About the Journal

Journal Identity

Title: Revista Bioética

Acronym: RB

Abbreviation: Rev. bioét.( Impr.).

Brief History

Conceived by Brazil's Federal Council of Medicine (CFM) to foster multidisciplinary and plural discussion, Revista Bioética is oriented toward the academic education and constant improvement of health care providers. It is an open-access scientific publication that has progressively followed the good practices of open-science communication in editorial policies, management and operation, aiming at the transparency of processes. Approved bioethics and medical ethics articles are made available in full in Portuguese, Spanish and English. Meeting the new Criteria, policy and procedures for the admission and permanence of journals in the SciELO Brazil Collection, the journal becomes a continuous publication, organized in a single volume published from January to December. The print version is published in three issues published in April, August and December. The authors are responsible for information contained in articles, which do not necessarily express the official position of the CFM.

Revista Bioética does not charge for submission, editing or publication of manuscripts. Manuscripts that are unpublished and/or that have been previously made available on preprint servers recognized by SciELO will be accepted, only in an online version. Manuscripts of a conceptual, documentary nature resulting from research or experience in the field of bioethics or medical ethics and critical reviews related to these themes will be considered. All manuscripts will be submitted to the scrutiny of editors, editorial board and ad hoc reviewers, following the Open Science modus operandi and promoting informed peer review, provided it is indicated by them. 

The print version of Revista Bioética is distributed free of charge to the Federal Councils of medical specialties, Regional Councils of Medicine, Medical Associations, public libraries, Bioethics courses, physicians and others interested in the topics addressed who register in our database. It is also available electronically on the CFM page, Virtual Health Library, SciELO and other platforms and directories in which it is indexed. 

 

Open Access

This scientific journal follows the open access model, all content is available free of charge, without restrictions and at no cost to the user or their institution. Users have permission to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without requesting prior permission from the publisher or author. Similarly, it does not charge the authors any fee or charge related to the submission, review and editing process. All works published in the journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors have permission to deposit all versions of their articles in an institutional repository.

Open Science Compliance 

Our editorial policy follows the research communication in the Open Science modus operandi.

Open Science Compliance Form 

Ethics in Publication

Revista Bioética is committed to ethical behavior at all stages of the editorial process and adopts a research ethics policy and guidelines for good practices in scientific communication, using as a reference the “SciELO Guidelines On Best Practices For Strengthening Ethics In Scientific Publication” and the “Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing,” recommended by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME, as well as the Code of Good Scientific Practices of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). We are committed to promoting Open Science by adopting practices that guarantee transparency, accessibility and collaboration in the scientific process, having as reference the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) Principles and the DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility) Principles, thus ensuring the sharing of data respecting the rules and standards of open access. 

Any author who wants to publish their material in Revista Bioética must first of all agree with the instructions contained in this statement and also in the journal's editorial standards. All these procedures seek to ensure the quality and transparency of the works published in our journal. The publication of articles that present results of research involving human beings is conditioned to compliance with the ethical precepts contained in the Declaration of Helsinki, of the World Medical Association (WMA).

Authors must ensure that their research followed the ethical precepts provided for their field of knowledge, complying with all the requirements of the legislation in force specific to the country in which the research was carried out, and attach a copy of the approval document issued by a research ethics committee whenever necessary, as a supplementary document in the submission process.

In compliance with the standards for ethical conduct in scientific publication, Revista Bioética adopts specific rules and procedures that must be followed by all those involved in the process of submission, review, editing and publication of articles in the journal:

  1. The editor has the duty of:
  • Being responsible for the content published in Revista Bioética;
  • Ensuring the quality and transparency of the published material;
  • Upholding freedom of expression, refusing manuscripts that contradict the Fundamental Principles of the Brazilian Constitution and, in particular, its articles 1, 3 and 4, which guarantee human rights and the repudiation of racism and discrimination of any nature, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights;
  • Maintaining the integrity of the academic record;
  • Preventing business interests from compromising the intellectual and ethical standards of the journal;
  • Whenever necessary, publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies;
  • Releasing information on funding for research or other academic works;
  • Promoting fair, impartial and timely peer review;
  • Fostering the accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reports;
  • Requiring objective and impartial review from the editorial board;
  • Obeying confidentiality laws in their own jurisdiction;
  • Obtaining written informed consent for publication in the case of persons who may be recognized or identified in participation in research; 
  • Adopting plagiarism detection systems;
  • Supporting authors whose copyrights have been infringed or who have been victims of plagiarism.

