Publication Ethics Policy

Document control: Version 1.0 | Effective date 21 October 2026 | Approved by Publisher | Next scheduled review October 2027 | First version.

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance, and integrity. Publication fees, institutional relationships, sponsorship, commercial considerations, or personal influence must not determine editorial outcomes.

Purpose and Scope

This policy establishes the ethical standards that apply to all manuscripts submitted to, reviewed by, edited for, and published in the journals. It applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial-board members, guest editors, publisher staff, and other participants in the publication process.

The policy is intended to protect the integrity of the scholarly record, promote responsible research and publication practices, and provide consistent procedures for preventing, identifying, and responding to ethical concerns before and after publication.

This policy is the journal's public Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement. It is published in English on every journal website, is linked from the home page, and applies equally to regular issues, special issues, supplements and conference proceedings.

Core Principles of Publication Ethics

• Honesty and accuracy in the design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of research.

• Originality and proper acknowledgement of the work of others.

• Transparency regarding authorship, funding, competing interests, data, methods, and use of automated tools.

• Fair, confidential, and independent editorial and peer-review processes.

• Protection of human participants, animals, confidential information, and vulnerable groups where applicable.

• Prompt correction of the scholarly record when significant errors or misconduct are identified.

• Fair investigation of concerns without retaliation against good-faith complainants or whistleblowers.

Research Ethics

Ethical approval

Research involving human participants, identifiable human data or samples, animals, or other activities requiring formal oversight must have approval from an appropriate ethics committee, institutional review board, or other competent authority before the research begins, unless a documented exemption applies.

• Authors should provide the name of the approving body and approval/reference number where applicable.

• If approval was waived or deemed unnecessary, authors should provide the basis for that determination.

• Editors may request supporting documentation and may reject work where ethical approval is absent, inadequate, inconsistent, or unverifiable.

• Human-participant research must conform to the Declaration of Helsinki and applicable national guidelines. Clinical trials must be prospectively registered in a WHO ICTRP primary registry (e.g., CTRI) and the registration number reported in the abstract.

• Case reports, images and recordings of identifiable individuals require documented written consent for publication from the individual (or legal guardian); the journal may request the consent form.

Informed consent, privacy, and confidentiality

• Informed consent must be obtained where required by law, institutional policy, or accepted disciplinary practice.

• Identifiable personal information, images, recordings, case details, or other sensitive information must not be published without appropriate consent or another lawful and ethically justified basis.

• Authors must take reasonable steps to protect privacy and confidentiality and to avoid unnecessary disclosure of identifying information.

Animal research

Research involving animals must follow applicable institutional, national, and disciplinary standards for animal welfare. Authors should report approval details and, where relevant, follow recognized reporting standards such as ARRIVE.

Research involving vulnerable populations or sensitive topics

Additional safeguards are expected where research involves children, cognitively impaired participants, marginalized groups, vulnerable communities, sensitive personal data, or circumstances involving coercion, power imbalance, or elevated risk.

Research integrity

• Fabrication, falsification, deceptive manipulation, selective suppression of material results, or misrepresentation of methods or findings is prohibited.

• Authors must maintain accurate records sufficient to support the reported work and should retain underlying data in accordance with applicable legal, institutional, funder, and disciplinary requirements.

• Editors may request raw data, source files, analysis code, ethics documentation, or other supporting materials when concerns arise.

Publication Ethics

Originality and exclusive consideration

Submitted manuscripts must be original and must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal in substantially the same form. Prior dissemination as a preprint, conference abstract, thesis, report, or other earlier version should be disclosed where relevant and handled according to the journal’s applicable policies.

Duplicate and redundant publication

Authors must not divide one study into misleadingly fragmented publications, republish substantially the same findings without transparent cross-reference, or conceal substantial overlap with prior publications. Legitimate secondary publication must be transparently identified and appropriately justified.

Citation integrity

• Citations should be relevant, accurate, and used to acknowledge intellectual contributions and support claims.

