Editorial responsibilities

The Editorial Board decides which submissions to publish based on academic merit, originality, and relevance, without regard to an author’s nationality, institution, gender, or seniority. Editors do not use unpublished material from a submission in their own research without the author’s written consent, and recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest.

Author responsibilities

• Submit only original, unpublished work, properly cited throughout.
• Disclose any prior or overlapping publication of related material.
• List as authors only those who made a substantive contribution, with each author’s role identifiable.
• Disclose funding sources and conflicts of interest.
• Notify the Editorial Board promptly if a significant error is found after publication.

Reviewer responsibilities

• Evaluate manuscripts on academic merit alone, and decline to review where a conflict of interest exists.
• Keep manuscripts and their contents confidential during and after review.
• Provide specific, evidence-based comments rather than general or personal judgments.
• Flag suspected plagiarism, undisclosed overlap with other work, or ethical concerns to the Editorial Board.

Plagiarism policy

Submissions are checked for textual overlap with previously published work, including the authors’ own prior publications (self-plagiarism). Confirmed plagiarism results in immediate rejection; if discovered after publication, the article is retracted and the finding is noted in the published record.

Conflict of interest policy

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, professional, or personal relationships that could reasonably be seen to influence the handling of a manuscript. Undisclosed conflicts discovered after acceptance are addressed case by case, up to and including retraction.

Research misconduct

Fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism are treated as research misconduct. Allegations are investigated by the Editorial Board; where an allegation is substantiated, the Board may reject, retract, or correction the affected work, and notify the author’s institution where relevant.

Retraction policy

An article may be retracted where its findings are unreliable due to misconduct or honest error, where it substantially duplicates another publication, or where it plagiarises another work. A retraction notice is linked to the original article and states the reason for retraction; the original remains accessible, marked as retracted. The article’s DOI is retained and continues to resolve to the retracted version.

Corrections and errata

Minor errors that do not affect the article’s conclusions are corrected through a published erratum linked to the original. Errors that affect the reliability of findings or conclusions are handled under the retraction policy above.