Editorial Policies

The basis of a decision

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Editors and their own work

An editor who is an author of a submitted manuscript, or who has a competing interest in it, takes no part in its handling. The manuscript is assigned to another editor, and the editorial record shows that it was handled independently.

Payment and editorial outcome

Article processing charges are raised after acceptance. Membership, language editing and any other paid service are separate from evaluation, and none of them affects whether a manuscript is sent for review, how it is reviewed, or whether it is accepted.

Review model

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.

When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.

Screening and review

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

Reviewer conduct

Reviewers treat a manuscript as confidential. After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.

For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.

Assisted review

Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Authorship

Authorship is for those who contributed substantially to the work and who can take public responsibility for it. Everyone who meets that standard is listed; anyone who does not is acknowledged instead. Changes to authorship after submission require the written agreement of all authors.

Competing interests and funding

Authors declare financial and non-financial interests that a reader could reasonably consider relevant, together with the funding that supported the work. A declaration is published with the article.

Data and code availability

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.

Where a study rests on code or data, the manuscript states how they can be obtained. Deposit in a public repository is preferred. Where material is sensitive, proprietary or restricted, the statement explains the access route and the conditions, and the editors may ask for material to be made available to reviewers in confidence.

Research involving people and animals

Studies involving human participants, human material, human data or animals report the approving committee and the approval reference, and confirm that consent was obtained where it applies.

Trial registration

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

Originality and overlap

A manuscript is submitted to one journal at a time and reports work that has not been published elsewhere. Preprints are accepted and should be disclosed with their identifier. Reused text, figures or data are attributed and permissions supplied. Similarity reports are read in context by an editor; there is no percentage that decides an outcome on its own.

How the record is corrected

Where an error affects the interpretation of a published article, the journal issues a correction. Where the findings are no longer reliable, it issues a retraction notice. The notice states what is retracted and why, and it is published as a citable record in its own right.

What stays in place

The original article remains available and is marked so that its status is visible to anyone who reaches it. Nothing is removed from the archive: a reader holding a citation to the work must be able to find the work and its current standing.

Raising a concern

Concerns about a published article, about the conduct of a review, or about an editorial decision may be sent to the editorial office. They are assessed by an editor who was not involved in the original handling, and the outcome is communicated to the person who raised the concern.

Copyright and license

Authors retain copyright. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which allows anyone to read, redistribute and build on the work, including commercially, with attribution to the authors and the journal.

Charges

The article processing charge and the terms on which it is raised are published on the Article Processing Charges page.

Withdrawal policy

Authors should contact the editorial office promptly and wait for written confirmation before submitting the work elsewhere.

Manuscripts withdrawn within 3 days of submission are not subject to a withdrawal charge.

Manuscripts withdrawn more than 3 days after submission incur a withdrawal charge equal to 30% of the journal's APC.

Authors must receive official withdrawal confirmation before submitting the manuscript to another journal.

These terms are also published, with the charges they refer to, on the Article Processing Charges page.