• Authors, reviewers, and editors must not manipulate citations to increase citation counts, favour particular journals or individuals, or satisfy non-scholarly demands.

• Reviewers should not request citations to their own work unless the citations are genuinely relevant and necessary.

Peer-review integrity

Peer review must be conducted confidentially, objectively, and without improper influence. Reviewers and editors must not misuse unpublished information for personal, competitive, commercial, or research advantage. Reviewer identity must remain protected under the journal’s double-blind peer-review policy.

The journal publishes a peer-review statement describing the review model, the minimum number of external reviewers, decision criteria, indicative timelines and the appeals route. Reviewer identities and affiliations are verified before invitation. Reviewers must not contact authors directly, must not share the manuscript with colleagues without editor permission, and must disclose any permitted use of assistants or tools in their report.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship criteria

Authorship should be limited to individuals who made substantial scholarly contributions to the work, participated sufficiently to take responsibility for appropriate parts of the content, approved the final version, and agree to be accountable for the integrity of the work.

• Individuals who provided technical, administrative, language, funding, supervisory, or other assistance that does not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged rather than listed as authors.

• Gift, honorary, guest, purchased, and ghost authorship are prohibited.

• All authors must approve the submitted version and the author list.

• The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal and for confirming that all authors have approved submission and publication.

• The corresponding author must provide an ORCID iD; affiliations listed must be those where the work was carried out. Deceased authors may be included with the agreement of co-authors and a note in the acknowledgements.

Contribution statements

Where requested, authors should provide a contributorship statement using a recognized taxonomy such as CRediT or another clear role-based description.

Changes to authorship

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be explained and normally require written agreement from all affected authors. Changes after acceptance or publication are subject to heightened scrutiny and may require a formal correction.

Authorship disputes

The journal may seek clarification but will not normally adjudicate complex authorship disputes that require institutional fact-finding. Such disputes may be referred to the relevant institutions, employers, funders, or other competent bodies.

Plagiarism and Text Recycling

Prohibited practices

• Direct copying of text, ideas, data, images, figures, tables, code, or other material without appropriate attribution.

• Close paraphrasing or structural imitation that disguises copying.

• Reusing substantial parts of one’s own published work without appropriate citation or disclosure.

• Submitting translated or lightly modified versions of previously published work without transparent disclosure.

• Using fabricated, misleading, or inaccurate references to conceal source material.

Similarity screening

The journal may use similarity-detection software as a screening aid. A similarity score is not, by itself, evidence of plagiarism and is not an automatic basis for acceptance or rejection. Editors must review the location, nature, extent, attribution, and scholarly significance of any overlap.

Internal similarity benchmarks, if used operationally, are screening indicators only and must not replace editorial judgment.

Every submission is screened with similarity-detection software before peer review; the report is retained with the manuscript record. Text recycling is assessed in line with COPE/BioMed Central text-recycling guidelines, distinguishing methods sections from results, discussion and conclusions.

Actions

Depending on severity and stage of publication, suspected plagiarism may result in requests for clarification or revision, rejection, withdrawal, correction, retraction, notification of institutions or funders, or other proportionate action.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Generative AI, and Automated Tools

Authorship

AI systems, large-language models, chatbots, and other automated tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the work, approve publication, disclose conflicts, or be accountable for accuracy and integrity.

Author use of AI/GenAI

• Authors must disclose material use of generative AI or automated tools in preparing manuscript content, analysis, code, images, figures, or other substantive outputs, except for routine spelling, grammar, formatting, or similarly limited assistance where disclosure is not required by the journal.

• Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, citations, permissions, confidentiality, and integrity of all submitted content, including AI-assisted content.

• AI-generated or AI-assisted text must not introduce fabricated references, invented data, false statements, inappropriate paraphrasing, plagiarism, or undisclosed manipulation.

• Generative AI output should not be cited as an authoritative scholarly source.

