Editorial Policies

Independence

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions rest with the handling editor and the reviewers, and remain independent of fees, membership, and editorial or reviewing roles.

Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions, and those manuscripts are handled independently. An editor's own work receives the same assessment as any other.

Review

Peer review

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.

Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

For double-blind review, remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, funding details, institution names, and other identifying information from the reviewer manuscript. Provide identifying information separately in the title-page file or submission form.

Authorship

Authorship and contribution

Authorship is limited to those who made a substantial contribution to the work and who approve the version submitted. Everyone who meets that standard is listed; everyone listed is accountable for the part of the work they carried out.

Contributions that do not meet the authorship standard are recognized in an acknowledgment. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors.

Interests

Competing interests

Authors, editors and reviewers declare financial and non-financial interests that a reader could reasonably consider relevant to the work. A declaration is published with the article; where no interest exists, the manuscript says so.

Ethics

Research ethics and consent

Research involving human participants requires approval from the responsible ethics committee and informed consent, both reported in the manuscript with the approving body named. Research involving animals requires the equivalent approval and reporting.

Identifiable individuals, including in photographs and case material, require written consent to publication.

Data

Data availability

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.

The statement says where the data supporting the findings can be found and on what terms, or explains why they are restricted.

Trials

Clinical-trial registration

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

AI

Use of AI in review

Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Record

Corrections and retractions

The published record is corrected openly. The original article is not removed: it stays accessible and citable, with the amendment linked to it, so the record can be examined.

The publisher follows COPE guidance in assessing post-publication concerns. The publisher’s retraction policy sets out the full taxonomy, the grounds and the process.

Erratum

Corrects an error introduced during production that affects the published record.

Corrigendum

Corrects an author error that affects the article without undermining its findings.

Editorial expression of concern

Alerts readers that a serious concern is under investigation and no final outcome has been reached.

Retraction

Used where findings are no longer reliable, or where misconduct or a serious ethical or legal problem is confirmed.

Article removal

Reserved for rare cases where legal or overriding ethical advice requires the content itself to be removed.

Withdrawal

Withdrawal

Authors should contact the editorial office promptly and wait for written confirmation before submitting the work elsewhere.

Manuscripts withdrawn within 3 days of submission are not subject to a withdrawal charge.

Manuscripts withdrawn more than 3 days after submission incur a withdrawal charge equal to 30% of the journal's APC.

Authors must receive official withdrawal confirmation before submitting the manuscript to another journal.

The charge is set out with the fee on the Article Processing Charges page.

Licensing

Copyright and licensing

Accepted articles are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, with authors retaining copyright.

Readers may share and adapt the work with attribution to the authors and the journal.