Editorial Policies

Editors are the ones who take upon themselves the responsibility for the articles’ scientific quality (e.g., relevance to the journal scope, originality, clarity, integrity, and importance).

The editors’ responsibilities include misconduct, plagiarism, ethics, conflict of interest, and any other issue related to the standards of a given manuscript.

Peer review policy

Two or more reviewers review our journals’ manuscripts committed to avoiding conflict of interest. Reviewers are expected to check the manuscripts for scientific quality (e.g., relevance to the journal scope, originality, clarity, integrity, and importance).

All manuscripts undergo formal anonymous peer review by invited experts who meet our criteria for reviewers; these criteria ensure that reviewers have sufficient expertise and qualifications to judge the article’s content and have no conflicts of interest.

We use the anonymous peer-review process. The author’s responses to the reviewers should be sent to our editors in a separate document from the revised manuscript.

Revisions and updates are published as new versions, with clear explanations (in an “Amendments” section) of the changes the authors made.

Usually, an article receives 2 or 3 peer-review reports. The reviewers choose an approval status to determine whether the article has ‘passed peer review.’

Originality

All articles submitted to our journals must be original; the work, or large parts, must not have been published previously or currently under consideration or reviewed elsewhere. If there is any significant overlap with another paper, this must be cited in the article and mentioned on submission. Our journals use Crossref’s similarity checker (iThenticate) to check for plagiarism in articles; if apparent plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) is identified, the article will be rejected.

Our journals strongly discourage excessive or inappropriate self-citation.

Articles previously posted on a preprint server, such as ArXiv, bioRxiv, agriRxiv, or PeerJ PrePrints, can be submitted for publication. Posters presented in meetings can be written as articles, following our guidelines, and submitted to our journals.

Submitted articles with content that infringes a copyright may only be accepted if the problematic sections are removed.

Authors who wish to reproduce a figure or table from a previous copyrighted publication are responsible for obtaining copyright holders’ permission and referencing the source. Figures that were previously published under a Creative Commons license may be reused under the condition of the specific license that applies to those figures.

Publication criteria and authorship (see ICMJE)

Our journals’ platforms are set up to make it easy for research scholars in appropriate scientific fields to share their research rapidly and to facilitate a constructive academic discussion. Articles in our journals must represent scholarly work suitable for formal peer review. Only authors formally affiliated with an accredited institution, reputable organization, or recognized organization can publish. Therefore, an objective requirement for publishing an article presenting research is primarily based on affiliation, as outlined below.

Publication criteria for research outputs presenting original data and results:

  • Authors must be formally affiliated with an accredited institution, reputable body, or recognized organization.
  • Author affiliation is verified through institutional/organizational email address AND institutional/organizational website profile (or other means).
  • In case of doubt, please get in touch with the editorial office ([email protected]) to discuss this further.

Publication of Reviews and Opinion articles

Our journals encourage open, scholarly review and debate of research findings, trends, and topics directly relevant to researchers in the form of Reviews and Opinion articles. Submissions of this type must represent a valuable addition to the scientific literature and be presented in a format suitable for peer review. While researchers who meet the criteria outlined above are entitled to publish any article presenting new research and data, whether a submitted review or opinion article is suitable for publication and subsequent open peer review by experts ultimately lies with the SAABRON PRESS scientific journals’ Editors-in-Chief.

Editorials are published by invitation only.

CRediT

All authors should have made a clear contribution to the published article. Authors should refer to the authorship criteria developed by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) as a guide. Each author’s contribution must be detailed by selecting CRediT roles on the article submission form.

Anyone who has contributed but does not meet the criteria for authorship (for example, purely technical or writing assistance) should be listed in the ‘Acknowledgments’ section. The involvement of any professional scientific or medical writer assistance must be declared. Authors should obtain permission to include the name and affiliation of all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section.

Correspondence with authors: If an author requires a change to the article, the editorial office will require confirmation of the identification of the individual. Usually, this will be via email, the email address Our journals have stored on the system. If this is no longer possible, please contact the editorial team, who will be able to assist with confirmation of identification.

