Publishing Ethics Statement

Inderscience Publishers supports the principles published by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and supports the application of ethical standards throughout the scholarly publishing process.

Our Ethics Statement is applicable to all material published by Inderscience including articles, special issues, book reviews and books, and to all parties involved in the publishing process.

If you have a concern about an ethical issue, please contact us at editor@inderscience.com

Retractions and corrections

Inderscience will consider retractions and corrections in line with COPE's Retraction Guidelines. Retractions are reserved for articles which are so seriously flawed that their findings or conclusions should not be relied upon, or which contain substantial plagiarism or life-endangering content.

Inderscience may make minor corrections to accepted articles, such as those that arise during normal copyediting, typesetting or proofreading; any substantive corrections will be carried out in line with COPE's Retraction Guidelines.

Publishing malpractice

In exceptional cases, Inderscience may remove an article from online publication where we believe it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations or if publishing malpractice is found. This includes, without limitation, where we have concerns that the article is defamatory, violates personal privacy or confidentiality laws, is the subject of a court order, or might pose a serious health risk to the general public. In these circumstances, we may decide to retract the article and publish a notice that clearly states why the full article has been removed.

Peer review process

All submissions, whether to regular or special issues, and including those intended for Open Access, are initially assessed by the Editor in Chief for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable go on to the peer-review process, wherein they are sent to a minimum of two independent external expert peer reviewers to assess the quality of the paper.

Peer reviewers are provided with on-screen guidelines on how to approach the review process in an ethical and non-biased manner.

Inderscience operates a double-blind peer review process.
This means that author identities are not revealed to reviewers, in order to provide an impartial and fair review.

The Editor in Chief of the journal is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of papers.

Editors are not involved in decisions about papers they have written themselves, or which have been written by family members or colleagues at the same institution. The peer review and final decision on such submissions is handled independently of the relevant Editor by Inderscience's own Editorial Office. Reviewers are provided with on-screen guidelines on how to approach the review process in an ethical and non-biased manner.

Submissions are treated in strict confidentiality by all parties, including editors, reviewers and authors. Inderscience is committed to ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of the peer review process in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Ethical guidelines for Authors

When authors submit a paper to Inderscience Publishers, they are confirming that they have read these ethical guidelines, agree to the contents and have taken any appropriate actions.

Content

By submitting a paper to Inderscience Publishers, it is understood that all authors have thereby declared that they have read and agree on the content of the submitted paper.

Ethics

Submissions may be rejected by Inderscience Publishers' Editorial Office if it is felt that the work was not carried out within an ethical framework for scholarly publications.

Inderscience Publishers adheres to the principles and guidelines outlined by COPE.

Competing/conflicting interests

Authors must make a declaration in their paper of all potential competing interests involving people or organisations that might reasonably be perceived as relevant.

Examples of competing interests include, but are not limited to, financial, professional and personal interests such as:

• Research grants (from any source, restricted or unrestricted)
• Relationships (paid or unpaid) with organisations and funding bodies including non-governmental organisations, research institutions or charities
• Membership of lobbying or advocacy organisations
• Personal relationships (i.e. friend, spouse, family member, current or previous mentor, adversary) with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper, such as authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board of an Inderscience journal
• Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to a paper's topic that may interfere with an unbiased publication process (at the stage of authorship, peer review, editorial decision making or publication).

Plagiarism

Plagiarism in any form constitutes a serious violation of the principles of scholarship and is not acceptable.
Examples of plagiarism include:

1. Word-for-word copying of portions of another's writing without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and acknowledging the source in the appropriate scholarly convention.

2. The use of a particularly unique term or concept without acknowledging the original author or source.

3. The paraphrasing or abbreviated restatement of someone else's ideas without acknowledging that another person's text has been the basis for the paraphrasing.

4. False citation: material should not be attributed to a source from which it has not been obtained.

5. False data: data that has been fabricated or altered in a laboratory or experiment; although not factually plagiarism, this is clearly a form of academic fraud.

6. Unacknowledged multiple authors or collaboration: the contributions of each author or collaborator should be made clear.

7. Self-plagiarism/double submission: the submission of the same or a very similar paper to two or more publications.

The use of AI technology

In line with COPE guidelines, artificial intelligence tools (e.g. ChatGPT) cannot be listed as named authors on submitted articles. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their article, even those parts produced by any AI tool, and are thus liable for any inaccuracies or breach of publication ethics.

Authors who have used AI tools to develop their article must include a note in the article's Acknowledgements section describing the technologies usedand the purpose.

Please note that this does not apply to software such as spelling or grammar checkers or reference managers.

Medical research

Medical writers, or anyone else who assisted in the preparation of the paper, should be acknowledged in the paper, either as an author, or in the Acknowledgements section, as per the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. See section II. A. 2. Contributors Listed in Acknowledgments
[https://www.emwa.org/Documents/Freelancer/manuscriptpublication/uniform%20requirements%20for%20manuscripts.pdf].
From the European Medical Writers Association website, Resources for Medical Writers section.

Medical writers should list their source of funding and/or employer as appropriate.

Experimental research on humans must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and comply with the Helsinki Declaration (2013). [https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/]

Informed consent

Informed consent must be documented in your paper in cases where information or clinical photographs of human subjects are used. Signed copies of consent forms will be required before a paper can be considered for review.

Animal research

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

Sponsorship

Authors from pharmaceutical companies or other commercial organisations that sponsor clinical trials should comply with the good practice described by The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals at GPP3 – Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research.
[https://www.ismpp.org/gpp3]

These guidelines also apply to companies or individuals that work on industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract research organisations and communications companies.

Download Ethical Guidelines for Authors in PDF format (200kb).

Ethical guidelines for Editors

Editors in Chief, editors and guest editors of special issues are provided with guidelines on the ethical management of their journal, submissions and the peer review process (as appropriate) when they are appointed.

These guidelines cover maintaining a balanced editorial board, and the confidential and unbiased treatment of submissions and authors, amongst other responsibilities.

Guest editors are experts selected by the Editor in Chief of a journal (following approval from Inderscience's Editorial Office) to lead a one-off special issue and to manage the peer review process for this issue.

The Editor in Chief of the journal remains responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of papers.

Guest editors are required to complete a Declaration of Conflicts of Interest on appointment and must communicate any potential editorial conflicts of interest to the Editor in Chief. In cases of conflict, the guest editors are removed from the peer review process to avoid conflict of interest and to protect the integrity of the peer review process.

Inderscience endorses the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (PDF 300kb) published by COPE.

 

Inderscience aims to treat all authors, reviewers and editors with respect and dignity and without discrimination or harassment, and we expect that all parties extend the same courtesy to each other.