The Nepal Journal of Dermatology, Venereology & Leprology (NJDVL) is the official scientific journal of the Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON). It is a peer-reviewed, open-access biomedical journal dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in dermatology, venereology, leprology, and related disciplines.
NJDVL aims to publish scientifically sound, ethically conducted, clinically relevant, and original scholarly work related to the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, epidemiology, and research of diseases affecting the skin, hair, nails, and mucosae, as well as sexually transmitted infections and leprosy.
The journal welcomes research from Nepal and other countries and particularly encourages work relevant to South Asia, tropical dermatology, resource-limited settings, and emerging issues in dermatological practice.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
The journal is intended for:
NJDVL considers the following categories of manuscripts:
Journal title: Nepal Journal of Dermatology, Venereology & Leprology
Abbreviation: NJDVL
Print ISSN: 2091-0231
Electronic ISSN: 2091-167X
Language: English
Country of publication: Nepal
Publication frequency: Biannual
Owner: Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON)
Publisher: Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON)
Access model: Diamond Open Access
Article Processing Charge: None
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
NJDVL aims to improve the visibility, accessibility, dissemination, and use of high-quality dermatological research.
The journal supports open scholarly communication by providing immediate and unrestricted access to its published content. Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to, and reuse published articles in accordance with the applicable Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).
NJDVL seeks to promote collaboration among clinicians, researchers, academicians, trainees, and health professionals and to contribute to the advancement of dermatological science and patient care.
Ownership
The Nepal Journal of Dermatology, Venereology & Leprology is owned by the Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON).
Publisher
The journal is published by: Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON), Nepal Medical Association, Siddhisadan, Bhrikutimandap, Kathmandu, Nepal
SODVELON provides institutional and financial support for the journal.
Editorial decisions are made independently by the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board on the basis of scientific quality, originality, relevance, methodological rigor, ethical standards and suitability for the journal.
The ownership, sponsorship or financial support of the journal does not determine whether an individual manuscript is accepted or rejected.
The Editor-in-Chief has final responsibility for editorial decisions. Where an editor has a conflict of interest concerning a submission, that editor will not participate in the editorial decision, and responsibility will be transferred to another appropriate editor.
NJDVL is committed to internationally accepted standards of scholarly publishing, research integrity, and editorial transparency.
Its editorial policies are informed by recommendations and best-practice guidance from organisations including the:
Reference to these organisations or their guidance does not imply organisational membership unless such membership is specifically stated.
All submitted manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously, are not simultaneously under consideration by another journal, and have not been accepted for publication elsewhere, except where legitimate secondary publication is permitted according to recognised publishing standards.
Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, scientific validity, originality, relevance, ethical standards, and suitability for NJDVL and are independent of the nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or other personal characteristics of the authors.
All manuscripts submitted to NJDVL undergo preliminary editorial assessment before external peer review.
The editorial team assesses:
Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's minimum scientific, ethical, methodological, or reporting standards may be desk rejected without external peer review.
Selection of Reviewers
Manuscripts considered suitable for further evaluation are normally sent to two or more independent external reviewers with relevant expertise.
Reviewers are selected according to:
The journal maintains and periodically updates its reviewer database. Bibliographic databases and published literature may also be used to identify appropriate experts.
Authors may suggest potential reviewers; however, the final selection of reviewers remains entirely at the discretion of the editorial team.
Double-Anonymous Peer Review
NJDVL normally follows a double-anonymous peer-review process, whereby:
Reviewers are asked to assess, where applicable:
Editorials, invited commentaries, correspondence, or other selected article types may undergo editorial review rather than standard external peer review. Where an article is exempt from the usual peer-review process, this should be made clear when appropriate.
Editorial Decisions
Following editorial and peer review, one of the following decisions may be issued:
Authors receiving a revision decision should respond to reviewer and editor comments in a point-by-point response and submit a revised manuscript with changes clearly indicated.
Revised manuscripts are assessed by the handling editor and may be returned to the original or additional reviewers when necessary.
The Editor-in-Chief has final responsibility for acceptance or rejection of manuscripts, taking into consideration reviewer recommendations, scientific merit, ethical requirements, originality, and relevance to the journal.
Reviewer recommendations are advisory and do not by themselves determine the final editorial decision.
