Publisher Policies

Scientific Council

• Prof. Alexandru Vlad CIUREA MD, PhD (Neurosurgery & Neurology)
• Prof. Mircea BEURAN MD, PhD (General Surgery)
• Prof. Doina Anca PLESCA MD, PhD (Pediatrics)
• Prof. Oana Cristina MARGINEAN MD, PhD (Pediatrics)
• Prof. Ruxandra IONESCU MD, PhD (Internal Medicine & Rheumatology)
• Prof. Emanoil CEAUSU MD, PhD (Infectious Diseases)
• Prof. Viorela ENACHESCU MD, PhD (Gastroenterology & Family Medicine)
• Prof. Paula PERLEA MD, PhD (Stomatology/Dentistry)

AMPH Milestones

• Founded in 1992 by an initiative group of scholars from „Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy – Bucharest, Romania.
• Accredited by CNCSIS-CNCS in 2004 on the first position – medical section (a total of 7 accredited publishing houses).
• Strategic partnership with the Romanian Academy – for fundamental textbooks.
• AMPH launched a series of medical textbooks “Esențialul în ...” (“Essentials of...”) – 7 medical specialties up-to-date (editions 3, 4 and 5).
• Since 1997 AMPH publishes medical periodicals in partnership with prestigious national and international medical societies.
• During the last 25 years AMPH published: over 1000 medical periodicals and over 12,000 scientific articles (available online free, as AMPH adopted the Open-Access system in 2015).
• AMPH developed professional websites for the journals; AMPH indexed journals in international databases (DOAJ, Scopus, Embase, Ebsco, Semantic Scholar, Research Gate etc.)
• Over 300 medical books published since 1994.
• AMPH is accredited by the Romanian College of Physicians as a CME (Continuing Medical Education) provider.
• Partner within numerous EU research projects and grants (example: POCU project with IOMC 2018-2020) [link].
• Publishes Proceedings for 8-10 congresses/medical conferences, annually.
• CrossRef member since 2020. AMPH DOI code is 10.37897.
• Currently publishes 11 official medical periodicals (about 50 issues annually) – in print & online versions.

• Medical Books and Journals published by AMPH ensure a high scientific quality of its content, as well as an outstanding graphic quality.
• The scientific quality of the published papers is warranted by the impartial single blind peer review process conducted by the journals.
• Most of the journals published by AMPH have a frequency of 4 issues per year plus supplements, print and electronic editions.
• All the journals are published in English. The books are published in Romanian and, some of them, in English.
• AMPH checks for plagiarism using iThenticate^®.
• The editorial process for articles require 6 to 8 weeks from submission to publication. All accepted articles are published online first.
• Accepted books are usually published in 2 to 4 months, depending on the size of the manuscript.
• The full content of the journals published by AMPH is available free on Open Access system.
• The journals will be depositing the full text content in international databases as well as on the official web-site. The permanent article identifier (DOI) will also be available in continuity.
• Retrieving, adapting and republishing articles may be done freely, in compliance with the Open Access Protocol: Works can be freely retrieved and adapted, provided the source is cited/quoted and that the possible changes are specified.
• All materials must be sent electronically to the email addresses provided by AMPH. Authors must specify the e-mail address of the corresponding author (the member of the author group designated to maintain correspondence with the journal). The cover letter accompanying the article should clearly define the significance and uniqueness of the chosen topic from the authors' point of view.
• For each manuscript submitted, AMPH asks authors to disclose any financial and/or personal relationships that might influence their work.
• To prevent ambiguity, AMPH requires authors to explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.
• All the authors are required to state that experiments have been performed in compliance with the ethical principles of the assigned institutional board or national committee.
• AMPH asks authors to carefully protect the patients’ anonymity and to verify that any experimental investigation with human subjects reported in the submission was performed with informed consent and following all the guidelines for experimental investigation with human subjects required by the institution(s) with which all the authors are affiliated with. For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed releases of the patient or of his/her legal representative should be enclosed.
• When reporting experiments on human subjects, the AMPH requires statements as to whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration (JAMA 2000;284:3043-3049).
• Authors are allowed to freely withdraw any article submitted, by following the standard withdrawal procedure. After the article is submitted, it enters the pending status – a public iThenticate® report is issued. The corresponding author can send a formal withdrawal letter; the article will enter a 60-day quarantine period where it cannot be submitted to another journal (the period is needed to unload the article from the editorial platform and from plagiarism software archive).

