About the Journal

Aims and Scope

The Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry invites original research articles that make fundamental contributions to all areas of organic, medicinal, and natural products chemistry, encompassing both theoretical and practical aspects. In selecting manuscripts for publication, the editors prioritize scientific quality, originality, and relevance to a broad audience within the field of chemistry.
While the journal highlights specific research areas outlined below, it remains open to submissions across the full spectrum of organic chemistry. The Editorial Board actively encourages and evaluates manuscripts that extend beyond these categories.

THEMATIC AREAS OF FOCUS INCLUDE:
1. Synthetic Methodology: Studies describing single- or multistep syntheses, including total syntheses, that introduce novel strategies, key transformations, or significantly streamlined routes to target molecules with clear conceptual innovation.
2. Mechanistic Investigations: Experimental or theoretical work that advances understanding of chemical reaction mechanisms or introduces novel methodological approaches.
3. Natural Product Chemistry: Research on the isolation and structural elucidation of natural products, particularly those with unusual skeletal features, methodological innovations in structure determination, or insights into biosynthetic pathways.
4. Chemical analysis: Development, optimization, and validation of analytical methods for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of chemicals, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), drug products, dietary supplements, and bioactive compounds; standardization and quality control of pharmaceutical products; development and validation of bioanalytical methods for toxicological analysis, pharmacokinetic studies, and related applications.
5. Chemical informatics: Research involving chemical informatics, molecular modeling, and simulation, where computational results are validated or contextualized through experimental or theoretical insight relevant to organic chemistry.
6: Biopharmaceutical Chemistry: Research focused on the biological evaluation of organic compounds, structure–activity relationships, and applications relevant to drug discovery and development.
7. Interdisciplinary Studies: Manuscripts that integrate elements of biology, analytical chemistry, functional molecules and systems, or materials science must clearly demonstrate originality in the organic chemistry component of the work.

The journal is intended for a diverse range of readers and contributors, including researchers, academic staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students, as well as professionals working in chemistry, pharmacy, biology, medicine, agriculture, and related scientific fields.

Peer Review Process

The Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry is a peer-reviewed publication that employs a single-blind review process, in which the authors do not know the identities of the reviewers. Manuscripts are evaluated by independent experts in the relevant field to ensure scholarly integrity and quality.

Before being sent for review, each submission undergoes a preliminary assessment by the executive secretary and/or editors. This initial screening evaluates the manuscript’s compliance with the journal’s requirements for structure, content, and formatting. Submissions that do not meet these criteria are not forwarded for review, and the authors are notified accordingly.

Reviewers are selected from among the journal’s authors, readers, subject-matter experts, and members of the Editorial Board, provided there is no conflict of interest regarding the content of the manuscript. Peer review is conducted on a voluntary and unpaid basis. The number of reviewers is determined by the Editorial Board and depends on the scope, complexity, and interdisciplinarity of the manuscript.
Prior to the review, reviewers must confirm their willingness to evaluate the manuscript and declare the absence of any conflict of interest. The standard review period is three weeks from the date of agreement.

All submitted manuscripts are treated as privileged and confidential documents. Under no circumstances will the identities of reviewers be disclosed to the authors.
Reviewers are expected to maintain strict confidentiality throughout the peer review process. They must not contact authors regarding the manuscript or reveal their role as a reviewer without prior approval from the editor.

Reviewer comments should be objective, constructive, and free of personal bias. Feedback should focus on the scientific content and quality of the work. If reviewers mark their comments as those intended only for the editorial office exclusively, such as ethical concerns or confidential observations, they will not be used for comments to the authors.

