Publication Ethics

Purpose and Scope

This policy outlines our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of ethical publishing practices. It applies to all stakeholders involved in our publishing process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and publishing staff.

 

Core Principles

Research Integrity

  • All research must be conducted with honesty, rigor, and transparency
  • Authors must present their findings accurately and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
  • Research methods must be described clearly to allow reproducibility.
  • Any limitations of the research should be openly acknowledged

Authorship and Contributions

  • Authorship should be limited to those who have made substantial contributions to the work
  • All authors must approve the final version before publication
  • The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal
  • Changes to authorship after submission requires written approval from all authors and will not usually be accepted
  • If AI has been used in the generation of any content then this must be declared on submission and mentioned clearly in the text

Peer Review

  • We are committed to fair, unbiased, and timely peer review
  • Reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest
  • Review comments should be constructive and professional
  • Confidentiality of the peer review process will be maintained
  • All papers will be double blind reviewed – i.e. the Reviewers will not know the Authors of the paper and the Authors will not know the names or affiliations of the Reviewers
  • All peer reviews are personally checked for AI generation and repetition, reviews that don’t seem to be genuine will be discounted in the decision-making process

Conflicts of Interest

  • All parties must declare any potential conflicts of interest
  • Financial, personal, or professional relationships that could influence judgment must be disclosed
  • Editors and reviewers should recuse themselves when conflicts exist

Ethical Research Practices

  • Research involving human subjects must have appropriate institutional approval
  • Informed consent must be obtained and documented where required
  • Animal research must comply with relevant institutional and national guidelines
  • Patient privacy and confidentiality must be protected

Publication Ethics

  • Plagiarism, duplicate submission, and redundant publication are prohibited
  • Text recycling should be minimal and properly cited
  • Image manipulation must be limited to standard adjustments and clearly described
  • Corrections and retractions will be published when necessary

Copyright and Licensing

  • Authors must comply with all copyright requirements
  • Third-party content must have appropriate permissions
  • Authors retain rights as specified in our publishing agreements

Data and Materials

  • Data should be shared where possible, we encourage providing access to raw data when appropriate, and will host if needed
  • Source data for figures should be available upon request
  • Materials and protocols should be available for replication
  • Data privacy and security must be maintained

 

Implementation

Handling Misconduct

All allegations of misconduct will be investigated promptly. Please send any concerns you have to nicki.dennis@riverpublishers.com  Journals Publisher at River Publishers.

  • Authors will be given the opportunity to respond to allegations
  • Appropriate actions such as paper retraction will be taken based on investigation findings
  • Relevant institutions and bodies will be notified as necessary

Editorial Responsibilities

  • Editors-in-chief will ensure fair and consistent application of policies
  • Decisions are based on academic merit alone

Publisher Responsibilities

  • We maintain systems to detect plagiarism and manipulation
  • We aim to support editors, authors and reviewers in handling ethical issues

Review and Updates

This policy will be reviewed annually and updated as needed to reflect evolving publishing standards and best practices.

Compliance

Failure to comply with this policy may result in manuscript rejection, published corrections, or retractions. Serious violations may result in additional sanctions, including barring authors from future submissions.

February 2025