Any individual or institution may at any time report to the editor or editorial staff any knowledge of violations of ethical standards and other irregularities and provide the necessary evidence.
Verification of the Allegations and Evidence Presented
The Editor-in-Chief, in agreement with the editorial staff, will decide to initiate a procedure aimed at verifying the allegations and evidence presented. During this procedure, all evidence presented will be considered confidential material and will be presented only to those persons directly involved in the procedure.
Individuals suspected of violating ethical standards will be given the opportunity to respond to the allegations made against them.
If it is determined that irregularities have indeed occurred, an assessment will be made as to whether they should be characterised as a minor offence or a gross violation of ethical standards.
Minor Offence
Situations characterised as minor violations will be resolved in direct communication with the persons who committed the violation, without involving third parties, for example:
- by informing authors/reviewers that a minor violation has occurred resulting from a misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards;
- a warning letter to an author/reviewer who has committed the minor offence.
Gross Violation of Ethical Standards
Decisions regarding gross violations of ethical standards are made by the Editor-in-Chief in cooperation with the editorial staff and, if necessary, with a group of experts. The measures they will take may include the following:
- publishing a press release or editorial describing a case of violation of ethical standards;
- sending an official notification to the authors/reviewers’ managers or employers;
- retraction of a published work (in the electronic version of the retracted article, a link (HTML link) is established with a retraction notice; the retracted article is saved in its original form, but with a watermark on the PDF document, on each page, indicating that the article has been retracted);
- authors will be prohibited from submitting papers to the journal for a certain period of time;
- informing relevant professional organisations or competent authorities about the case so that they can take appropriate measures.
When resolving controversial situations, the journal’s editorial board is guided by the guidelines and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/.