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