Ethics Policy

Fundamental Principles

Ethics in research and publishing is essential to ensuring scientific integrity. All parties involved—authors, reviewers, editors, and sponsors—are expected to adhere to ethical standards that guarantee truthfulness, transparency, and rigor in the results. Prohibited actions include fraud, plagiarism, data falsification, and undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Fraud and Ethical Violations

Scientific fraud includes data fabrication, falsification of results, plagiarism, and self-plagiarism. These practices damage the reputation of institutions and hinder scientific progress. Authors must also avoid improper authorship, which involves including people who did not contribute to the research or excluding those who did. Other unethical practices include duplicate publications, fragmented studies, and text recycling, all aimed at artificially inflating the number of publications.

Editorial biases must also be avoided, where authors or editors favor or reject studies for subjective or personal reasons, as well as citation stacking, which artificially inflates impact metrics.

Responsibilities of the Involved Parties

  1. Sponsoring institution: The institution funding or supporting research must ensure that the data is real, not manipulated, and that authors acknowledge the participation of entities that contributed to the study.

  2. Authors: Authors are responsible for producing original, ethical, and rigorous research with appropriate designs and reliable analysis. They must submit their studies to ethics committees when necessary and obtain the proper permissions and consent from participants. Authors are also responsible for ensuring confidentiality and proper handling of data, as well as declaring any conflicts of interest and affiliating their publications with the correct institutions.

  3. Editors: Editors are responsible for coordinating the journal’s ethical policies, verifying the originality of submissions, and ensuring impartial and rigorous peer review. They must treat all authors fairly and respectfully, avoiding practices that promote self-promotion or citation exchanges with other journals. Editors also have a duty to investigate potential ethical violations, such as plagiarism or data falsification, and take corrective action, including issuing corrections or retractions if necessary.

  4. Peer Reviewers: Reviewers play a key role in assessing submissions. They must evaluate manuscripts rigorously, impartially, and confidentially, avoiding conflicts of interest. If they identify indications of fraud or misconduct, they must report it to the editor. Reviewers should also provide clear, respectful, and objective feedback.

Complaints, Appeals, and Sanctions

Complaints about misconduct can be filed by the scientific community or reviewers. Editors must handle these complaints following international protocols (COPE) and with the support of editorial committees or relevant institutions. If fraud is detected before publication, the manuscript may be rejected. If it occurs after publication, corrections or retractions may be issued depending on the severity of the issue.

A retraction means the article is marked as retracted on every page to alert readers, without deleting the original text. Retractions are not punitive but corrective, aimed at preserving scientific integrity.

Ethical Oversight and Policy Review

The editorial team will annually review and update the journal's ethical policies, in collaboration with the University’s Bioethics Committee. All members of the scientific community and the public are invited to report any conduct that threatens the integrity of research and publishing. Complaints will be handled confidentially, following the appropriate protocols.