any way on editorial decisions and editorial content. The journal does not publish materials to accompany the advertising and does not sell advertising for specific articles. Advertising and information materials is not mixed with the editorial content.

All decisions on advertising placement are only accepted by the publisher. The editors reserve the right not to accept advertising materials, placement does not meet the publication policy.

Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

Plagiarism takes many forms, from passing off another paper as the author(s) own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another(s) paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

The Editorial Board considers the following to be the forms plagiarism:

  • Use (word for word citing) of any materials in any value without indicating the source;
  • use of images, pictures, photographs, tables, diagrams, schemes or any other forms of graphical information presentation without indicating the source;
  • use of images, pictures, photographs, tables, diagrams, schemes or any other forms of graphical information presentation published in scientific and popular issues without approving by copyright holder;
  • use of the materials without written permission, the authors or copyright holders of which don’t permit use of their materials without special approvement.

The Editorial Board considers the following to be the forms of incorrect borrowing:

  • Absence of graphical highlighting of literal text citation when there are references to the source;
  • incorrect references (incomplete bibliographic description of the sources, which prevents their identification;
  • reference not to the first source of the borrowed text without clear indication of this fact (mistake in primary source determination);
  • absence of references from the text to the sources enumerated in the list below the article;
  • excessive citation (in case there are references to the sources and graphical highlighting of the cited text), the volume of which is not justified by the genre and aims of the article.

Only original works are acceptable for publication in journal. The journal does not allow any forms of plagiarism.

If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

The journal is using "ANTIPLAGIAT" software for plagiarism detection in all Russian-language manuscripts. If the editorial board of the journal has reasons for a more detailed check, additional tools for searching for borrowings can be involved. The Google Scholar is used for English-language manuscripts. Papers will be rejected from any stage of the publication process (even if the article was published already) if plagiarism will be fined.

The Editorial Board of the Journal strongly discourages the use of any technique to increase the text score in the Anti-Plagiarism system.

Articles that show signs of technical modifications in order to artificially increase the uniqueness of the text will not be published in the journal even if revised. The editors report all such facts to the reviewer and, if the author works in an educational institution, to its management.

If unauthorized borrowings are detected, as well as with a low coefficient of originality of the text (<85%) and large amounts of borrowings that are not justified by the goals of the article, the manuscript is rejected from publication.

Articles whose content repeats the results and conclusions obtained in other scientific publications of the author (monographs, previous publications in journals and collections), as well as studies already described earlier in dissertations and abstracts, in the absence of development of the provisions presented in them and new results, to publications are not accepted.

Identification of plagiarism of ideas and plagiarism of data is carried out as part of scientific peer review, as well as after the publication of manuscripts - upon the fact of readers' requests with relevant statements. When establishing the fact of unauthorized borrowing of data (results of scientific work) or ideas, the manuscript (article) will be withdrawn and rejected from publication, even if it has already been published.

Papers will be rejected from any stage of the publication process (even if the article was published already) if plagiarism will be fined.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. Publication of some kinds of articles (eg, clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication. Further detail on acceptable forms of secondary publication can be found at http://www.icmje.org/

Acknowledgment of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

First author. The first author in the list of co-authors should be the head of the author's team of the manuscript, who took the greatest part in the process of preparing the text and is familiar with the entire process of conducting scientific work. The head of the team of authors should also be a "correspondence author" - to communicate with the editors of the journal and readers (after the publication of the article).

The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

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 and 2008. 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 be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose (declare in the corresponding section of the manuscript) any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to affect the results or the conclusions of their manuscript.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include:

  • receiving funding in support of the research or the preparation of the manuscript, any connection (employment, consultancies, stock ownership, royalties, providing expert opinions) with organizations that have a direct interest in the subject of research or review;
  • application or registration of patents for research results (copyright, etc.);
  • obtaining financial support for any of the stages of research or the preparation of the manuscript (including grants and other financial support).

Explicit and potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed as early as possible.

Conflicts of interest information received from authors of manuscripts is provided to reviewers only under the condition of full compliance with double-blind peer review; information about conflicts of interest is available to the editorial board when deciding whether to publish a manuscript. Also, information on conflicts of interest is published as part of the full text of the article.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the authors obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Editorial Policy for Corrections to Published Articles

If inaccuracies and factual errors are made in the article that do not require retraction of the article, the editorial carries out the procedure for publishing the corrections.