Review Timeline
NJDVL aims to provide an initial editorial or peer-review decision within approximately 6–8 weeks. The journal aims, where practicable, to complete the process from acceptance to publication within approximately 3 months ± 30 days.
These are target timeframes rather than guarantees and may vary according to manuscript complexity, reviewer availability, revisions, ethical enquiries, and production requirements.
Authors will be informed when substantial delays occur.
NJDVL has been published biannually since 2021, normally producing two issues each year.
The journal endeavours to maintain its announced publication schedule. Changes arising from exceptional circumstances will be communicated through the journal platform where appropriate.
NJDVL is a fully open-access journal.
All articles are made freely and immediately available online upon publication without subscription, registration, or payment by readers.
There is no embargo period.
The journal believes that unrestricted access to scientific knowledge promotes research, education, collaboration, improvements in healthcare and advancement of scientific knowledge.
Copyright Ownership
For articles published under the current copyright policy, copyright is retained by the author(s).
Authors do not transfer ownership of copyright in their scholarly article to NJDVL or SODVELON.
By publishing in NJDVL, authors grant NJDVL and SODVELON a non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive and make the Version of Record publicly available and to identify NJDVL as the original place of publication.
Copyright ownership and the license under which an article is made available are separate matters.
For articles published before the effective date of the present copyright policy, the copyright arrangements stated in the article or publishing agreement applicable at the time of publication remain in effect.
Creative Commons License
Articles published under the current open-access policy are distributed under the:
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).
Under CC BY 4.0, users may copy, distribute, display, adapt, remix and build upon the material for any lawful purpose, including commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the licence is provided and any changes made are indicated.
Copyright Statement on Articles
All newly published articles will display an explicit copyright and licensing statement in the full text, including the PDF and applicable online article formats.
The standard statement is:
Copyright © [Year] The Author(s). Published by the Nepal Journal of Dermatology, Venereology & Leprology (NJDVL), Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).
Website Copyright
Copyright relating to individual scholarly articles is separate from copyright relating to the NJDVL website, journal branding, logos and other publisher-owned material.
Unless otherwise stated, copyright in the NJDVL/SODVELON website design, journal logo, branding and publisher-created administrative material belongs to SODVELON.
NJDVL follows a Diamond Open Access model.
Authors are not required to pay any fee at any stage of manuscript submission, peer review, processing or publication.
Specifically:
The ability or inability of an author to make any financial contribution to SODVELON has no influence on editorial or peer-review decisions.
NJDVL operates as a Diamond Open Access journal. Any future change to the journal's fee policy will be clearly announced on the journal website before implementation.
NJDVL is financially and institutionally supported by its owner and publisher, the Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON).
The journal does not depend on Article Processing Charges for publication.
SODVELON supports the journal's editorial, publishing and related operational activities as part of its academic and professional objectives. Financial support, sponsorship or other revenue sources do not influence editorial decisions concerning individual manuscripts.
NJDVL is committed to the long-term digital preservation and continued accessibility of its scholarly content..
Journal content is hosted and made publicly accessible through Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL).
NJDVL content is also preserved through recognized digital preservation systems, including the Internet Archive and the Public Knowledge Project preservation network, with preservation information recorded through the Keepers Registry/ISSN preservation infrastructure.
These preservation arrangements are intended to ensure that NJDVL content remains available even in the event that the journal, publisher, or primary publishing platform ceases operation.
The journal periodically reviews its preservation arrangements and works with relevant platforms and preservation services to maintain an accurate record of archived content.
NJDVL is hosted online through Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL).
NepJOL provides online access, discoverability and hosting services for scholarly journals published in Nepal.
NepJOL does not determine NJDVL's editorial decisions.
NJDVL is indexed, abstracted, archived, or discoverable through scholarly services including:
NJDVL was accepted for inclusion in Scopus in 2026 following evaluation by the Scopus Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB). Bibliographic coverage in Scopus may become visible progressively as source processing and content indexing are completed.
The journal will update its indexing information as databases complete their respective inclusion and processing procedures.
Published scholarly articles are assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) through Crossref where applicable.
NJDVL does not describe itself as indexed in a database until the relevant inclusion or acceptance process has been formally completed.
NJDVL assigns Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to published scholarly articles through Crossref.
