Ethics and disclosures

Ethics and disclosures

The journal is committed to maintaining the highest level of integrity in the content published.

This journal has a Conflict of Interest policy in place and complies with international, national and/or institutional standards on research involving Human Participants and/or Animals and Informed Consent.

The journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and subscribes to its principles on how to deal with acts of misconduct thereby committing to investigate allegations of misconduct in order to ensure the integrity of research.

The journal may use plagiarism detection software to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the (COPE) guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.

International standards for editors and authors

Responsible research publication: international standards for authors

  • The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
  • Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
  • Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
  • Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that the submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere.
  • Authors should take collective responsibility for submitting and publishing works.
  • The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
  • Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.

Responsible research publication: international standards for editors

  • Editors are accountable and should take responsibility for everything they publish
  • Editors should make fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process 
  • Editors should adopt editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting 
  • Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct 
  • Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct 
  • Editors should critically assess the ethical conduct of studies in humans and animals 
  • Peer reviewers and authors should be told what is expected of them 
  • Editors should have appropriate policies in place for handling editorial conflicts of interest

 

Kleinert S & Wager E (2011) Responsible research publication: international standards for editors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 51 in: Mayer T & Steneck N (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 317-28). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7)

Wager E & Kleinert S (2011) Responsible research publication: international standards for authors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 50 in: Mayer T & Steneck N (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 309-16). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7)