Changes in authorship: If the author list of an article changes following its publication, a new version of the article can be published with an explanation included in the ‘Amendments’ section at the top of the new version. All authors must confirm any changes in authorship. The corresponding author facilitates communication if the editorial team cannot contact an author. In agreement with COPE guidelines, the editorial team cannot take responsibility for resolving any authorship disputes; the authors’ institution(s) must settle any disagreements amongst the authors.

Changes to author names: We understand that authors, reviewers, or commenters may wish to change their names for many reasons, including gender identity recognition, marriage, divorce, and other personal reasons. Following a name change request, the editorial team will require confirmation of the identification of the individual, as per all communications with authors, as we will need to check that you are requesting the name change on your behalf. To avoid any distress this process may cause, our journals are keen to work with researchers to enable them to provide identification on their terms. We do not require legal or official proof of a name change.

Researchers should note that the corresponding author will be contacted to inform them of a name change. Researchers may wish to inform their co-authors of the change, for example, so that they use an updated offline copy or change the way they cite the publication. Or researchers can rely on a notification from us to the corresponding author alone and the updated online version. Please inform us if we should wait until a particular date to enact the name change to give researchers time to communicate with co-authors if desired. Please let us know if there are any reasons why the corresponding researcher should not be contacted.

For articles, any name change will not require a new version of the article; all existing versions will be edited to reflect the change, and the DOI will remain the same. A Notice of Change will not be posted to articles unless requested by the researcher; if requested, the following standard text will be used: ‘A name change in the author list of this article was requested. The change was implemented on.’

Our journals will exert all efforts to propagate the change to indexer websites if an article is indexed. However, please note that we cannot control the use or appearance of third-party websites.

Please note that we consider it a violation of publishing and personal ethics to request to change the name of another individual without their explicit consent. If an author, reviewer, or commenter requires a name change, please contact [email protected]. To protect the identity and personal data of the researcher requesting the name change, all correspondence will be treated in confidence. Only team members required to implement the name change will be made aware, and the information will not be used apart from name change implementation.

Competing interests

Authors must include a ‘Competing interests’ statement. A competing interest will not preclude publication but provides full transparency for the reviewers and readers. If there are no competing interests to declare, the following standard statement is added: ‘No competing interests were disclosed.’

A competing interest may be of a non-financial or financial nature. Examples of competing interests include (but are not limited to):

  • individuals receiving funding, salary, or other forms of payment from an organization or holding stocks or shares from a company that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings;
  • individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents;
  • official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the content of the publication;
  • political, religious, or ideological competing interests.

Advertising policy

Authors from pharmaceutical companies or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials should declare these as competing interests on submission. Each author’s relationship to such an organization should be explained in the ‘Competing interests’ section. Publications in our journals must not contain content advertising any commercial products.

The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals provides to ensure that “clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies are published responsibly and ethically.”

Reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests in their reports, as are readers who contribute comments on the site.

If an undisclosed competing interest is brought to the attention of the editorial office after publication, our journals will follow the COPE guidelines.

Ethical Policies

Our journals adhere to the COPE guidelines relating to ethical oversight.

Research involving humans – Ethics approval

All studies involving humans (individuals, human data, or material) must have been conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the authors’ institutional or other relevant ethics committee (Institutional Review Board, IRB) to ensure they meet national and international guidelines. Details of this approval must be provided when submitting an article, including the institution, review board name, and permit number(s).

Human studies categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings should include a justification of the choice of definitions and categories, including whether the relevant funding agencies required any rules of human categorization. Appropriate, non-stigmatizing language should be used when describing different groups.

Ethics approval must be obtained before the research is conducted; retrospective approval can usually not be obtained, and it may not be possible to publish the study.

Patient privacy and informed consent for publication

As stated in the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: “Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article.”

Research involving animals

Authors describing studies involving animals must have consulted the ‘Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ (ARRIVE) guidelines, developed by the NC3Rs to improve reporting standards, ensuring that the data from animal experiments can be thoroughly scrutinized and utilized. Articles reporting in vivo experiments must adhere to the ARRIVE Essential 10 checklist as a minimum, and we encourage authors to use the full ARRIVE 2.0 checklist. The relevant information outlined in these guidelines should be included in the appropriate section of the article.

Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out within the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of ethics permission granted or animal licenses should be included. If animals were used but ethical approval was not required, a clear statement stating why this approval was unnecessary should be included.

In all cases, a statement should be made to confirm that all efforts were made to ameliorate any suffering of animals, and details of how this was achieved should be provided.

Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Research involving plants

Plant studies must be carried out within the guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of permissions granted or licenses should be included. Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Inappropriate image manipulation

Photographic images published in our journals should accurately reflect the original image. As such, we require that all images, whether submitted as figures or uploaded as data, are not manipulated so that readers are not misled about what the images indicate. We understand that it is standard practice to use software to modify images to make them clearer and easier to interpret. However, any modifications that are made to images should be minor and must be made uniformly to the whole image.

Modifications that alter the scientific meaning of the image, whether conducted on specific regions or the whole image, are not permitted. Where parts of the same gel are spliced together, this should be indicated on the figures with a dividing line, making it clear where the image has been joined. Areas from different gels should not be spliced together. Where loading controls are present, these should always be included in the image; if spliced together, any modifications to the loading control and area of interest must be identical.

Authors must include details of all modifications made to images published as figures or uploaded as data in an article’s Methods section, including the software’s name (with version number) used to make these modifications.

Examples of improper image manipulation are well described in an article in the Journal of Cell Biology (Rossner & Yamada, 2004), published by the Rockefeller University Press.

We also require the original, uncropped, unannotated, and unprocessed versions of all gel and micrograph images, which we consider underlying data, to be deposited to an approved online.

The Editorial Team will conduct checks of randomly selected figures and data using Adobe Photoshop and forensic image analysis software developed by the US Office of Research Integrity. In line with COPE guidelines, where images suspected of improper manipulation are detected, clarification with the authors will be sought. Where the reasons for these suspected manipulations are not explained satisfactorily, the article will likely be rejected, and the author’s institution may be contacted.

Allegations of misconduct

We strongly support the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and provides an ethical publishing framework for editors and publishers following COPE’s codes of conduct.

If a case of suspected research or publication misconduct is brought to our attention, we will follow the guidance and workflows recommended by COPE. In the first instance, this will usually involve contacting the person/persons about whom the allegations have been raised to request an explanation. We may also need to contact the involved party’s research institution, an ethics committee, or other third parties.

Research misconduct includes data fabrication, falsification, or cases where research involving animals or humans has not been conducted within an appropriate ethical framework. Publication misconduct includes duplicate publication of articles or apparent plagiarism. Honest errors or differences of opinion are not considered ‘misconduct.’

If one suspects potential misconduct in an article published in our journals, the best is to contact the editorial team. An editorial team member will contact the author within ten working days to confirm the provided details and ask any additional questions we need to investigate. Please be aware that it may not be possible to keep the author updated throughout the process. However, we will endeavor to inform the author of the appropriate outcome.

Appeals and complaints

Our journals follow the COPE guidelines about complaints and appeals. The author should contact the editorial to appeal an editorial decision or complain.

Retraction

Articles may be retracted for several reasons, including:

  • honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty)
  • research misconduct (data fabrication)
  • duplicate or overlapping publication
  • fraudulent use of data
  • clear plagiarism
  • unethical research

For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. The retraction notice will be linked to the retracted article (which usually remains on the site), and the article will be marked as retracted (including the PDF).

An article is usually only retracted at the authors’ request or by the publisher in response to an institutional investigation. In the context of our journals’ publication model, it is essential to note that ‐ as in traditional journals ‐ a retracted article is not ‘unpublished’ or ‘withdrawn’ for it to be published elsewhere. The reasons for retraction are usually so severe that the whole study, or significant parts, are not appropriate for inclusion in the scientific literature anywhere.

The content of a retracted article would only be removed where legal limitations have been placed upon the publisher, copyright holder, or author(s), for example, if the article is defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights or if the article is the subject of a court order. In such cases, the bibliographic information for the article will be retained on the site, along with information regarding the circumstances that led to the removal of the content.

Under rare circumstances, for example, if false or inaccurate data have been published that, if acted upon, pose a severe health risk, the original incorrect version(s) may be removed and a corrected version published. The reason for this partial removal will be clearly stated in the latest version.