2. Reviewers have the duty of:

  • Observing the rules, regulations and procedures provided for in the editorial standards;
  • Complying with the deadlines and conditions proposed by the journal;
  • Ensuring the confidentiality of the documents reviewed;
  • Ensuring the quality and appropriateness of research approved for publication;
  • Assessing the use of ethical concepts and categories, observing punctuality, confidentiality, standards of objectivity and conflict of interest;
  • Ensuring impartiality in the review process.

3. Authors have the duty of:

  • Observing the rules, regulations and procedures provided for in the editorial standards;
  • Complying with the ethical and documentary requirements provided by the journal (supplementary documents, adequate completion of data and metadata, etc.)
  • Ensuring the originality and novelty of submitted manuscripts;
  • Informing whether the submitted manuscript is deposited in a preprint server by verifying with the corresponding DOI at the time of submission; 
  • Not submitting the article concomitantly to other journals;
  • Ensuring the concepts presented in the articles, the origin and accuracy of the citations.

Focus and Scope

Manuscripts of a conceptual, documentary nature resulting from research or experience in the field of bioethics or medical ethics and critical reviews related to these themes will be accepted. All manuscripts will be submitted to the scrutiny of editors, editorial board and ad hoc reviewers following open science practices, promoting informed peer review.

Digital Preservation 

This journal follows the standards defined in the SciELO Program’s Digital Preservation Policy.

Revista Bioética has its content currently preserved in the CLOCKSS Archive Networks, complying with the preservation criteria recommended as good editorial practices. Information about these preservations can be found in the file status tab on the journal's page on the ISSN portal.

Indexing Sources

Bibliographic Journal Information 

  • Journal title: Revista Bioética.
  • Short title: Rev. Bioét. (Online)
  • Publication of: Federal Council of Medicine
  • Frequency: continued
  • Publication mode: Continuous Publication (CP)
  • Journal creation year: 1993

Websites and Social Media

EDITORIAL POLICY 

Preprints 

Revista Bioética also accepts submission of articles that have been previously submitted, accepted or published in an institutional repository or other reliable preprint server chosen by the authors (such as SciELO PrePrint, EmeRI). Authors must ensure that the content deposited on preprint servers is in line with the editorial policies and ethical guidelines of the journal, especially regarding originality, novelty and academic integrity. Under no circumstances may the submission content have been submitted and/or accepted for publication in another scientific journal.
During the submission process, authors must explicitly state that the manuscript has been previously made available as a preprint, indicating the server used and the corresponding DOI number when applicable. The statement is made by completing SciELO’s “Open Science Compliance Form,” and must be submitted as a supplementary document at the time of submission, according to the SciELO 2024 criteria. Lack of this information may lead to rejection of the manuscript in the screening. If the article is accepted and published, the authors must update the preprint record on the corresponding server, informing the complete reference of the final publication, including the DOI of the published version.

