Policy and Ethics
Editorial policy and publication ethics
The editorial board of the journal strictly adheres to the leading international standards of publication ethics, scientific transparency, and objective evaluation of research, based on the basic principles and recommendations of authoritative world organizations. In particular, the editorial policy of the publication is entirely based on the key provisions of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which guarantees ethical behavior of all participants in the publishing process, proper resolution of potential conflicts of interest, transparency of review, and effective response to any manifestations of academic dishonesty. At the same time, we share and implement in our work the standards of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) in terms of ensuring the absolute independence of editorial decisions from the influence of founders, administrative pressure, or commercial interests, as well as maintaining the highest quality criteria of independent expertise. In addition, the journal officially supports the philosophy of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), deeply aware that the true scientific value of any article should be determined solely by its content, methodological quality, and practical or theoretical significance and not by formal scientometric indicators or the impact factor of the platform where it is published. The journal's editorial policy, peer-review procedure, and publication ethics fully comply with international standards and recommendations of COPE, as well as the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. We guarantee equal treatment for all participants in the publication process and do not tolerate any form of discrimination.
Academic integrity and publication ethics policy
The editorial board of the journal is guided by international standards of publication ethics, in particular the COPE principles, as well as the current requirements of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. We guarantee equal treatment for all authors, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, nationality, or political views. Any form of discrimination in the review of manuscripts is unacceptable.
Review policy and procedure
To ensure high quality of scientific publications, the journal editorial board uses the double-anonymized peer review model. In accordance with ANSI/NISO Z39.106-2023, this model assumes that the identities of authors are hidden from reviewers, and the identities of reviewers remain unknown to authors throughout the review process and after it is completed. This procedure is an integral part of editorial policy and is based on the core principles of COPE.
Policy on the use of artificial intelligence and technologies that support it
According to COPE's position, artificial intelligence systems (for example, large language models) cannot act as authors or co-authors of scientific papers, as they are not capable of taking responsibility for the content of the research. If authors have used AI for data collection, analysis, or language enhancement, this should be clearly stated in the text or in the “ACKNOWLEDGMENT” section. Reviewers and editors are strictly prohibited from uploading submitted manuscripts to open AI systems for feedback or review, as this is a direct violation of the confidentiality of unpublished data.
Archiving and long-term retention policy
The journal's editorial board is implementing a comprehensive digital preservation strategy aimed at ensuring guaranteed, uninterrupted and free access to scientific publications in the long term. This is achieved through multi-level data preservation, which involves posting articles not only on the official website of the publication, but also their mandatory deposit in the V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, the university's institutional repository, and international digital preservation systems. To ensure technical stability and file durability, appropriate international formats are used, each publication is assigned a unique DOI identifier for stable citation, and the infrastructure is supported by regular server backups. At the same time, the journal encourages authors to self-archive their published works and provides an unquestionable guarantee that the entire digital archive will remain publicly accessible even in the hypothetical event of the journal's closure. Thanks to this approach, the policy serves as a reliable public guarantee that scientific work will be preserved from loss and accessible to the global community, regardless of any technical or organizational changes.
Conflict of interest regulation
The editorial board applies a comprehensive policy regarding conflicts of interest, defined as the presence of financial, personal, professional, or institutional relationships that could affect the objectivity of an author, reviewer, or editor. In accordance with the ICMJE guidelines, all participants in the publication process are required to openly declare any potential conflicts. To structure this information, authors should use the EASE Interactive Checklist for Submitting Authors tool. The final published version of the article contains a mandatory “COMPETING INTERESTS” section with a statement of the presence or absence of a conflict of interest. In order to ensure transparency, a separate procedure has been established for manuscripts submitted by the editor-in-chief or members of the journal's editorial board. Such materials are transferred to an independent editor-in-chief, who has no administrative or scientific dependence on the author. Only external independent reviewers are appointed, and the author-editor is completely removed from access to the manuscript management system and does not participate in making the final decision.
Authorship and institutional diversity
The journal uses the Author Role Taxonomy (CRediT taxonomy) in the “AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS” section to clearly identify the individual contribution of each researcher to the work. The relevant information is noted in the final text of the article. In order to prevent endogeneity (excessive concentration of publications from the founding institution), the editorial board systematically involves external authors and international specialists. Quotas for the publication of materials by internal authors in each issue have been established, which guarantees the institutional and geographical representativeness of the publication.