• All submitted articles to AMPH undergo an impartial single blind peer review process to ensure their quality and academic merit.
• The peer-review process involves systematically evaluating academic research articles by subject matter experts in the relevant field.
• The reviewers assess the research work’s quality, originality, clarity, and significance before recommending acceptance or rejection to the board.
• The reviewers, who are experts in the field, provide constructive feedback and recommendations to the editors to improve the accuracy, validity, and significance of the research findings, which helps to elevate the quality and preference of the article for publication in the journal.
• Upon reviewing the review comments provided by the reviewers, the editors decide to accept or reject articles for publication and set any necessary prerequisites that need to be fulfilled.
• After manuscript receipt, the manuscript will be immediately registered and the corresponding author will receive a short e-mail confirming the receipt which will contain the registration number, the date the manuscript was received, and the fact that the manuscript was handed out to the subject editor (the specialized member of the Editorial Board). The Editor-in-chief or one of the deputy editors will hand the manuscript to the subject editors.
• The initial responsibilities of the subject editors consist of verifying if the manuscript complies with the editing criteria.
  • If the manuscript does not comply with the criteria, the subject editor will send a short email to the corresponding author, with the request to rewrite the manuscript according to the editorial criteria.
  • If there are serious errors of content and/or editing, the manuscript will be rejected ab initio by the Editor-in-chief.
  • If the manuscript complies from the beginning with the editing requirements, the subject editor chooses 2 peer reviewers (either from those already accredited by the journal or from a number of new suggestions made by the author, in which case he conveys the proposal/s in order to be sent the approval letter acknowledging the quality of official reviewer of the journal), and it is mandatory that one of them belongs to an academic site other than the authors of the manuscript.
• Peer reviewers will be randomly selected from the existing database or from the ones proposed by the authors.
• In the case that the authors formulated any objections against particular reviewers, these objections will be respected by the editors.
• The reviewers’ decision (approval with no changes, approval with major/minor changes, rejection) will be immediately communicated by e-mail to the corresponding author by the subject editor.
• If the manuscript gets approval with the indication for changes, the anonymous comments of the reviewers will be sent together with the reviewers decision and a statement of the subject editor, which will be the synthesis of the reviewers' opinions.
• The corresponding author must send the improved manuscript within 4 weeks, together with a letter (Word document or similar) as attachments to an e-mail where the corresponding author responds item by item to the comments of the reviewers, specifying the manner in which the manuscript was modified.
• The subject editor will forward the answer to the reviewers. If they are satisfied with the corresponding author's answer, they will send the subject editor the decision of approval for publication of the improved manuscript.
• If the reviewers consider the corresponding author's answer is only partially satisfactory, they will request an additional review of the manuscript, the editing process following the same rules as in the case of the first revision.
• If the peer reviewers consider that either on the first or the second revision, the corresponding author did not meet or poorly met the revision requests, they will deny the approval for publication, which will be communicated to the subject editor.
• Authors can petition the editors for reconsideration in the case of a rejected article. Upon completing the peer-review process, the author can submit only a single petition for an article. However, the ultimate decision rests solely with the editor.