Peer review process 

  • Revista Bioética, valuing the adoption of the criteria of the main indexing platforms, adopts two review methods: double-anonymous peer review and informed review. The method by which the manuscript will be reviewed is chosen by the author(s), who indicate at the time of submission one of the two methodss adopted by the journal and complete, in case of choosing informed review, an “Open Science Compliance Form,” made available by SciELO. Similarly, reviewers may choose, when assuming the review of the manuscript in our system, informed review or double-anonymous peer review. However, the two options, open or anonymous, follow the same review procedures, described below, in compliance with the principles of open science;
  • Revista Bioética guarantees the author(s) and reviewer(s) the option of opening identities in the interaction between author(s) and respective reviewer(s) when there is demand and consent of all;
  • Each article is sent to a reviewer with training in the specific area of the work (specialties in health and biology, law, philosophy, social sciences, etc.), to another reviewer who studies or has already discussed the subject (inequities in health, human rights, abortion, dysthanasia, genetics, research ethics, etc.) and also to the Revista Bioética Committee and bioethicist with academic or specialization on bioethics to review the use of ethics concepts and categories. The work will be forwarded to a first group of reviewers – members of the editorial board and ad hoc evaluators. If those initially designated cannot carry out this voluntary task within the stipulated period, other evaluators will be selected from among the registered collaborators and the process of requesting an opinion will be restarted. The reviews consider the following criteria: content, consistency with the editorial line, originality of the ideas presented, timeliness, textual clarity, language adequacy, information relevance, coherence and conceptual and methodological logic, in addition to title, abstract, indication and name of manuscript parts, indication of objectives, method, presentation of results, discussion and final considerations. The references are also checked, considering if they are adequate and updated;
  • The editorial process of a manuscript can take, on average, 44 weeks after submission. In the first 12 weeks, the article goes through internal steps: plagiarism checking, format analysis, initial editing, and editor review for scope and quality. Only after this phase is the manuscript sent to peer review, which may require several rounds of review.
    With final acceptance, the production and publication phase begins, which may take up to 32 additional weeks.
     This process, in line with international practices and indexing databases, guarantees scientific rigor and editorial quality;
  • The article may be accepted with no need for changes, accepted provided that mandatory corrections are observed or rejected; 
  • Once the manuscript has been accepted with no need for changes, the assistant editor is responsible for forwarding the communication of the editorial decision to the corresponding author and subsequently proceed with the following steps: proofreading, copyediting, translation, desktop publishing version, conversion;
  • In case of disagreement between the two opinions, a third review is necessarily requested; 
  • In case the manuscript has been accepted provided that mandatory corrections are observed, the assistant editor is also responsible for forwarding the latest version to the author for such corrections, within a maximum period of thirty (30) days; After the corrections, it is necessary to forward the manuscript to the reviewers, if they chose in the opinion form to verify if the changes were satisfactory; or carry out this verification when the reviewers are not available and, finally, inform the author of the final decision;
  • In case the manuscript was rejected, the assistant editor is responsible for contacting the author, sending the article refusal opinions that attest the decision;
  • In compliance with the principles of Open Science, both authors and reviewers will be consulted on the review method — open or double-anonymous. If the author chooses open review, the request for opinion will be sent to the reviewers without anonymization; if they choose double-anonymous review, it will be sent with the necessary anonymization precautions. Similarly, reviewers may, at the time of completing the Review Form, choose open review, with disclosure of their name:
    • a) still during the review, so their identification will remain visible at all stages of the process; or
    • b) only after publication of the article, if approved, will then the reviewer name will appear on the last page of the published article, next to the name of the section editor or organizer. If reviewers choose not to identify themselves at any stage of the process, it will be mandatory, on the last page of the article, to publish the name of the editors responsible for the journal, including the editor responsible for the final approval for publication.

Open data

Starting in 2025, all research manuscripts submitted to Revista Bioética must contain the research data availability statement, available at: https://revistabioetica.cfm.org.br/revista_bioetica/about

According to the Open Science guidelines and SciELO policy, Revista Bioética requires the sharing of research data for research articles, being deposited in reliable repositories such as Dataverse or Figshare, which are also open source.

Articles that deposit data in repositories must clearly indicate and reference the availability of the content that supported the research and results.

Definition of research data: all content (numerical data, texts, computer programs, images, audios, videos, etc.) used or produced in the research and underlying the text of the article, organized in files. These files, when gathered, form the dataset.

Fees

The maintenance of editorial activities with scientific quality requires adequate and continuous structure and resources. The publication of articles requires expenses with text and language revision, translation, standardization, layout, desktop publishing (DOI, XML, HTML), among other services that are funded by the Federal Council of Medicine. 

It is noted that Revista Bioética does not charge any type of fee for submission, review or publication of articles. Briefly, the editorial process, under the responsibility of CFM, is thus organized: a) 15% for text proofreading services, after the modifications requested in the review process are carried out by the authors; b) 5% for the text formatting and bibliographic standardization, only Vancouver standards, citations and references; c) 15% for complete translation into English and Spanish, also the Portuguese translations of articles originally in English or Spanish; d) 10% for XML formatting and desktop publishing and DOI validation; e) 15% for review and formatting of metadata referring to article and author information on the Open Journal System (OJS) platform – and in the article; g) 40% for other article editing and editorial management services.

