Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

The Journal of Sustainable Development Issues (JOSDI) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, openness, and accountability.

The journal follows the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and other internationally recognised standards of ethical scholarly publishing.

This policy applies to the publisher, editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, authors, and all other participants involved in the editorial and publication process.

1. Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are made independently of commercial, institutional, political, financial, or personal considerations.

The publisher does not interfere with decisions concerning the acceptance, revision, or rejection of manuscripts.

Editorial decisions are based exclusively on:

  • academic quality;
  • originality;
  • methodological soundness;
  • relevance to the journal’s aims and scope;
  • clarity of presentation;
  • ethical integrity;
  • potential scholarly contribution.

The payment, non-payment, or waiver of an Article Processing Charge does not influence any editorial decision.

2. Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher is responsible for:

  • protecting the editorial independence of the journal;
  • supporting ethical editorial and peer-review procedures;
  • ensuring transparency regarding publication fees, copyright, licensing, and access policies;
  • maintaining the journal’s digital infrastructure;
  • supporting permanent access to published content;
  • assisting in investigations of alleged research or publication misconduct;
  • cooperating with editors in issuing corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern;
  • ensuring that commercial interests do not influence editorial decisions.

All publication fees and applicable exemptions must be clearly disclosed on the journal website.

3. Open Access, Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright in their published articles and grant the Journal of Sustainable Development Issues the right of first publication and the right to identify itself as the original publisher.

Articles published under the journal’s current licensing policy are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Under this license, users may:

  • read and download the published material;
  • copy and redistribute it in any medium or format;
  • translate, remix, transform, and adapt it;
  • build upon the material;
  • use it for academic, educational, policy, commercial, or other lawful purposes.

Users exercising these rights must:

  • give appropriate credit to the author or authors;
  • acknowledge the original publication in the journal;
  • identify the applicable CC BY 4.0 license;
  • provide a link to the license where reasonably practicable;
  • indicate whether changes were made;
  • retain an indication of previous modifications where applicable;
  • avoid implying that the authors or the journal endorse the user or the reuse.

No additional legal terms or technological measures may be imposed on the licensed material where they would prevent other users from exercising the rights granted under CC BY 4.0.

The license stated on the individual article page is authoritative. Articles published under an earlier or different license remain subject to the license displayed on their respective article pages.

Third-Party Material

Third-party photographs, figures, maps, tables, datasets, illustrations, or other content are covered by the article’s CC BY 4.0 license only where the authors or journal hold the necessary rights and the material is not expressly excluded.

Material excluded from the CC BY 4.0 license must be clearly identified through an appropriate credit line or rights notice. Users may need to obtain permission directly from the relevant copyright holder before reusing such material.

Research Data and Associated Materials

The CC BY 4.0 license applies to the published article and to any associated material explicitly released under that license.

Separately hosted:

  • research datasets;
  • software;
  • analytical code;
  • questionnaires;
  • audiovisual content;
  • supplementary files;
  • database content

are subject to the license, access conditions, or rights statement specified separately for those materials.

The article’s CC BY 4.0 license does not automatically override privacy rights, confidentiality obligations, ethical restrictions, contractual limitations, database rights, or third-party intellectual property rights.

4. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for maintaining the integrity, fairness, confidentiality, and academic quality of the editorial process.

Editors must:

  • evaluate manuscripts fairly and impartially;
  • make decisions based on academic merit and relevance to the journal’s scope;
  • protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts;
  • appoint appropriately qualified and independent reviewers;
  • avoid discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, institutional affiliation, political views, or other personal characteristics;
  • disclose actual or potential conflicts of interest;
  • withdraw from handling manuscripts where a conflict of interest exists;
  • investigate credible allegations of plagiarism, data manipulation, duplicate publication, authorship misconduct, or other ethical violations;
  • take appropriate action when errors or misconduct are identified;
  • preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

Editors must not use unpublished information, data, arguments, or ideas contained in submitted manuscripts for personal research or professional advantage.

These confidentiality obligations apply to submitted and unpublished material. They do not restrict lawful reuse of the final published article under its applicable Creative Commons license.

5. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers assist editors in evaluating manuscripts and help authors improve the quality of their work.

