Principles of professional ethics in the work of the editor and publisher

The journal consequently compiles with editorial standards COPE Code of Conduct, approved by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). Besides, the journal supports AMWA–EMWA–ISMPP Joint Position Statement On Predatory Publishing and Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Publications.

In their activities, the editor is responsible for the publication of works of authorship, which imposes the need to follow the following basic principles:

- When deciding on publishing, the editor of a scientific journal is guided by the reliability of data submission and the scientific significance of the considered work.

- The editor should evaluate manuscripts intellectual content, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, origin, nationality, social status or political affiliation of the authors.

- Unpublished data from manuscripts submitted for consideration must not be used for personal purposes or passed on to third parties without the written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained in the course of editing and related to possible benefits must be kept confidential and not used for the purpose of personal gain.

- The editor should not allow the information to be published, if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is plagiarism.

- Editor in conjunction with the publisher should not leave unanswered complaints regarding considered manuscripts or published materials as well as the detection of a conflict to take all necessary measures to redress.

Ethical principles in the work of the reviewer

Reviewer provides scientific expertise of copyright material, so that their action must be impartial in nature, and this involves the following principles:

- Manuscript received for review should be treated as a confidential document, which can not be passed for review or discussion to third parties who do not have full powers from the editors.

- The reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasoned assessment of study results. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.

- Unpublished data from manuscripts submitted for consideration must not be used for personal purposes by a reviewer.

- The reviewer who, in his opinion, is not qualified to assess the manuscript, or can not be objective, for example, in the case of a conflict of interest with the author or organization should inform the editor with a request to exclude them from the review process of this manuscript.

Principles that should guide the author of scientific publications

Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication best practice. Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical or publication malpractice are treated very seriously and will be managed in accordance with the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Further information about OUP’s ethical policies is available.

The author (or group of authors) realizes that they bear primary responsibility for the novelty and validity of the results of scientific research, which involves the following principles:

- The authors should provide reliable research results. Knowingly false or fraudulent statements are unacceptable.

- Authors should ensure that the results of studies outlined in manuscript provided are completely original. Borrowed fragments or statements must be filed with the obligatory indication of the author and the source. Excessive borrowing and plagiarism in any form, including unregistered quotes, paraphrasing or assignment of rights to the results of other people's research is unethical and unacceptable.

- It is necessary to recognize the contribution of all persons who somehow influenced the course of the study, in particular, the article must contain submitted references to the work that made the difference in the research.

- Authors should not submit the manuscript which has been submitted to another journal and is under consideration, as well as an article already published in another journal.

- Co-authors of the article should include all persons who have made significant contributions to the study. Among the sponsors it is unacceptable to designate persons who did not participate in the study.

- If the author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the article on the stage of examination or after its publication, they must as soon as possible notify the Editor.

Ways for considering complaints and appeals. 

The detailed procedure for considering complaints is defined (in the form of a block diagram according to COPE, see here), contacts for submitting complaints and appeals are provided. The journal promptly responds to complaints. A confirmation letter is sent to the complainant, which confirms the fact of receiving the complaint and determines the deadline (not exceeding 7 days), during which the Editorial Board undertakes to review the complaint on the merits and notify the complainant. If the Editorial Office receives any complaints about submitted or printed manuscripts, the Editorial Board must take appropriate and reasonable measures to objectively consider these complaints on the merits and resolve the problem (if the fact of ethical violations is confirmed). During the complaint review process, the author should be given the right to respond to any allegations and provide their own comments on the merits of the complaint.

 Conflicts of interests. 

Each group of participants in the publication process (authors, members of the Editorial Board, editors and reviewers) are provided with a set of actions in detail to avoid a conflict of interest, report in time and resolve it. The content and methods of submitting a conflict-of-interest statement and the Statement of Information Disclosure are also defined. The content of interests that must be disclosed by all participants in the publication process and that may lead to conflicts of interest is described in detail: financial interests (direct or indirect), personal relationships and beliefs, academic competitions, unpaid positions of authors, membership in professional organizations, political or religious preferences, institutional affiliations, etc.

 Reproducibility and robustness. 

The journal urges researchers to be transparent about the data used and the methodology of their research, which in turn will ensure the reproducibility of experiments in the future. When publishing articles, authors must attach all open data with a complete and accurate description of the experiment (source data, methods and results). It is unethical and unacceptable for authors to distort data or use unverified information. Authors are obliged to test their models and methods of obtaining results, which should be appropriately explained and provided in the article.

 Ethical oversight. 

The journal relies on the definition of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) concerning the term of ethical oversight: “Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and business/marketing practices”. When reporting about experiments on human, authors (co-authors) must indicate whether the followed procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Human Experimentation Committees (institutional and national) and the WMA Declaration of Helsinki, with all current amendments and additions. When reporting about experiments on animal, authors (co-authors) should indicate whether institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

 Intellectual property. 

The journal places significant emphasis on the issues of copyright infringement, scientific ethics, plagiarism or other violations of best publishing practices and is focused on protecting the authors’ rights. Authors (co-authors) guarantee that their manuscript is original, does not infringe intellectual property rights and has not been previously published or submitted to other journals for publication. All articles published in the journal are copyrighted by the article author(s). All articles are licensed under Creative Commons CC BY. If the authors used previously published information (text, figures, tables, etc.) and this material does not have a copyright or is in the public domain, additional permission for its re-publication is not required. If previously published information has a copyright, permission must be obtained from the journal where this information was published for the first time, for its re-publication. 

 Retraction and correction after publication. 

The policy of making corrections, additions to already published articles, publication of statements about the removal of articles as well as notifications by the editor to readers about investigation of certain issues regarding the published article by the journal and statements by editors warning readers about serious concerns of the publication integrity are based on COPE instructions (COPE Council. COPE Guidelines: Retraction Guidelines.) and recommendations of the European Association of Scientific Editors. Retractions are made when there is clear evidence that the study results are erroneous and unreliable, due to unethical behaviour, intentional or unintentional error.

 Inclusive language. 

The journal encourages authors to use an inclusive language of the material presentation, thereby recognizing the diversity, individual differences and equal opportunities of people, showing respect for each individual. The language of the manuscript should not contain signs of age, racial, ethnic, cultural, gender, physical or other discrimination.

Authorship and AI tools

Authors should not list AI-assisted technologies, such as LLMs, chatbots, or image creators, as authors or co-authors. AI tools used in research or manuscript preparation must be transparently disclosed in the cover letter, acknowledgments, and methods section. Authors are responsible for accuracy, avoiding plagiarism, and guarding against AI-induced bias. Editors may reject manuscripts for inappropriate AI use, and reviewers must refrain from AI-generated reviews to maintain confidentiality.

See also: COPE position statement about authorship and AI tools

AI-generated images and other multimedia are not allowed in our journal without explicit permission from the editors.  Exceptions may be considered for content in manuscript directly related to AI or machine learning, subject to evaluation on an individual basis.

The journal has no article publishing charges (APCs).