Article metadata are provided to relevant scholarly discovery and indexing services to facilitate permanent identification, citation and discoverability.
Published articles contain sufficient bibliographic information to enable correct citation.
NJDVL is committed to maintaining the integrity, reliability, and transparency of the scientific record. Its editorial and publication policies are informed by internationally recognised recommendations and best-practice guidance, including those of:
Reference to the principles or guidance of these organisations does not imply organisational membership unless membership is explicitly stated.
Concerns relating to research or publication misconduct are assessed according to the nature and seriousness of the allegation and with reference to appropriate internationally recognised publication-ethics guidance.
Possible misconduct includes, but is not limited to:
The journal may contact authors, reviewers, institutions, ethics committees, or other appropriate bodies when investigation is necessary.
NJDVL follows the authorship recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
All listed authors should meet all four authorship criteria:
All individuals who meet these criteria should be listed as authors.
Persons who contributed to the work but do not meet all authorship criteria should be acknowledged, with their permission where appropriate.
Acquisition of funding, data collection, or general supervision alone does not justify authorship.
Research involving human participants must have been conducted according to applicable institutional, national, and international ethical standards.
Where required, manuscripts must provide information regarding approval from an appropriate Institutional Review Committee, Institutional Review Board, Nepal Health Research Council, or equivalent ethics committee.
The name of the approving body and approval/reference number should be stated in the manuscript where applicable.
Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional and national standards for animal welfare and research ethics.
Clinical trials must be registered in an appropriate publicly accessible clinical-trial registry when required by applicable guidelines and journal policy.
Patient Consent and Confidentiality
Authors are responsible for protecting patient confidentiality.
For case reports, clinical images or other material containing identifiable patient information, appropriate informed consent for publication must be obtained before submission.
Identifying information that is not essential to the scientific content should be removed.
Masking only the eye region of a recognisable clinical photograph may not be sufficient to ensure anonymity.
Authors
Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial relationships or interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, honoraria, grants, stock ownership, patents, advisory roles, paid expert testimony, personal relationships, or institutional interests.
Reviewers
Reviewers must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and decline a review when a financial, professional, institutional, collaborative, competitive, or personal relationship could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, their objectivity.
Editors
Editors must not participate in the editorial assessment or decision-making process for manuscripts in which they have a relevant conflict of interest.
Such manuscripts will be assigned to another qualified editor who has no relevant conflict.
Submitted manuscripts may be screened using similarity-detection software.
A similarity score alone does not establish plagiarism. Potentially inappropriate textual overlap, unattributed copying, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, fabricated or falsified data, inappropriate image manipulation, and other suspected misconduct will be evaluated by the editorial team.
Depending on the nature, extent, and stage at which a concern is identified, NJDVL may:
Permission must be obtained from the appropriate copyright holder for copyrighted photographs, figures, tables, graphics, or other material reproduced from another source unless reuse is otherwise permitted by the applicable licence.
The original source must be appropriately acknowledged.
NJDVL is committed to maintaining an accurate and trustworthy scientific record.
The journal welcomes legitimate post-publication concerns from authors, readers, and other stakeholders.
When a significant error or concern is identified after publication, the journal may issue an appropriate:
Such notices will be linked to the original article whenever technically possible.
Retractions and other substantial post-publication actions will be undertaken in accordance with recognised publication-ethics principles.
Article Withdrawal Policy
Withdrawal of a manuscript after submission should occur only for legitimate and exceptional reasons. Before publication, authors requesting withdrawal must provide a written request explaining the reason for withdrawal. Where there are multiple authors, the journal may require confirmation that all authors agree to the withdrawal.
Once an article has been formally published as part of the scholarly record, it will not ordinarily be removed. Concerns arising after publication will instead be handled through corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other appropriate post-publication notices.
Manuscript Closure/Declining Policy
A manuscript may be declined or administratively closed when:
If no response is received for approximately 30 days after appropriate reminders, the journal may close the submission. Authors may contact the Editorial Office if exceptional circumstances have prevented a timely response.
NJDVL recognises the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and AI-assisted technologies in research and scholarly publishing and requires their use to be transparent, responsible, and consistent with research and publication integrity.
Authorship
Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for published work. Human authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to NJDVL.