Policy on Ethics and Misconduct, Correction, and Retraction 

Revista Bioética is committed to ethical behavior at all stages of the editorial process and adopts a research ethics policy and guidelines for good practices in scientific communication, using as a reference the “SciELO Guide to good practices for strengthening ethics in scientific publication” and the “Principles of transparency and good practices in academic publications,” recommended by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME, as well as the Code of Good Scientific Practices of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). We are committed to promoting Open Science by adopting practices that guarantee transparency, accessibility and collaboration in the scientific process, having as reference the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) Principles and the DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility) Principles, thus ensuring the sharing of data respecting the rules and standards of open access.

Any author who wants to publish their material in Revista Bioética must first of all agree with the instructions contained in this statement and also in the journal's editorial standards. All these procedures seek to ensure the quality and transparency of the works published in our journal. The publication of articles that present results of research involving human beings is conditioned to compliance with the ethical precepts contained in the Declaration of Helsinki, of the World Medical Association (WMA).

Authors must ensure that their research followed the ethical precepts provided for their field of knowledge, complying with all the requirements of the legislation in force specific to the country in which the research was carried out, and attach a copy of the approval document issued by a research ethics committee (CEP) whenever necessary, as a supplementary document in the submission process.

Also in compliance with the retraction policy, the journal will adopt appropriate measures in cases of misconduct, consistently with the following guides: 

Policy on Conflict of Interest

The editorial line of Revista Bioética and the composition and work of its Editorial Board are completely independent from the CFM board. All submitted articles — including those by members of the editorial staff, board members and others related to CFM — undergo a rigorous editorial process, ensuring transparency and impartiality at all stages.

Conflicts of interest may be personal, commercial, political, academic and/or financial. Conflicts of interest may occur when authors, reviewers or editors have interests that may influence the preparation or review of manuscripts. When submitting manuscripts, authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial conflicts or other conflicts that may have influenced the work. If there is even a potential conflict of interest, the author(s) must inform it in document signed and attached through the submission platform. For additional information: Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest.

Adoption of similarity check software

In the initial phase after receipt, all manuscripts are checked for text and abstract size, as well as formatted and checked for originality in the Plagiarism Detection Software (iThenticate) program. 

Adoption of software using Artificial Intelligence resources

Revista Bioética follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines, as well as SciELO guidelines regarding the authorship and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. Authors must contribute significantly to the intellectual development of the work, study design, data collection and analysis, result interpretation, and manuscript writing. The use of AI must be informed at the time of submission, specifying tool name, function in the study and use method. Authors are responsible for ensuring the quality and reliability of results produced by the adopted tool. Information on the recommendations for using AI can be found in the editorial standards.

For additional information: Guide to the Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools and Resources in research communication in the SciELO Network.

Sex and Gender Issues

Revista Bioética's editorial staff, in addition to authors who publish in the journal, must always observe the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines. SAGER guidelines comprise a set of guidelines for reporting sex and gender information in the study design, data analysis, results, and interpretation of findings. Moreover, Revista Bioética observes the gender equity policy in the composition of its editorial board.

Ethics Committee 

Authors must attach an approval document issued by the ethics committee of the institution responsible for approving the research

Copyright

Revista Bioética uses the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which provides for open access, allowing any user to read, download, copy and disseminate its content, provided that it is properly referenced. The authors hold the copyright without restriction. The opinions expressed by the author(s) of the articles are their sole responsibility. 

Intellectual Property and Terms of Use

Website responsibility: 

Federal Council of Medicine

Available at: https://revistabioetica.cfm.org.br/revista_bioetica/about

Author responsibility:

Revista Bioética uses the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which provides for open access, allowing any user to read, download, copy and disseminate its content, provided that it is properly referenced. The authors hold the copyright without restriction. The opinions expressed by the author(s) of the articles are their sole responsibility. 

In line with the best practices in scientific publishing, our repository policy allows and encourages the deposit of all versions of manuscripts (preprint, postprint and published version) in reliable open-access repositories, without restrictions or embargo. In order to strengthen open access, digital preservation and visibility of academic content, we recommend that materials be deposited in the SciELO repository or other repositories recommended by the platform, ensuring that scientific knowledge is widely available to the academic community and society. 

Sponsors and Promotion Agencies 

  • Federal Council of Medicine