Social and Legal Studios adheres to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and consistently opposes all forms of breaches of publication ethics. Particular attention is paid to checking the originality of manuscripts, preventing plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, falsification or fabrication of data, citation manipulation, improper authorship, breaches of the peer review procedure and other practices that may call into question the reliability of the scholarly record.
All reports of possible misconduct are considered by the editorial office in accordance with the journal’s policy, the principles of publication ethics and COPE recommendations. The editorial office assesses each case individually, taking into account the nature, scale, evidence and possible impact of the breach on the scientific reliability of the article.
RESUBMISSION, DUPLICATION AND REDUNDANT PUBLICATION
Authors must submit to the journal only original manuscripts that have not been previously published and are not under consideration by another journal, collection, publishing house or other publication platform.
Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to several publications, resubmission of already published material without proper disclosure of this fact, and the preparation of several articles based on the same research without sufficient scientific justification are regarded as breaches of publication ethics.
Such breaches may include full or partial duplication of text, reuse of results without proper reference, paraphrased reproduction of previously published material, and the submission of fragmented publications that artificially divide one study into several separate articles.
If duplication or simultaneous submission is identified, the manuscript may be rejected. If the breach is established after publication, the editorial office may publish a correction, an expression of concern or decide to retract the article.
PLAGIARISM AND SELF-PLAGIARISM
All manuscripts submitted to the journal may be checked for text originality. Plagiarism, including the use of other people’s texts, ideas, data, tables, figures or results without proper reference, is unacceptable.
Self-plagiarism, that is, the reuse by authors of substantial parts of their own previously published materials without proper citation or editorial explanation, is also regarded as a breach of publication ethics.
If plagiarism or self-plagiarism is identified during manuscript consideration, the manuscript is rejected or returned to the authors for explanation, depending on the nature and extent of the breach. If the breach is identified after publication, the editorial office acts in accordance with the policy on corrections, expressions of concern and retractions.
CITATION MANIPULATION
The journal does not permit citation manipulation. Such practice includes the deliberate inclusion of irrelevant or excessive references with the aim of artificially increasing the number of citations of a particular author, group of authors, journal, institution or publisher.
Manuscripts in which systematic or unjustified citation is identified may be returned to the authors for correction or rejected. Reviewers and editors are also not permitted to require authors to add references that are not scientifically necessary for the content of the article.
FALSIFICATION AND FABRICATION OF DATA
Falsification, fabrication or dishonest alteration of research data is a serious breach of publication ethics. Such breaches include invented results, deliberate distortion of data, manipulation of statistical indicators, selective concealment of results, improper alteration of images, graphs, tables or other materials.
If such breaches are identified during manuscript consideration, the editorial office may reject the material and request explanations from the authors. If the breach is established after publication, the editorial office may publish a correction, an expression of concern or decide to retract the article.
CONSIDERATION OF SUSPECTED MISCONDUCT
If a report is received or a suspicion of publication misconduct arises, the editorial office conducts a preliminary assessment of the situation. Where necessary, the editorial office may request explanations from the authors, involve independent experts, examine editorial correspondence, reviews, submitted files, research data and other materials.
Authors are given the opportunity to respond to comments or provide evidence confirming the reliability of the submitted materials. If the authors’ explanations are insufficient or the breach is confirmed, the editorial office makes a decision in accordance with the nature and seriousness of the situation.
Possible editorial actions include:
- rejection of the manuscript, if it is under consideration;
- a request for clarification, additional data or documents;
- returning the manuscript to the authors for correction;
- additional independent peer review;
- publication of a correction;
- publication of an expression of concern;
- retraction of the article;
informing the relevant institutions or organisations in cases of serious or systemic breaches.
CORRECTIONS
A correction is published in cases where errors are identified in a published article that require official clarification but do not call into question the overall reliability of the results and conclusions of the study.
Corrections may concern errors in data, tables, figures, formulae, authors’ names, affiliations, funding, acknowledgements, declarations of conflicts of interest or other elements of the article.
Corrections may be initiated by authors, editors, readers or other interested persons. The editorial office assesses the request, consults the authors where necessary and decides on the form of correction.
Once approved, the correction is published as a separate editorial document linked to the original article. The electronic version of the article must clearly indicate that a correction has been published.
ERRATUM
An erratum is published in cases where a significant error occurred at the stage of editorial, technical or publishing preparation of the article. Such errors may include incorrect presentation of author details, technical errors in the text, tables, figures, metadata or other deficiencies affecting the accuracy of the scholarly record.
