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SvedbergOpen recognises the importance of high standards of ethical behaviour throughout the publication process. In addition to the general procedures listed here, authors should refer to the Author Instructions for the individual journals for specific policies relevant to their research communities.
SvedbergOpen follows the COPE Code of Conduct Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers.
Authorship It is essential that all authors agree to a manuscript’s submission, and to all stages of its revision. The corresponding authors should ensure that every author has approved all submissions, including revisions.
Authorship problems generally occur when: (i) authorship is assigned to people who took little or no part in the research (gift authorship); or (ii) names of people who did take part are omitted (ghost authorship).
Changes to author attribution after initial submission must be approved by all authors. This applies to additions, deletions, a change of order to the authors’ names, or a change to the attribution of contributions.
Editors and Publishers cannot be asked to be involved in an authorship dispute. For guidance in resolving an authorship dispute the resources provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) may be of assistance.
Finally, in preparing the manuscript for publication, authors should ensure that they have followed the Author Instructions for the relevant SvedbergOpen journals – a link can be found on the journal's home page.
Broadly, a conflict of interest may be seen to occur in scientific publishing when someone’s professional judgment about someone else’s research activity, the communication of that activity or its consideration for publication are influenced by a secondary interest – such as financial gain, career advancement, etc.
Importantly, the perception of a conflict of interest is as significant as an actual conflict of interest.
Financial or business relationships are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal and authors. Conflicts can also occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships or rivalries, academic competition, or intellectual or ideological beliefs.
All participants in the peer-review and publication process – authors, editors and reviewers – must identify potential conflicts of interest when fulfilling their roles and disclose all relationships that might be viewed as inappropriate.
When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work. At the end of their manuscripts, they should disclose financial and personal relationships with organisations or people that could inappropriately influence their work. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that none exist.
Authors may identify reviewers or editors they wish to exclude from handling their manuscript due to an existing conflict of interest.
When asked to review a manuscript, reviewers should disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript. If reviewers believe that they cannot judge a manuscript impartially because of contact with the authors or a possible conflict of interest, they should decline the invitation to review and provide an explanation to the Editor. Possible conflicts of interest may occur when reviewers:
If a reviewer is unsure whether the potential for bias exists, advice should be sought from the editor.
Reviewers must not use knowledge of the manuscript under review before its publication to further their own interests.
If an Editor has a conflict of interest or a relationship that may bias their treatment of the manuscript under consideration, they should excuse themselves from handling the manuscript.
Peer review is key to ensuring journal quality and the publication of high quality science.All authors are required to submit their manuscript to the peer review process before it can be accepted for publication.
Authors may request particular individuals to be excluded as peer reviewers. The Editor will endeavour to accommodate such requests, but reserves the right to invite non-preferred reviewers if the validity of the request is deemed unreasonable. Authors may also propose suitable independent reviewers. Approaching author-suggested reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor. Intentionally falsifying reviewer details will result in rejection of a manuscript.
All submissions undergo preliminary assessment by an Editor, who may reject a paper before peer review when it is outside the journal's scope or is of insufficient quality. Manuscripts felt to be suitable for consideration will be sent out for ‘double-blind review’ in which the identity of the reviewers and the authors are not disclosed to either party. Journals published by SvedbergOpen utilise double-blind peer review process.
The basic principles to which we expect our peer reviewers to adhere, and expectations of peer reviewers are set out in the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Timeliness is key to the review process and reviewers are expected to communicate with the Editorial Office regarding the timely delivery of their review.
Authors may appeal editorial decisions by writing to the Editor-in-Chief.
In reporting research regarding human subjects, authors are required to document that a formally constituted review board (Institutional Review Board or Ethics committee) has granted approval for the research to be done, regarding human experimentation have been met. Investigators who do not have access to an institutional review board are required to provide a statement to the editor outlining why it was not possible to gain formal ethics approval. If the study is judged as exempt from review, a statement from the committee is required.
Authors should state that the research was undertaken with appropriate informed consent of participants or guardians. In reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and welfare of animals were followed and provide a statement within the manuscript regarding the use of appropriate measures to minimize pain or discomfort.
Authors should make an ethics statement within the manuscript to this effect.
Editors should ensure that peer reviewers consider ethical and welfare issues raised by the research they are reviewing, and to request additional information from authors where needed. In situations where there is doubt as to the adherence to appropriate procedures or approval by the relevant ethics committee, editors are required to reject these papers.
Scientific misconduct includes but is not necessarily limited to data fabrication, data falsification including deceptive manipulation of images, duplicate publication (repeated publication of data or ideas) and plagiarism (see our policy below). When scientific misconduct is alleged, or concerns are otherwise raised about the conduct or integrity of work described in submitted or published papers, appropriate procedures will be initiated. SvedbergOpen follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adheres to the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers. Our journal editors are expected to follow the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors. SvedbergOpen follows the COPE Best Practice Guidelines and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Plagiarism is the unattributed appropriation of someone else’s published work as an author’s own, or more commonly, the re-use of chunks of text from published papers by the same author(s) (self-plagiarism).
Plagiarism screening is an established part of the editorial process for all journals published by SvedbergOpen.
A formal retraction will be considered after careful investigation if it is found that a published paper contains errors serious enough to invalidate its results and conclusions. SvedbergOpen follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for retracting articles. The author(s) will be encouraged to assist in the investigation.
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