Reviews are conducted via a structured questionnaire or in a free-form format.
Reviewers assess manuscripts based on the following criteria:

  • Alignment with the journal’s aims and scope
  • Relevance, originality, and novelty of the research
  • Reliability and reproducibility of experimental data, supported by spectral or computational evidence
  • Coherence between the manuscript title and content
  • Quality of writing, formatting, organization, and length
  • Language and style
  • Appropriateness and clarity of figures, schemes, and tables
  • Adequacy and accuracy of the references
  • Informativeness of the keywords and abstract

Reviewers may provide general comments, detailed feedback, or an edited version of the manuscript with suggested revisions. Upon completing the review, the reviewer may recommend one of the following actions:

  1. Accept the manuscript without revisions
  2. Accept with minor revisions (e.g., grammar, formatting, figures, references)
  3. Accept after major revisions addressing substantial issues
  4. Recommend additional peer review
  5. Reject the manuscript

Rejection may result from factors such as lack of alignment with the journal’s scope, absence of scientific novelty or significance, unreliable or unsupported results, or prior publication of the material.

If major revisions are requested, the revised manuscript will be returned to the original reviewer for re-evaluation.

In case of unresolved disagreement between the author and the reviewer, the Editorial Board may appoint an additional reviewer to independently assess the manuscript. The final decision on publication is made by the Editorial Board.

The authors bear full responsibility for ensuring the originality of their work, adherence to ethical standards, and compliance with copyright regulations. Both authors and reviewers are responsible for the accuracy of the data, the validity of conclusions and recommendations, and the overall scientific and practical value of the article.

Authors have the right to appeal an editorial decision, and the editorial team considers such appeals with due seriousness. However, appeals must be grounded in reasoned and evidence-based arguments, particularly those that address issues such as data interpretation or reviewer misunderstandings. Effective appeals respond to all substantive reviewer criticisms in a clear, professional, and balanced manner. Appeals based solely on disagreement with the outcome, or those that emphasize positive comments while ignoring critical feedback, are less likely to succeed. Appeals are generally not successful when the rejection is based on a determination that the manuscript falls outside the journal’s scope or does not align with the interests of its broad readership. During the appeal process, the editors may seek additional input from other editors or members of the Editorial Board. Authors are advised not to resubmit a rejected manuscript without explicit approval from the journal's editorial office.

Publication Frequency

The Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry is published quarterly (four issues per year). The issues are released no later than May, August, November, and December. The journal publishes articles continuously, i.e. articles are published online as soon as they are available (peer-reviewed and copy-edited, the average time between an article acceptance and its publication online is one week).

Open Access Policy

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry adheres to the idea that open-access publishing fosters the exchange of research results amongst scientists from different disciplines, thus facilitating interdisciplinary research.

All articles published in the Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry are made immediately available worldwide under an open-access Creative Common Attribution license and in accordance with the Budapest BOAI Initiative. This means:

  • everyone has free and unlimited access to the full text of all articles published in the Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry;
  • everyone is free to read, download, copy, and distribute the published material, as well as to attach them to the full articles, to use for indexing and other legitimate purposes in the absence of financial, legal, and technical obstacles if proper accreditation/citation of the original publication is given;
  • no special permission is required to re-use all or part of an article published in the Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, including figures and tables, provided that the original article is clearly cited;
  • open access publication is supported by the authors' institutions or research funding agencies by payment of an Article Processing Charge for accepted articles.

Article Processing Charge

Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry publishes all articles in full open access, meaning unlimited use and re-use of articles provided that the original document is properly cited in full accordance with Creative Common Attribution license.

  • The authors pay a one-time Article Processing Charge to cover the cost of providing services for editorial preparation of the articles for publication (editing, correction, layout of text).
  • There is no charge for submitting and reviewing articles in the journal.
  • Payment is made after receiving a positive review for the article together with the decision of the Editorial Board on possibility the manuscript to be published in the journal.
  • The Executive Secretary of the journal informs the author team about the decision.
  • Payment is made in accordance with the Agreement on the provision of services for the editorial preparation of a scientific article in the Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
  • The average estimated cost of publishing one article in the journal is 1260 UAH (90 UAH per 1 page of authors' original properly formatted text in a Word processor).
  • There are no charges for rejected articles.