• Advertisements or sponsorship for pharmaceutical products must comply with the regulations of European regulatory authorities, such as the National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices or the Romanian Advertising Council (RAC).
• AMPH does not allow advertising or sponsorship to influence editorial decisions.
• AMPH accepts advertising for products and services only of interest to users in their professional lives.
• Advertising and sponsorship must be decent and truthful and comply with relevant laws, regulations and industry codes.
• Advertisements for products that make therapeutic claims, but without marketing authorization or CE marking (or local equivalent), must be submitted together with any claims supported in full research papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Sponsored content is clearly identifiable. The nature of any commercial relationship is transparent to our users. Users can immediately distinguish between advertising and editorial content.
• AMPH does not endorse any medical or pharmaceutical advertising.
• AMPH does not allow advertising on any official web-site of the medical journals.
• Advertising and sponsorship are subject to AMPH Scientific Council oversight. The Scientific Council reserves the right to reject any advertising and sponsorship proposals. If a proposal is rejected for reasons outside these guidelines, AMPH will provide an explanation.

• AMPH is committed to upholding the highest standards of research integrity in all aspects of its research. Integrity in research refers both to the scholarly scientific work of the research carried out and the professional integrity of the researchers.
• AMPH policy is to ensure that all articles published report on work that is morally acceptable, and expects authors to follow the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki.
• The authors should clearly state that all (if any) experiments have been performed in compliance with the ethical principles of the assigned institutional board or European committee.
• When reporting experiments on human subjects, the AMPH requires statements as to whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or European).
• All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. If there is suspicion that work has not taken place within an appropriate ethical framework, Editors will follow may reject the manuscript, and/or contact the author(s)’ ethics committee. On rare occasions, if the Editor has serious concerns about the ethics of a study, the manuscript may be rejected on ethical grounds, even if approval from an ethics committee has been obtained.
  • Manuscripts conducting any animal or clinical studies should contain a statement in accordance with the animal and human ethics committee.
  • Research should be carried out in a manner that animals do not get affected unnecessarily.
  • Registration is required for all clinical trials.
• Editors retain the right to reject manuscripts on the basis of ethical or animal welfare concerns. Papers may be rejected on ethical grounds if the study involves unnecessary pain, distress, suffering or lasting harm to animals, or if the severity of the experimental procedure does not appear to be justified by the value of the work presented. We ask that the work would be likely to gain approval in Europe under the European Directive 2010/63/EU (on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes).

• AMPH considers that the data and information of individuals (e.g., information obtained through a doctor-patient relationship) must be handled with the highest levels of confidence and discretion. It is therefore almost always necessary for authors to obtain written informed consent from any patients described in case reports and from those who are the subject of photographs.
• Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers, biometrical characteristics (such as facial features, fingerprint, writing style, voice pattern, DNA or other distinguishing characteristic) and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent/guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable or legal representative) gave written informed consent for publication.
• Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained.
• Scientific Reports will not process manuscripts describing research that involves organs/tissues procured from prisoners. In addition to the requirements described above, authors of manuscripts describing human transplantation research must include a statement in their manuscript confirming that no organs/tissues were procured from prisoners.
• AMPH strictly follows COPE Guidelines and in accordance to the guidelines requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submitted manuscripts or published articles. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors confirm and agree with the proposed changes.

• AMPH journals will issue corrections, retraction statements and other post-publication updates including Editor’s Notes and Editorial Expressions of Concern on published content.
• If the article has already been published online, AMPH may accept correction of manuscripts if they are found to contain:
  • Errors or omissions that impact readability, indexing or compliance with AMPH or journal policy;
  • Errors or concerns about the validity or integrity of the article.
• An Author Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the author(s) that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.  
• The authorship of a published article can only be amended through publication of a request letter.
• Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like, will also result in an article being retracted. All co-authors will be asked to agree to a retraction.
• AMPH may retract an article if:
  • The article contains honest errors or errors due to research or publication misconduct,
  • If the article was accepted as a result of compromised peer review,
  • If authors have been unable to satisfactorily resolve the concerns or queries raised on their article,
  • If authors cannot be verified, are unable to provide underlying raw data and/or images, or are unable to provide evidence they undertook the research themselves.
• Authors may choose to request retraction of their own article. All retraction notices will explain the reasons for retraction and will be linked to the original article. The article will enter a 60-day quarantine period where it cannot be submitted to another journal. The period is needed to unload the article from the editorial platform and from plagiarism software archive.