Procedure for reviewing complaints regarding violations of ethical standards
The editorial board provides a transparent and impartial mechanism for responding to complaints about possible ethical violations (plagiarism, data fabrication, authorship conflict, dishonest review, etc). Complaints are received by the journal's official email (sisiot@chnu.edu.ua) and are considered by the editor-in-chief together with the editorial board's ethics committee according to COPE flowcharts. The editorial board undertakes to maintain the confidentiality of the applicant. In the event of a substantiated complaint, the person suspected of a violation is given the right to explain and provide evidence. The consideration of the manuscript is suspended until the investigation is completed. Based on the results of the review, the editorial board makes a decision to reject the article, publish a correction, or initiate a retraction procedure, of which all interested parties are officially notified.
Retraction procedure and post-publication changes
The journal applies a retraction procedure in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines. Retraction of an article is initiated in cases where clear evidence of unreliability of the results obtained (due to deliberate fabrication or honest mistake), the presence of gross plagiarism, the fact of duplicate publication, or concealment of a critical conflict of interest is found. The retraction procedure involves the publication of an official Notice of Retraction, which contains the reasons for such a decision and indicates the initiator (authors, institution or editorial office). The notice is linked to the original article by a two-way link. The article itself remains in the journal archive and databases, but all its pages in PDF format are watermarked with the word “RETRACTED”. In cases of minor inaccuracies that do not affect the conclusions of the study, an Erratum/Correction is published, and in the case of long-term investigations, an Expression of Concern is published.
Countering citation manipulation
Any form of citation manipulation is strictly prohibited. The editorial board conducts regular internal control to detect anomalous patterns. Excessive author self-citation, artificial citation of journal articles to increase its impact factor, as well as "honorary" citations and coordinated mutual citation between publications (citation stacking) are unacceptable. The most critical violation is "forced" citation, when an editor or reviewer requires a reference to their own work as a condition for accepting a paper. If such demands from a reviewer (reviewer citation manipulation) are discovered without proper scientific justification, the editors immediately disqualify them from reviewing the manuscript.
Open access, licensing and copyright
The journal maintains an Open Access policy. All published materials become available to readers immediately after publication under the terms of the Creative Commons license (each published article indicates the type of license - CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright to their works, transferring the right of first publication to the journal. The publication process is completely free for all authors. The editorial board does not charge any fees for submission, processing of manuscripts (Article Processing Charge – APC), peer review, preparation or publication of articles. The absence of any hidden or additional financial obligations on the part of authors is a fundamental position of the editorial board, guaranteeing the absolute independence of editorial decision-making from commercial factors.
Review procedure and criteria for selecting reviewers
Each manuscript that has passed the initial technical review and plagiarism check is sent to at least two independent experts in the relevant field. Reviewers are selected based on their scientific expertise, the availability of publications on the topic of the article, and the absence of institutional or co-author affiliation with the authors of the submitted material. In the event of a conflict of interest, the reviewer is obliged to notify the editorial office, after which another expert will be appointed. Editorial decisions are based solely on the content of the reviewer's conclusions. To make a decision on accepting the article for publication, at least two positive reviews are required.
In the event of significant disagreements in the expert assessments, the editor-in-chief will engage a third, additional reviewer. The journal encourages authors and reviewers to use EASE Ukrainian-language resources, particularly the Peer Review Toolkit, to improve the quality of their submissions.
Transparency of editorial history
The journal guarantees a transparent display of the stages of consideration of each manuscript. In order to prevent practices of artificial acceleration of the process (suspiciously short review times), the editorial board allocates a reasonable amount of time for professional expertise, sufficient for thorough analysis. The first page of each published article must include a full editorial history:
- date of the first submission of the article to publication (Received);
- completion of review and revisions (Revised);
- date of acceptance of the article for publication after review (Accepted);
- date of publication (Published).
Such documentation provides readers and scientometric databases with reliable information regarding adherence to academic standards at all stages of the editorial and publishing process.