Reviewers and editors

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, figures, supplementary files, reviewer reports, or author information to public or third-party generative AI systems where confidentiality, data retention, or reuse cannot be assured. Generative AI must not replace independent scholarly judgment in peer review or editorial decision-making.

Journal use of automated tools

Automated tools may be used for screening or workflow support, such as similarity checking, image-integrity checks, metadata validation, language assistance, or reviewer suggestions. Such outputs must be subject to human oversight and must not independently determine acceptance, rejection, misconduct findings, or sanctions.

Conflicts of Interest and Competing Interests

Authors

Authors must disclose financial, professional, personal, academic, institutional, intellectual-property, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the research or its interpretation. Funding sources and the role of funders should also be disclosed.

Reviewers

Reviewers must disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts before accepting a review. Where a conflict could impair impartiality, the reviewer should decline or be replaced.

Editors and editorial-board members

Editors must recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest. Such submissions must be handled independently by another qualified editor. Submissions authored by editors, board members, publisher staff, or their close collaborators must not receive preferential treatment.

• Editors-in-Chief and editorial board members shall submit a written conflict-of-interest declaration on appointment and annually thereafter; a summary of editors' interests is published on the journal website.

Commercial independence

Article processing charges, advertising, sponsorship, institutional agreements, subscription arrangements, commercial targets, or other financial considerations must not influence editorial decisions.

Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct

Examples

• Fabrication or falsification of data, methods, results, images, or records.

• Plagiarism, duplicate publication, or serious text recycling.

• Authorship manipulation or undisclosed ghost/gift authorship.

• Peer-review manipulation, fake reviewer identities, or compromised review.

• Citation manipulation or coercive citation practices.

• Undeclared conflicts of interest with material relevance.

• Paper-mill activity, purchased manuscripts, or fraudulent authorship/content services.

• Unethical research involving humans, animals, confidential data, or vulnerable groups.

Handling process

• Concerns may be raised before or after publication by editors, reviewers, readers, authors, institutions, or whistleblowers.

• The journal will conduct an initial assessment and may request explanations or documentation from relevant parties.

• The journal will distinguish between editorial assessment and formal institutional investigation. Where fact-finding beyond the journal’s remit is required, the matter may be referred to an institution, employer, funder, ethics body, or other competent authority.

• The journal will maintain appropriate confidentiality, avoid premature public accusations, manage conflicts of interest, and provide affected parties a reasonable opportunity to respond.

• Interim measures may include pausing peer review or publication, placing an article under investigation, or publishing an Expression of Concern when necessary to protect readers.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

Corrections

A correction may be issued when an otherwise reliable article contains an error or omission that affects interpretation, indexing, attribution, metadata, or part of the record but does not invalidate the article as a whole. Corrections should be linked to the original article and clearly describe what was changed.

Expressions of Concern

An Expression of Concern may be published when credible concerns exist about an article but the available evidence is inconclusive, an investigation is ongoing, or an institutional investigation is delayed or unavailable. It should be linked to the article and updated when the matter is resolved.

Retractions

Retraction may be appropriate when findings are unreliable because of misconduct or major error, publication is redundant without adequate disclosure, plagiarism is substantial, research is unethical, peer review was compromised, or other serious problems invalidate the integrity of the publication.

• Retraction notices should be clearly identified, linked to the retracted article, state the reason for retraction, and identify who is retracting the article.

• The original article should normally remain accessible as part of the scholarly record but be clearly marked as retracted.

• Retraction is not a punishment; its primary purpose is to correct the literature and alert readers to unreliable or unethical content.

• A retraction may proceed even if one or more authors disagree, provided the decision is supported by the available evidence and appropriate process.

• Notices are free to read, indexed with a DOI, published promptly (normally within 30 days of the decision), titled ‘Correction to:’, ‘Expression of Concern:’ or ‘Retraction:’ followed by the article title, and state who is retracting and why. Retracted articles remain accessible with a ‘RETRACTED’ watermark on every page.

• Updated article metadata shall be deposited with Crossref and communicated to indexing and abstracting services so that the retraction or correction status propagates to Scopus, Web of Science and other databases.