Editorial preparation of manuscripts submitted for publication does not provide their translation into English.

Plagiarism

All manuscripts submitted for publication must be checked to prevent cases of the academic plagiarism. To perform the analysis of documents the Anti-Plagiarism software is used in the NUPh (the licensor is Khmelnitsky National University).

The criteria for the originality of the text in the manuscripts are defined in the «Regulations of measures to prevent cases of academic plagiary» (ПОЛ A 2.8-03-101) and contain the following indicators:

  • more than 90% – the text of the manuscript is original (the insignificant amount of borrowings);
  • from 80 to 90% – the originality of the text is satisfactory (the insignificant amount of borrowings); however, it should be convinced that there are correct citations and references to the sources used in the manuscript;
  • from 60 to 80% – the manuscript is accepted for consideration after revision by the author(s), and the availability and proper formatting of citations and references to the sources used since it has a significant amount of borrowings;
  • less than 60% – the manuscript is not accepted for consideration and cannot be recommended for printing since it has a significant amount of borrowings, and it is interpreted as plagiarism.

The final decision regarding the presence or absence of plagiarism cases in the manuscript is made by the editor-in-chief taking into consideration recommendations of manuscript reviewers.

Editorial ethics issues

The scientific periodical «Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry» adheres to recognized standards of publishing ethics. The editorial policy outlined below is based on the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE – http://publicationethics.org), and the recommendations of the «Vancouver Group» - http://www.icmje.org/), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME - http://www.wame.org/), the American Chemical Society (ACS) https://pubs.acs.org/userimages/ContentEditor/1218054468605/ethics.pdf), Directory of Open Access Journals - DOAJ - https://doaj.org).

Ethical principles and responsibility of the editor

The editor is responsible for the publication of copyrighted works, which makes it necessary to adhere to the following fundamental principles:

  • the editor has the authority to accept (reject) the manuscript;
  • the editor should not have a conflict of interest concerning articles that are accepted (rejected) prior to publication;
  • the editor accepts an article only when there is complete confidence in such a decision;
  • when finding errors, the editor promotes the publication of a corrected article;
  • the editor has no right without the written consent of the author to use in his own research unpublished materials contained in the submitted manuscript; confidential information or ideas received during the review should not be disclosed by the editor or used for personal gain;
  • when deciding on the publication of the manuscript the editor is guided by the reliability of the data presented and the scientific significance of the work under consideration;
  • the editor must evaluate the intellectual content of the manuscripts regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, origin, nationality, social status, or political preferences of the authors;
  • the editor should not allow the publication of information if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is a plagiarism;
  • the editor, in conjunction with the publisher, should not make unanswered claims concerning the manuscripts or published material in question, or, if a conflict situation is detected, to take all necessary measures for restoration of violated rights;
  • the editor may be guided by the editorial policy of the journal, and decisions of the Editorial Board of the journal, being limited by current legal norms concerning defamation, copyright, and plagiarism;
  • the editor and Editorial Board of the journal are obliged not to disclose without the need information about the accepted manuscript to anyone, except for those directly involved in the process of its consideration.

Ethical principles and responsibility of the reviewer

The purpose of the policy of reviewing the scientific periodical is to support the high ethical standards of scientific research, according to which the reviewer’s work should be preceded by his awareness of ethical requirements in scientific publications. Orientation of the process of reviewing the manuscripts submitted to the publication of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE – http://publicationethics.org) and the experience of leading research communities helps to improve the quality of printed materials, and overcome bias and injustice in rejecting or adopting articles.

