The Journal adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics Code of conduct for editors. The Editors of this Journal respect the International Standards for Editors developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity (available for download here)1 and authors are expected to respect the International Standards for Authors (available for download here)2. In accordance with the mentioned guidelines, the responsibilities of editors and authors are described below.
Responsibilities of Editors:
- Fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration
- Fair and appropriate peer-review process
- Editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting
- Guarding the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct
- Pursuing reviewer and editorial misconduct
- Critical assessment of the ethical conduct of studies in humans/animals
- Handling editorial conflicts of interest.
Responsibilities of 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 submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere
- Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work
- The manuscript should accurately describe the contribution of each author to the work and its reporting
- Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.
Please note that only manuscripts that comply with the above-mentioned standards will be considered for publication and reviewed.
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).