Publication Ethics

Duties of Authors

• Report research honestly, without fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism.
• Submit original work not published or under consideration elsewhere.
• Credit all sources and contributions; list only genuine authors.
• Disclose conflicts of interest and all funding sources.
• Obtain ethical approval and informed consent where applicable.
• Notify the editors promptly of significant errors discovered post-publication.

Duties of Reviewers

• Treat manuscripts as confidential documents.
• Review objectively, constructively, and within the agreed time.
• Declare conflicts of interest and decline reviews where impartiality is compromised.
• Alert the editor to substantial similarity with other published work.

Duties of Editors

• Evaluate manuscripts solely on scholarly merit, free from bias.
• Maintain the confidentiality and integrity of the double-blind review process.
• Handle allegations of misconduct fairly, following COPE-aligned procedures.
• Publish corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions where warranted.
• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they hold a conflict of interest.

Plagiarism & Misconduct

Every submission is screened for similarity during Stage 1, and the score is recorded on the manuscript’s permanent editorial file. Reviewers can also flag suspected plagiarism or overlapping publication at any point in Stage 2.

Confirmed misconduct — plagiarism, duplicate submission, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, or authorship manipulation — results in rejection. Where the work is already published, it results in retraction and notification to the authors’ institutions. In the most serious cases the editors may bar an author from resubmitting the work to this journal.

Corrections, Retractions & Expressions of Concern

When something is found to be wrong with a published article we issue a formal, permanent notice rather than quietly editing or removing it. The article stays online, clearly marked, because readers who have already cited or downloaded it deserve to know what changed and why. This follows COPE’s retraction guidelines.

• Correction / Erratum — a discrete error affects part of the article, but the conclusions still stand. The correction is attached to the article record.
• Expression of Concern — a credible concern has been raised but the investigation is not complete. Readers are alerted while the matter is resolved.
• Retraction — the findings are unreliable, through honest error or misconduct, or the article breaches publication ethics. The article is struck through on the site, watermarked in the PDF, and flagged in every metadata export.

Grounds on which we retract include plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, duplicate or redundant publication, unreliable findings / major error, ethical violation or missing approval, undisclosed conflict of interest, authorship dispute, author request, compromised peer review, and author request. Authors are always informed and given an opportunity to respond before a notice is issued. Every notice is listed publicly on our Retractions & Corrections page.

If you believe a published article contains an error or breaches publication ethics, write to [email protected]. Every concern is investigated confidentially.

Authorship & Contributions

Only those who have contributed substantially to the work and approved the submission may be listed as authors. Contributions are recorded against the NISO CRediT taxonomy and published with the article. Every named author is emailed a notice when a manuscript is submitted, so authorship can never be claimed on someone’s behalf without their knowledge. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all parties.

Use of Generative AI

Generative AI tools may not be listed as authors: they cannot take responsibility for the work. Authors must disclose at submission where and how any such tool was used, and remain fully accountable for the accuracy and integrity of everything in the manuscript, including anything an AI tool helped produce. Reviewers must not enter confidential manuscript content into public AI services.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are taken on scholarly merit alone. The Article Processing Charge is raised only after acceptance, and editors are not told whether a fee waiver has been requested — ability to pay can play no part in a decision. Editors recuse themselves from any manuscript where they have a conflict of interest, including their own submissions.

Complaints & Appeals

Authors may appeal editorial decisions or raise concerns by writing to [email protected]. Appeals are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and, where appropriate, an independent member of the editorial board.