The reviewer carries out a scientific examination of the author’s materials, as a result of which his actions should be impartial, which is to adhere to the following principles:

  • the reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasoned assessment of the results of the study; personal criticism of the author is not acceptable;
  • the reviewer should not have a conflict of interest with regard to the research, authors, or research sponsors;
  • in the case of a conflict of interest between the results of the research with the personal development of the reviewer or in the case of such professional or personal links between the reviewer and the author, which may affect the judgment of the reviewer, he must return the manuscript, indicating a conflict of interest;
  • the reviewer must indicate relevant published works that have not been linked to in the manuscript;
  • the review of the manuscript must be confidential;
  • the manuscript received for review must be regarded as a confidential document that cannot be communicated to third parties who are not authorized by the editorial board for review or discussion;
  • a reviewer who does not possess, in his opinion, sufficient qualifications to evaluate the manuscript, or may not be objective, for example, in the case of a conflict of interest with the author or organization, must notify the editorial board with a request to exclude him from the process of reviewing the manuscript;
  • the objective of the reviewer is to objectively evaluate the quality of the submitted manuscript and determine the degree of its compliance with scientific, literary, and ethical standards;
  • to ensure the right of each author to the intellectual property of the reviewer, any use of the arguments received and conclusions of the author is prohibited without the permission of the latter;
  • the seriousness of the accusation of plagiarism requires the reviewer to provide adequate substantiation of his own comments. Any allegation of plagiarism or inappropriate quoting should be accompanied by a relevant reference (the reviewer’s findings should not be defamatory or discrediting the author without serious grounds for doing so);
  • if the reviewer has doubts about plagiarism, authorship, or data reliability, he must obligatorily apply to the editorial board for a collective review of the author’s version of the manuscript;
  • since the reviewer should mark any cases of inadequate citation by the authors of the works of other scholars working in the field of the reviewed article, the comments on the inadequate citation of their own research by the reviewer are identified as biased;
  • support for the constant periodical publication of a scientific journal requires a reviewer of high self-discipline, which is disclosed through the timely submission of a review of the manuscript and with respect to the authors of the manuscript (in the case of lack of education in relation to the authors or the systematic provision of reviews of poor quality or violation of the deadlines for the submission of reviews the relationship with this reviewer is stopped);
  • when a reviewer is not allowed to use or disclose unpublished information or the author’s argument, it is not considered contradictory to the ethical rules of termination of some of his own research reviewers if they believe it to be ineffective.

Ethical principles and responsibility of the author

The author (or collective of authors) realizes that he has primary responsibility for the novelty and reliability of the results of scientific research, which implies observance of the following principles:

  • the author having a publication in the journal may participate in the process of reviewing the manuscripts of other authors;
  • all authors should contribute to the research, that is, the participation of all authors in the study and in the preparation of the article should be determined; the co-authors of the article should indicate all persons who made a significant contribution to the research; among co-authors, it is unacceptable to indicate persons who did not participate in the study;
  • it is necessary to recognize the contribution of all persons who have somehow or other influenced the course of the research, in particular, references should be given in the article to the works that were important during the research;
  • all authors should provide refutation or correction of errors in case of their detection; if there are significant errors or inaccuracies in the article at the stage of its consideration or after its publication, the author should inform the editorial staff as soon as possible;
  • the author must provide reliable results of the research; known false or false allegations are unacceptable;
  • the author should not submit to the journal a manuscript that was sent and/or published in another journal;
  • the author must ensure that the results of the study, outlined in the attached manuscript, are completely original; the borrowed fragments or statements must be made with the obligatory indication of the author and the source; excessive borrowing, as well as plagiarism in all forms, including unformed citations, rephrasing or assigning rights to the results of others’ research, are unethical and unacceptable.

Policy on the Use of Generative AI

  1. Purpose and Scope

This policy outlines the ethical use, disclosure requirements, and editorial oversight concerning the application of Generative AI (GenAI) and AI-assisted technologies in the preparation, submission, peer review, and editorial processes of the Journal content. It is aligned with practices recommended by bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

  1. Definition of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools

Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence technologies capable of producing original content, such as text, images, code, or visualizations, based on user prompts. Examples include ChatGPT, Grok, and similar models. AI-assisted technologies also include tools that support language correction, image generation, and content summarization.

