Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their work and ideas.
Article assessment:
All manuscripts should maintain the highest standards of academic excellence and are peer - reviewed. Submissions will be reviewed by peer reviewers, whose identities will not be disclosed to the authors, if the editor approves them.
Occasionally, our Research Integrity team will consult experts outside of the traditional peer review process, for instance, on submissions with significant ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal concerns. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.
Submission:
One corresponding author submits the manuscript. Submissions by anyone other than the corresponding authors will not be accepted. The submitted paper, or any translation of it, cannot be published or submitted to another journal for publication. The contribution will often be rejected without further review if any of these guidelines are broken.
A few checks will be performed at the publisher's office after a new submission is received:
Plagiarism:
The use of another author's words, figures, or concepts without giving due credit is prohibited. Reuse of language must be kept to a minimum, credited, or quoted in the text, and all sources must be cited when they are used.
To find submissions that duplicate previously published or submitted works, ERURJ employs tools and programmes that detect plagiarism.
If a manuscript is discovered to have been copied from another author's work, whether it has been published or not, it will be rejected, and the writers may face penalties. Any articles that have been published may need to be updated or retracted.
Duplicate submission and redundant publication:
Only unique content—articles that have never been published before, especially in a language other than English—is taken into consideration by ERURJ journals. Articles based on material that was only previously accessible through a preprint server, institutional repository, or thesis will be taken into consideration.
Manuscripts submitted to ERURJ journals must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere and cannot be submitted elsewhere while they are under reviewed. Sanctions may be imposed on authors whose articles are discovered to have been simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they must cite the previous articles and indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work. Reuse of the authors’ own words outside the Methods should be attributed or quoted in the text. Reuse of the authors’ figures or substantial amounts of wording may require permission from the copyright holder and the authors are responsible for obtaining this.
ERURJ journals will consider extended versions of articles published at conferences provided this is declared in the cover letter, the previous version is clearly cited and discussed, there is significant new content, and any necessary permissions are obtained.
Redundant publication, the inappropriate division of study outcomes into more than one article (also known as salami slicing), may result in rejection or a request to merge submitted manuscripts, and the correction of published articles. Duplicate publication of the same, or a very similar, article may result in the retraction of the later article and the authors may incur sanctions.
Citation manipulation:
Authors whose submitted manuscripts are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, may incur sanctions.
Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.
Fabrication and falsification:
The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to have fabricated or falsified the results, including the manipulation of images, may incur sanctions, and published articles may be retracted.
Authorship and acknowledgments:
All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript, approved its claims, and agreed to be an author. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution. Author contributions may be described at the end of the submission, optionally using roles defined by credit authorship. Submitting authors should an ORCID and we encourage all authors to provide one. Changes in authorship must be declared to the journal and agreed to by all authors. An author may change their name on a published article.
Anyone who contributed to the research or manuscript preparation, but is not an author, should be acknowledged with their permission.
Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be considered.
Conflicts of interest:
Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. This can happen at any stage in the research cycle, including during the experimentation phase, while a manuscript is being written, or during the process of turning a manuscript into a published article.
Conflicts of interest do not always stop work from being published or prevent someone from being involved in the review process. However, they must be declared. A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they actually had an influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the work and its review process.
If conflicts of interest are found after publication, this may be embarrassing for the authors, the Editor and the journal. It may be necessary to publish a corrigendum or reassess the review process.
Conflicts include the following:
Authors:
Authors must declare all potential interests in a ‘Conflicts of interest’ section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. If there are none, the authors should state “The author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.” Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.
Authors must declare current or recent funding (including article processing charges) and other payments, goods or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the ‘Funding Statement’.
The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.
Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.
Editors and Reviewers:
Editors and reviewers should decline to be involved with a submission when they
Reviewers must declare any remaining interests in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form, which will be considered by the editor.
Editors and reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.
Sanctions:
If ERURJ becomes aware of breaches of our publication ethics policies, the following sanctions may be applied across the ERURJ journals:
Investigations:
ERURJ may ask the authors to provide the data and images or raw files to assure work originality.
Corrections and retractions:
When errors are identified in published articles, the publisher will consider what action is required and may consult the editors and the authors’ institution(s). The authors are asked to provide the proper documentation for any corrections.