Publishing Ethics

i) Journal policies on authorship and contributorship 

It is important that authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and provide a definitive author list at original submission. All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: 

(1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, 

(2) writing the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, 

(3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content. 

Final approval of the version to be submitted. 

Authors should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should only be made prior to acceptance, and only if approved by the journal editor. 

Requests to change authorship should be made by the corresponding author, who must provide the reason for the request to the journal editor with written confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added or removed, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement.

ii) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals

Editorial Decision Appeals Policy

Authors who wish to appeal the revision or rejection decision for their manuscript may submit a formal appeal. Appeal requests must be made in writing to the journal (authors can find the journal’s email address on the journal’s homepage) with the word “Appeal” and the manuscript reference number in the subject line. Appeals will only be considered for manuscripts that have been peer-reviewed and will not be considered for those rejected outright by the journal editorial team. The appeal must be submitted by the corresponding author of the manuscript. All authors must agree to the submission of the appeal. 

Corresponding authors should:

• submit their appeal within 1 month of the date on which the authors receive the editorial decision.
• not submit their manuscript to any other journal or start a transfer process to another journal while their appeal is being considered. 
• detail in the appeal letter why they refute the decision and provide point-by-point responses to any of the editors’ and/or reviewers’ comments that may have contributed to the rejection decision, together with supporting evidence. Please note that appeals will not be considered where manuscripts have been rejected because they do not comply with journal publishing policies or where there is a difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal. 
• provide supporting evidence if they believe the Editor or Reviewer has made technical errors in their assessment of the manuscript. 
• provide supporting evidence if they believe the Editor or the Reviewer may have a conflict of interest or has been biased. 

Appeal requests which do not comply with the above requirements will be rejected and not considered by the journal.

The time required for the consideration of an appeal may vary from journal to journal and in accordance with the scientific field, and the complexity of the manuscript and its conclusion, among other reasons. 

The corresponding author may withdraw an appeal request by sending an email to the same email address used to submit their appeal with the words “Appeal withdrawal” and the manuscript reference number in the subject line. 

The appeal request will be considered by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief or their designated representative (such as members of a journal’s Ethics Committee depending on the nature of the appeal. Where there is an allegation of a conflict of interest on the part of the Editor, the appeal will be handled by a different member of the editorial board. 

The appeal request will be assessed in accordance with the journal’s policies and aims and scope. The journal will notify the corresponding author of the outcome of the appeal.

Should the journal agree to reconsider the manuscript, acceptance is not guaranteed, and the reconsideration process may involve re-review by previous or new reviewers and/or Editors, and substantive revision. Only one appeal per submission will be considered and the appeal decision will be final. The journal is unable to consider appeals in which the subject matter is part of a legal dispute and reserves the right to suspend or discontinue an ongoing appeal in such cases. 

iii) Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests

The editor-in-chief should not have any conflict of interests concerning the articles which he rejects or accepts.

In case of conflicts of interests due to competitive, joint and other interactions and relations with the authors, companies and, perhaps, other organizations connected with the manuscript the editor-in-chief should self-disqualify from reviewing of manuscripts (namely: instead of personal reviewing and decision-making to involve in reviewing of materials the deputy editor-in-chief or to co-operate with the other editorial board members).

The reviewer should not undertake reviewing the manuscript in case of a conflict of interests caused by competition, cooperation or other relations with any authors or organizations related to the article.

To specify in the manuscripts all the sources of the work financing, to declare possible conflicts of interests which may influence research results, their interpretation and reviewers’ opinions. Potential conflicts of interests should be disclosed as early as possible.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include: 

(1) Employment 

(2) Consultancies 

(3) Stock ownership 

(4) Honoraria 

(5) Paid expert testimony 

(6) Patent applications or registrations 

(7) Grants or any other funding 

Authors with no competing interests should declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

iv) Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility

The journal is committed to supporting the storage of, access to and discovery of research data to support a more efficient and transparent research process. 

Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings, which may also include software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project. 

Authors are required to deposit their research data in a relevant data repository and cite and link to this dataset in the article. If this is not possible, make a statement explaining why research data cannot be shared. 

v) Journal’s policy on ethical oversight

If the work involves participation of animals or human subjects as research objects, the authors should make sure that it is specified in the manuscript that all the stages of research correspond to the legislation and standard documents of the research organizations, and are approved by the relevant ethical committees. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects.  The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

vi) Journal’s policy on intellectual property

Observance of scientific publications ethics by all the stakeholders promotes observance of the authors’ intellectual property rights, improvement of edition quality in the opinion of the world scientific community and restricts misuse of author’s materials in the interests of particular persons.

vii) Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections

If essential errors or discrepancy are detected in the article at the stage of reviewing or after publication, it’s necessary to immediately notify about it the journal editorial and to make a joint decision on recognition of an error and/or its correction as soon as possible. If the journal editorial shall learn from the third party that the published article contains essential errors, the author is obliged to immediately correct them, or to provide to the editorial the evidence of correctness of information presented by him.