  1. Ethical Principles and Standards

3.1. Responsible Use

Generative AI tools may be used for minor, supportive tasks (e.g., grammar refinement, stylistic editing, language improvement) but must not replace core authoring responsibilities, including:

  • generating original scientific content or hypotheses;
  • drawing scientific conclusions;
  • making recommendations;
  • creating or altering figures for publication (except under specific research conditions – see Section 6).

Authors must maintain full human oversight and review any AI-assisted output carefully, as AI-generated content may be inaccurate, incomplete, or biased.

3.2. Transparency and Disclosure

All authors are required to disclose any use of GenAI or AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of their work. The disclosure must specify:

  • the tool(s) used (e.g., ChatGPT, Grok, DALL·E, Midjourney, etc.);
  • The purpose of use (e.g., language editing, figure generation, idea exploration, etc.).

A transparency statement will appear in the published work.

Example Disclosure:

“Generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) were used for language editing to improve clarity. All conceptual development, analysis, and interpretation of results were conducted by the authors.”

3.3. Authorship and Responsibility

GenAI tools must not be listed as authors or co-authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the integrity, originality, and ethical compliance of scholarly work. Authorship implies the ability to:

  • make substantial intellectual contributions;
  • approve the final version;
  • be accountable for all aspects of the work.

3.4. Peer Review Integrity

Reviewers who choose to use GenAI to support their evaluation must:

  • disclose this use to the editorial team;
  • use such tools only to assist (e.g., summarize text) without replacing independent expert judgment.
  1. Acceptable Uses of Generative AI
  • Language Refinement: grammar correction, syntax improvement, and editing for readability;
  • data visualization: the generation of charts or graphics from real data (with proper verification and citation);
  • idea exploration: brainstorming or developing conceptual frameworks, provided all interpretations and conclusions are human-authored.
  1. Prohibited Uses of Generative AI
  • data fabrication or falsification: using AI to generate or manipulate data, results, references, or citations;
  • plagiarism: using AI-generated content without appropriate attribution;
  • misrepresentation: presenting AI-generated ideas as original intellectual work;
  • undisclosed use: failure to report the use of AI tools in manuscript preparation.
  1. Use of AI in Figures, Images, and Artwork
  • Not Permitted:
    • Using GenAI or AI-assisted tools to create, modify, or enhance scientific images, figures, or artwork for publication
  • Permitted Only If Part of Research Methods:
    • When AI tools are integrated into the research process (e.g., biomedical imaging via AI)
    • Full documentation is required in the Methods section, including:
      • Tool/model name, version, and source
      • Detailed description of the AI's role in the research
      • Original/pre-AI images may be requested for verification

Adjustments to contrast, brightness, or color are acceptable only if they do not obscure or distort the data.

  1. Editorial Oversight and Compliance

Editors will assess all disclosed AI use during the manuscript evaluation process. Suspected undisclosed or inappropriate AI involvement may lead to:

  • request for raw data or pre-AI content;
  • manuscript revision or resubmission.
  1. Consequences of Misuse

Violations of this policy may result in actions consistent with COPE guidelines and institutional publishing policies, including:

  • rejection of the submission;
  • retraction of published articles;
  • notification of funding agencies, affiliated institutions, or other relevant parties.
  1. Ongoing Policy Review

This policy will be periodically reviewed and updated in response to advancements in AI technologies and evolving ethical standards in the publishing industry.

Long-term preservation services

To digitally preserve their content the journal is currently archived in the following long-term preservation services

Advertising policy

The Journal of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry does not consider any proposal of placing an advert on its pages, regarding commercial products, companies that operate in the area covered by the journal, etc. However, we are open to publishing announcements of future conferences, symposiums, and other scientific events as well as landmark dates from the past.