CORRIGENDUM
A corrigendum is published in cases where a significant error in the published article was made by the authors. Such a correction is published after consideration by the editorial office and, where necessary, after explanations have been obtained from the authors.
All corrections must be transparent, accessible to readers and linked to the original publication.
EXPRESSION OF CONCERN
If there are serious concerns regarding a published article, but at the time of consideration the editorial office does not have sufficient evidence for an immediate correction or retraction, the journal may publish an expression of concern.
Such a statement may be used as a temporary editorial notice until the investigation is completed or as a separate notice if the situation requires readers to be informed of existing doubts regarding the reliability of the article. The expression of concern is linked to the original article and contains a concise description of the reasons for its publication.
After the investigation is completed, the editorial office may leave the expression of concern in place, publish a correction or decide to retract the article.
RETRACTION OF AN ARTICLE
Retraction is applied in cases where a published article contains substantial breaches or unreliable results that call its scientific integrity into question.
Grounds for retraction may include:
- clear evidence of unreliable results as a result of error, falsification or fabrication of data;
- manipulation of images, tables, graphs or other materials;
- plagiarism or substantial infringement of copyright;
- duplicate or redundant publication without proper disclosure;
- compromise of the peer review process;
- dishonest, fictitious, concealed or coercive authorship;
- use of another person’s personal data, name, affiliation, ORCID or other identifying information;
- evidence of unethical conduct of research;
- serious breaches related to an undisclosed conflict of interest;
- establishment of the article’s involvement in systemic manipulation of the publication process, including the activities of paper mills.
A request for retraction may be initiated by authors, editors, reviewers, readers, institutions or other interested parties. The editorial office conducts a review with the involvement of the authors and, where necessary, independent experts. The decision to retract is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an authorised member of the Editorial Board who has no conflict of interest.
After the decision to retract has been made, the journal publishes a separate retraction notice stating the title of the article, the authors, bibliographic details, the reason for retraction and the person or body that initiated the procedure, where this is possible and ethically permissible.
The retraction notice must be linked to the original article, have its own DOI where technically possible and be accessible to readers. The article page must clearly indicate that the publication has been retracted.
As a rule, a retracted article remains available in the journal archive with clear marking as “Retracted”. Complete removal of an article is permitted only in exceptional cases, including by court decision, in the event of a breach of law, a security risk, violation of third-party rights or the need to protect personal data.
WITHDRAWAL OF A MANUSCRIPT BY AUTHORS BEFORE PUBLICATION
Authors may submit a request to withdraw a manuscript before its publication. To do so, an official letter with a clear explanation of the reasons for withdrawal must be sent to the editorial office.
The request must be approved by all authors of the manuscript. The editorial office considers the request and informs the authors whether it has been accepted or whether additional clarification is required.
Withdrawal of a manuscript before publication is not a retraction, since retraction applies to already published materials.
SYSTEMIC MANIPULATION AND PAPER MILLS
If the editorial office establishes that a manuscript or published article may be part of systemic manipulation of the publication process, including the activities of paper mills, fake peer review, mass use of fabricated data, template manuscripts, fictitious authorship or other fraudulent practices, the journal conducts an additional investigation.
If such breaches are confirmed, the manuscript may be rejected and the published article retracted. If the breach concerns a group of articles, the editorial office may consider them as related cases and publish the relevant editorial notices.
USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The use of generative artificial intelligence tools must be transparently declared by authors in accordance with the journal’s policy. Concealed use of AI to create text, images, tables, data, graphs or other elements of a manuscript may be regarded as a breach of publication ethics if it affects the reliability, authorship, originality or reproducibility of the research.
AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authors bear full responsibility for the content of the manuscript, the accuracy of the data, the correctness of references, the originality of the materials and compliance with ethical standards.
The editorial office reserves the right to request additional explanations from authors regarding the use of AI and to apply verification tools or expert evaluation to identify the dishonest use of such technologies.
TIMELINESS OF EDITORIAL PROCEDURES
The editorial office seeks to consider requests concerning corrections, expressions of concern and retractions within the shortest reasonable time after receiving a report or identifying a breach.
If final agreement on the text of an editorial notice with the authors is impossible or the authors do not respond to the editorial office’s requests, the journal reserves the right to publish the necessary notice without undue delay in order to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.
PRESERVATION OF THE SCHOLARLY RECORD
The journal recognises the importance of the integrity and traceability of the scholarly record. Therefore, all corrections, expressions of concern and retraction notices must be clearly linked to the relevant articles and accessible to readers.
The editorial office does not conceal the fact that an article has been corrected or retracted. The main purpose of such procedures is not to punish authors, but to ensure the accuracy, transparency and reliability of scholarly communication.
