Complaint handling procedure

General Provisions and Authors' Responsibilities

The Editorial Board informs authors that they bear full personal responsibility for improper borrowings, unauthorized use of third-party research results, and non-compliance with the ethics of scientific citation. Only original materials that are not under consideration by other journals and have not been previously published are accepted for publication.

Authors must ensure:

  • Originality of submitted articles: submission of materials that have not been previously published in any other journals in any language.

  • Absence of plagiarism: the inadmissibility of appropriating other people's ideas, texts, or results.

  • Proper citation: mandatory provision of references to appropriate sources in case of using works, data, or texts of third parties.

Plagiarism Control (Prior to Publication)

All submitted manuscripts undergo mandatory screening using the specialized software StrikePlagiarism.com.

  • The percentage of text matches is determined by an algorithm that analyzes the document for borrowings both in local databases and on the Internet.

  • The resulting report is carefully analyzed by the Editorial Board to distinguish legitimate citation from plagiarism.

  • If the originality of the author's text is over 75%, the material is admitted to the peer-review process. In case a critical level of unlawful borrowings is detected, the Editorial Board reserves the right to reject the manuscript without the right to revise.

Complaints Procedure (Post-Publication or During Review)

Plagiarism in all its forms is unacceptable. If a violation of academic integrity (plagiarism, data falsification, conflict of interest) is detected after the publication of an article, or if the Editorial Board receives an official complaint from third parties, the Editorial Board acts in accordance with the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) algorithm:

  1. Complaint registration: the Editor-in-Chief accepts the complaint (appeal) for consideration, provided there is clear evidence of an ethical violation.

  2. Informing the author: the Editorial Board obligatorily contacts the author (or the team of authors), provides the details of the complaint, and sets a deadline for providing official explanations.

  3. Internal investigation: the Editorial Board (or a specially formed ethics committee) analyzes the arguments of both parties and the provided evidence. During the investigation period, the consideration of the article is suspended.

  4. Decision making: depending on the scale and seriousness of the detected violations, the Editorial Board may apply the following sanctions:

    • Require the authors to make corrections.

    • Refuse publication (if the article is still under review).

    • Officially retract the article by removing its full-text version from the journal's database and informing scientometric databases.

    • Impose a ban on the authors from submitting new manuscripts to the journal for a specified period (from 1 to 3 years).