Ethical norms

Obligations of the editor-in-chief:

The editor-in-chief decides on the article’s publication following the decision of the editorial board, reviewers, and an officer responsible plagiarism check who adhere to the principles of the Code of Ethics for Scientific Publications developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The editor-in-chief ensures confidentiality discussing information about the content of submitted materials only with the editorial board, reviewers, author, and publisher.

The editor-in-chief resolves ethical conflicts (if any).

The editor-in-chief decides on retraction and rejection of an article that violates copyright or generally accepted norms of scientific ethics.

Obligations of the editorial board members:

To keep data obtained during the review of the specific article confidential. Discussion may be carried out only by persons authorized by the editor-in-chief.

To take responsibility for the decision to publish articles accepted for review based on their scientific value.

To determine the compliance of the submitted materials with the journal’s profile and requirements and forward them to review (to a doctor or candidate of sciences). An article may be returned for revision if it fails to meet the relevant requirements. Significant incorrectness in the formatting may be a reason for not accepting the article for publication.

If self-plagiarism is found to be more than 15%, the editors reserve the right to reject a manuscript.

The editorial board reserves the right to involve independent reviewers in the review process.

Obligations of the reviewers:

To ensure the unbiased and reasoned evaluation of manuscripts.

To carry out a double-anonymous review of submitted manuscripts and approve them for publication.

To review manuscripts within the time frame set by the editorial board (2 weeks). However, the latter may adjust the review deadline, given the subjective conditions of each specific case (upon mandatory compliance with review quality).

The reviewers shall not use ideas or unpublished information contained in the relevant manuscript unless authorized to do so by the author or the relevant reference after the article’s publication.

Upon a positive review, a reviewer shall inform the editorial board, which makes the final decision on publication. If the reviewer has any comments despite the overall positive assessment, the article is considered conditionally approved for publication but with some amendments (the revised article is sent back for review). With the consent of the author and the editorial board, the comments may be ignored but then the editorial board reserves the right to publish such comments as notes to the article (the author retains the right to officially respond to them).

A reviewer has the right to reject the article. In this case, the article is not re-reviewed.

Obligations of authors:

Authors shall guarantee that they have written entirely original works without plagiarism (incl. self-plagiarism); the works shall not be submitted to other journals or published before (incl. in foreign languages).

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of facts, references, citations, and translation.

All co-authors who have made a significant contribution to the work shall be mentioned.

Authors shall comply with copyright laws and regulations.

Authors reserve authorship and transfers the right of first publication to the journal under the Creative Commons 4.0 International license.

If the article is published as part of a project, grant, etc., it should be stated.