Article removal

Complete removal of published content should be exceptional and may be considered only where necessary for compelling legal, privacy, safety, or other extraordinary reasons. A notice explaining the removal should remain whenever legally and ethically possible.

Preprints, Post-Publication Discussion and Comments

Deposit of a preprint on a recognised preprint server prior to submission is permitted and must be disclosed with the preprint DOI; the published article will link to the preprint. The journal provides a route for post-publication comments, letters or responses, which are moderated for civility and relevance and are published with the same ethical safeguards as other content. Authors are expected to respond to substantiated post-publication concerns.

Responsibilities by Role

Role	Core ethical responsibilities
Authors	Conduct and report research honestly; meet authorship criteria; disclose conflicts, funding, ethics approval, data limitations, and material AI use; correct errors promptly.
Reviewers	Maintain confidentiality; disclose conflicts; provide objective, evidence-based review; avoid misuse of unpublished material; report suspected ethical concerns to the editor.
Editors	Protect editorial independence; manage peer review fairly; disclose/avoid conflicts; evaluate allegations; apply corrections or retractions when needed; protect confidentiality and due process.
Publisher/Journal Office	Support ethical editorial processes; maintain policies and records; avoid commercial interference; provide infrastructure for complaints, appeals, corrections, and preservation of the scholarly record.

Due Process, Confidentiality, and Non-Retaliation

• Ethical concerns will be handled as confidentially as reasonably possible while allowing an effective assessment.

• Individuals against whom concerns are raised should be given a fair opportunity to respond, except where doing so would create legal, safety, evidence-preservation, or other serious risks.

• Good-faith complainants and whistleblowers should not be subjected to retaliation. Anonymous concerns may be considered when they contain sufficient specific and credible information.

• Bad-faith, knowingly false, harassing, or vexatious allegations may themselves be treated as misconduct.

Relationship with Other Journal Policies

This Publication Ethics Policy should be read together with the journal’s Author Guidelines, Reviewer Guidelines, Editorial Policy, Plagiarism Policy, AI and Automated Tools Policy, Conflicts of Interest Policy, Data Sharing and Reproducibility Policy, Ethical Oversight Policy, Authorship and Contributorship Policy, Complaints and Appeals Policy, and Corrections and Retractions Policy. Where a more specific policy applies, the more specific requirements should be followed.

Ethics Screening Checklist

• ☐ Originality and overlap assessed appropriately; similarity scores interpreted by humans.

• ☐ Authorship and contributorship appear appropriate and any changes are documented.

• ☐ Funding and competing interests are disclosed.

• ☐ Human/animal ethics approval and consent are provided where applicable.

• ☐ Data, methods, images, figures, and statistical reporting show no obvious integrity concerns.

• ☐ Material AI/GenAI use is disclosed and does not replace author accountability.

• ☐ Reviewer and editor conflicts are managed; double-blind confidentiality is protected.

• ☐ Any suspected misconduct is documented, assessed fairly, and escalated where necessary.

• ☐ Post-publication errors or concerns are addressed through correction, Expression of Concern, or retraction as appropriate.

Policy Review and Updates

The journal may revise this policy to reflect developments in publication ethics, research practice, technology, legal requirements, and recognized scholarly publishing standards. The current version should be made publicly available on the journal website.

Ethical Framework

This policy is informed by widely recognized scholarly-publishing standards, including the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices, and current guidance on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in scholarly publishing. Journal-specific procedures may supplement these principles where required by discipline, law, funder, or institutional policy. Specific reference frameworks: COPE Core Practices (10 practices) and COPE flowcharts; COPE Retraction Guidelines (2019); ICMJE Recommendations (current edition); WAME Recommendations; DOAJ/COPE/OASPA/WAME Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (4th ed., 2022); Clarivate Web of Science Core Collection editorial selection criteria; and Elsevier Scopus CSAB content selection criteria. The journal will apply for COPE membership and reference its membership on the website once granted.

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