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Introduction: Our aim was to investigate if: (a) authors of Biochemia Medica meet authorship criteria given by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), (b) authorship violations are more frequent in submissions containing some type of scientific misconduct. Materials and methods: Self-reported authorship contributions regarding the three ICMJE criteria were analysed for all submissions to Biochemia Medica (February 2013-April 2015) which were forwarded to peer-review. To test the differences in frequencies we used Chi-squared test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: 186 manuscripts were authored by 804 authors. All ICMJE criteria were met by 487/804 (61%) authors. The first and the last author met all the criteria more frequently than those authors in between (P < 0.001). The degree to which ICMJE criteria was met for the first author did not differ between manuscripts authored by only one author and those authored by >1 author (P = 0.859). In 9% of the manuscripts ICMJE criteria were not met by a single author. Authors of the 171/186 manuscripts declared that all persons qualify for authorship but only 49% of them satisfied all ICMJE criteria. Authors have failed to acknowledge contributors in 88/186 (47%) manuscripts; instead these contributors have been listed as authors without fulfilling ICMJE criteria. Authorship violation was not more common in 42 manuscripts with some type of scientific misconduct (P = 0.135). Conclusion: Large proportion of authors of the manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica do not fulfil ICMJE criteria. Violation of authorship criteria is not more common for manuscripts with some type of scientific misconduct.

Studies with positive results are greatly more represented in literature than studies with negative results, producing so-called publication bias. This review aims to discuss occurring problems around negative results and to emphasize the importance of reporting negative results. Underreporting of negative results introduces bias into meta-analysis, which consequently misinforms researchers, doctors and policymakers. More resources are potentially wasted on already disputed research that remains unpublished and therefore unavailable to the scientific community. Ethical obligations need to be considered when reporting results of studies on human subjects as people have exposed themselves to risk with the assurance that the study is performed to benefit others. Some studies disprove the common conception that journal editors preferably publish positive findings, which are considered as more citable. Therefore, all stakeholders, but especially researchers, need to be conscious of disseminating negative and positive findings alike.

Peer review is widely used system for evaluating manuscripts prior to publication. It has been and still is widely used tool for making justified and fair editorial decision. However, the evidence of its efficacy is limited and it has been criticized to be time-consuming, biased, inconsistent, conservative, and open to abuse. As a result, researchers, editors and policymakers have questioned its objectivity and purpose. Nevertheless, this should not be the reason for abandoning the principles of peer review, but to make the additional efforts towards its improvement. Therefore, this Research Integrity Corner aims to describe basic principles of peer review and to introduce Biochemia Medica's guidelines for peer reviewers. Our intention is to help our peer reviewers provide evaluations that are as fair and objective as possible, while helping the journal publish innovative research of the highest quality.

Salami publication or segmented publication is a distinct form of redundant publication which is usually characterized by similarity of hypothesis, methodology or results but not text similarity. These aspects of publications are not objectively detected by software applications and therefore present a serious threat to publication ethics. This article presents a practical approach for dealing with manuscripts suspected of salami publication during the submission process and after article publication in Biochemia Medica.

Recent findings of authorship criteria violations in the manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica show that almost 40% of authors do not meet necessary criteria for authorship and thus indicate the need for better dissemination of editorial policy on authorship in our journal. We believe that such cases are mostly due to the authors’ unawareness or the lack of understanding of the authorship criteria. With this article we therefore wish to declare our editorial policy on authorship and authorship criteria. Biochemia Medica endorses the authorship policy provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Information on authorship is assessed by self-reported authorship claims during on-line manuscript submission. Those who meet ICMJE criteria shall be listed as authors, and all listed authors shall fulfill ICMJE criteria. All authors should be responsible for content of the article and have to know other authors’ contributions to the study. Biochemia Medica will follow recommendations provided by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts for possible disputes. By adhering to this procedure we hope to raise awareness about the importance of compliance with ICMJE authorship recommendations.

Plagiarism remains at the top in terms of interest to the scientific community. In its many vicious forms, patchwork plagiarism is characterized by numerous unresolved issues and often passes “below the radar” of editors and reviewers. The problem of detecting the complexity of misconduct has been partially resolved by plagiarism detection software. However, interpretation of relevant reports is not always obvious or easy. This article deals with plagiarism in general and patchwork plagiarism in particular, as well as related problems that editors must deal with to maintain the integrity of scientific journals.