The purpose of corrections made to a scientific article after publication is to convey truthful, accurate information to the reader, help avoid illegal borrowing, and eliminate erroneous data.

Any necessary changes will be accompanied with a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article so that readers will be fully informed of any necessary changes. This can be in the form of a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction and in rare circumstances a Removal.

Authors should notify us as soon as possible if they find errors in their published article, especially errors that could affect the interpretation of data or reliability of information presented. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure consensus has been reached between all listed co-authors prior to putting forward any requests for corrections or retractions to an article.

Any minor errors will not be accompanied by a separate correction notice. Instead a footnote will be added to the article detailing to the reader that the article has been corrected. Minor errors do not impact the reliability of, or the reader’s understanding of, the scholarly content.

The reprint of the article with corrections is carried out simultaneously with the retraction of the previous publication in case of multiple typos, incorrect citation, incorrect wording, incorrect facts, the need for corrections to the team of authors and other cases where changes are required that affect the interpretation of the article and at the same time the scientific integrity of the article does not remain unchanged.

Reprint of the corrected article may be initiated by the author (s), readers or the editors of the journal.

The procedure for correcting errors when reprinting an article

  1. If the editorial board has received information about the need to make corrections from third parties, the editor or the Editor-in-Chief will politely send the authors a notification about the need to analyze the identified errors.
  2. After an analysis of the identified errors, the editorial representatives report the need to reprint the article with corrections to the author (s) to agree on the corrections.
  3. The printed issue of the journal publishes an error message indicating the number / year and pages of the issue with the article in which the error was made, a description of the error and text with the corrected error, and retractions of the previous version of the article containing errors.

It is also indicated on whose initiative the retraction and reprint procedure is carried out.

In the online version of the journal, an error message is posted on the site page and / or PDF file with the article.

Readers are given the opportunity to work with the revised version of the article by posting it on the site next to the previous retracted version, in which the retraction was noted.

4. Information about the corrections, retractions and republishing is transferred to the to the Russian Index of Science Citation (elibrary.ru) and other databases in which the journal is indexed.

Retraction guidelines

In some cases the Editorial Board may consider retracting a publication.

The article will be officially retracted if at any stage of review, prepress or after publication, the editors or readers reveal a violation of the requirements of publication ethics. The retraction of the article due to violation of publication ethics will also entail a ban on the publication of articles in this journal for all members of the authors team involved in the incident in the future.

The reasons for retraction may be the following:

  • it constitutes plagiarism, including borrowed pictures, tables, diagrams, etc. If plagiarism was detected after publication (see Plagiarism Policy);
  • third party expresses claims concerning copyrights for the article or its parts;
  • the findings have previously been published elsewhere before the date of its publication in the journal.

The published article has serious errors, which place its scientific value in question.

In such cases the Editor should initiate the revision, after which the article may be retracted. The Act on retraction is complied, which is signed by the editor-in-chief. The copy of the Act is being sent to the author of the article.

In this case the article is not physically withdrawn from the published edition and the file of the issue on web site. The Editorial Office publishes the notification on retraction of the article on the corresponding page of the issue content on the official site of the Journal. The Editorial Office should attentively consider issuing an expression of concern about the revealed problems in the published materials.

The Editorial Board considers it a responsibility of authors and reviewers to promptly inform about the missed mistakes and breaches revealed after the publication of the article.

Privacy Statement

Information about the authors (surname, name, family name, affiliation, e-mail, contact number), which is provided by them for publication in the journal, is becoming available for indefinite range of persons, for which the authors give their permission by providing his article in the online system on the website of the journal.

The following data is published for the convenience of the authors with the aim of the full and correct account of publications and their citation by the corresponding bibliography companies and providing the possibility of contacting the authors ans the scientific society.

Personal information provided by the authors in addition to the enumerated below includes additional e-mails and phones. These will be used only for contacting the authors in the process of preparing the publication. The Editorial Board may not transmit this information to a third party, who can use it for some other purposes.