Disclosure
Authors must transparently disclose material use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, including where applicable:
The disclosure should identify the tool and describe how it was used.
An appropriate statement may be included in the Methods or Acknowledgements section.
Author Responsibility
Authors remain responsible for:
AI-generated references, data, quotations, or factual statements must not be accepted without verification by the authors.
Prohibited or Inappropriate Uses
AI tools must not be used to:
Editors and Reviewers
Editors and reviewers must preserve the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts. Confidential manuscripts, patient information, unpublished data, or identifiable material must not be uploaded into public generative AI systems where confidentiality, data retention, or secondary use cannot be assured. NJDVL does not delegate final editorial decisions or judgements regarding scientific validity to generative AI systems.
NJDVL welcomes legitimate complaints and appeals concerning:
Complaints may be submitted to:
Complaints will normally be acknowledged within 7 working days. The journal aims to resolve complaints within approximately 4 weeks, although complex matters requiring investigation may take longer.
Appeals against editorial decisions should provide a clear scientific, ethical, or procedural justification rather than simply expressing disagreement with the decision.
Complaints or appeals will, where possible, be considered by an editor or responsible person who was not directly involved in the matter under dispute. Where appropriate, unresolved issues may be referred to SODVELON or another relevant institutional or ethical body.
NJDVL's editorial decisions are independent of advertising, sponsorship and commercial interests. Any advertising accepted by the journal or its publisher must be clearly distinguishable from editorial content.
Decisions regarding acceptance of advertisements are made by the publisher or its designated administrative authority and not on the basis of individual editorial decisions. Advertisements must not be linked to acceptance or rejection of manuscripts.
Advertising, where used, should not be targeted on the basis of confidential manuscript information or individual reader behaviour in a manner that compromises editorial independence or privacy.
Any direct marketing or solicitation of manuscripts undertaken on behalf of NJDVL must be professional, relevant, appropriately targeted, and truthful.
NJDVL will not make misleading claims concerning:
Acceptance for publication is never guaranteed.
Names, email addresses and other personal information submitted to the journal will be used solely for legitimate journal editorial and publishing activities and will not be made available for unrelated purposes except where required by law or necessary for the operation of the journal's publishing services.
Additional information regarding data handling by the journal's hosting platform is available through the NepJOL privacy policy.
Editorial Board
The journal maintains an Editorial Board comprising recognised professionals and academic experts relevant to dermatology, venereology, leprology and related disciplines. The names, roles, institutional affiliations and countries of Editorial Board members are provided on the journal's Editorial Team page and are reviewed periodically.
The scientific opinions, conclusions, and views expressed in articles published in NJDVL are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, SODVELON, publisher, or associated institutions.
The publisher and editors make reasonable efforts to ensure scientific and editorial quality but cannot be held responsible for consequences arising from the application or interpretation of information published in the journal.
Publication of an advertisement, commercial name, product, or service does not constitute endorsement by NJDVL, its editors, or SODVELON.
Clinical information published in the journal is intended primarily for healthcare professionals and researchers and should not substitute for appropriate professional clinical judgement.
Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON)
Kathmandu, Nepal
NJDVL is the official scientific journal of SODVELON.
The journal is supported by the Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON).
The journal currently operates without Article Processing Charges or other mandatory author publication fees.
Nepal Journal of Dermatology, Venereology & Leprology (NJDVL)
Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON)
Kathmandu, Nepal
Email: njdvl.sodvelon@gmail.com
Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Vikash Paudel
Full information regarding the Editorial Board, including names and institutional affiliations, is available on the journal's Editorial Team page.
Peer review: Double-anonymous external peer review
Frequency: Biannual
Open access: Immediate and unrestricted
Copyright: Retained by the author(s) under the current policy
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Submission fee: None
Article Processing Charge: None
Publication fee: None
Publisher: Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON)
Owner: Society of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists of Nepal (SODVELON)
Primary hosting: Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL)
Long-term preservation: Internet Archive and Public Knowledge Project preservation infrastructure
DOI registration: Crossref
DOAJ: Listed
Scopus: Accepted for inclusion in 2026
Established in 2007 and hosted by Ubiquity.
Managed by Tribhuvan University Central Library.
Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) is a service to provide online publication of Nepalese journals. For more information about NepJOL and how to join the service, see the About page.
