Abstract

Background: The Skopje Declaration on Scientific and Publishing Integrity in Biomedicine was developed to address persistent challenges such as research misconduct, unethical authorship practices, and declining trust in the biomedical literature. First published in Prilozi/Contributions of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts in December 2024, and subsequently republished in several peer-reviewed journals indexed in Bibliomed, EBSCO, PubMed, and PubMed Central, the Declaration has rapidly gained international visibility. Its dissemination reflects a growing need for harmonized ethical standards across biomedical research and publishing. Objective: To summarize the key principles of the Skopje Declaration and provide practical, evidence-based recommendations for implementing its guidance within research environments, academic institutions, and editorial and publishing systems. Methods: A qualitative synthesis was conducted based on the Declaration and related regional publications. Recommendations were organized into researcher-, institutional-, editorial-, and system-level categories. International guidelines (ICMJE, COPE, EQUATOR, CRediT) served as a comparative framework for contextualizing and aligning implementation pathways. Results: The Declaration highlights core principles including transparency in research design, accuracy in data reporting, responsible authorship, ethical peer review, and editorial independence. Key implementation strategies include:a) Researcher-level actions: rigorous study design, complete documentation, responsible authorship and contributorship practices, plagiarism screening, preregistration when appropriate, and secure data management; b) Institutional actions: establishment of research integrity offices, clear procedures for addressing misconduct, mandatory training in research ethics, and promotion criteria that emphasize quality over quantity; c) Editorial and publishing actions: strong peer-review systems, transparent conflict-of-interest policies, compliance with COPE and ICMJE standards, ethics and funding disclosures, and timely handling of corrections or retractions; d) Regional and international actions: collaborative standard-setting, coordinated training programs, and joint efforts by academies and professional societies to strengthen a culture of integrity. Conclusion: The Skopje Declaration provides a comprehensive, actionable framework for promoting scientific and publishing integrity in biomedicine. Its broad implementation can enhance transparency, reproducibility, and trust, offering a timely opportunity to unify regional and global efforts towards ethical scientific communication.

Key words: Authorship; Biomedical Research; Ethics, Research, Publishing; Editorial Policies; Peer Review; Scientific Misconduct.