Reviewers must:

  • treat submitted manuscripts and related materials as confidential;
  • evaluate manuscripts objectively and impartially;
  • provide clear, evidence-based, constructive, and respectful comments;
  • avoid personal criticism of authors;
  • complete reviews within the agreed period;
  • decline a review when they lack the necessary expertise;
  • disclose actual or potential conflicts of interest;
  • withdraw from reviewing a manuscript where impartiality cannot be maintained;
  • inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data manipulation, citation manipulation, or other ethical concerns;
  • identify relevant published work that has not been appropriately cited.

Reviewers must not use unpublished information, data, or ideas obtained through peer review for personal, academic, financial, or professional advantage.

Reviewers must not upload submitted manuscripts, manuscript extracts, unpublished data, or confidential editorial information to generative artificial intelligence systems or other external services that do not guarantee confidentiality.

These restrictions concern confidential and unpublished submission materials. They do not impose additional restrictions on lawful reuse of the final published article under CC BY 4.0.

6. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for the originality, accuracy, transparency, and ethical integrity of their submissions.

Authors must:

  • submit original work that has not been previously published as a scholarly article;
  • ensure that the manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal;
  • provide appropriate citation and attribution for all sources;
  • avoid plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and redundant publication;
  • report research methods, data, results, and limitations accurately;
  • refrain from data fabrication, falsification, manipulation, or selective reporting;
  • disclose all relevant financial, institutional, professional, or personal conflicts of interest;
  • disclose all sources of research funding;
  • retain relevant research data and supporting documentation;
  • provide access to supporting data when requested and ethically permissible;
  • obtain all necessary ethical approvals and informed consent;
  • ensure that all listed authors meet the journal’s authorship criteria;
  • notify the journal promptly if a significant error is discovered after publication;
  • cooperate with investigations, corrections, and retraction procedures;
  • ensure that they have the necessary rights or permissions for all third-party material included in the manuscript.

Submission of a manuscript containing fabricated, falsified, plagiarised, or otherwise misleading content may result in rejection, retraction, notification of the authors’ institutions, or other appropriate action.

7. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the research.

All authors must:

  • approve the final version of the manuscript;
  • agree to its submission and publication;
  • accept responsibility for their individual contributions;
  • be able to identify the contributions of the other authors;
  • cooperate in addressing questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of the work.

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged with their permission.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, and ghost authorship are prohibited.

Any request to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be supported by:

  • a written explanation;
  • the written consent of all authors;
  • confirmation from the corresponding author.

Authorship disputes may be referred to the authors’ institutions for investigation.

8. Originality, Duplicate Submission and Redundant Publication

Manuscripts submitted to the journal must contain original scholarly work and must not have been previously published, either in full or in substantially the same form, as a journal article or equivalent formal scholarly publication.

Authors must not:

  • submit the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously;
  • present previously published work as a new and original manuscript;
  • republish substantially the same data, analysis, or findings without appropriate disclosure and justification;
  • divide one study into several unjustifiably fragmented publications;
  • submit a translation or adaptation of previously published work as an original manuscript without full disclosure and prior editorial approval;
  • conceal substantial overlap with their own or other authors’ previous publications.

Any legitimate reuse of previously published text, data, methods, figures, or tables must be transparently disclosed, appropriately cited, and legally authorised.

This publication ethics policy governs whether a manuscript is eligible to be considered as a new scholarly publication. It does not restrict the lawful sharing, redistribution, translation, adaptation, or other reuse of an already published article under its applicable Creative Commons license.

The availability of an article under CC BY 4.0 does not make undisclosed duplicate or redundant journal publication ethically acceptable. Any lawful reuse must acknowledge the original work, comply with the applicable license, and must not falsely present reused material as a new original publication.

9. Plagiarism and Similarity Screening

Submitted manuscripts may be screened using plagiarism and similarity-detection software (Turnitin) before or during editorial evaluation.

An overall similarity rate below 20% is normally expected. However, the similarity percentage alone does not determine whether plagiarism has occurred.

Each similarity report is evaluated qualitatively by the editorial team, taking into account:

  • the source of the matched material;
  • the extent and concentration of textual overlap;
  • whether appropriate citation and quotation have been used;
  • whether the overlap occurs in references, institutional names, standard methodological expressions, or other commonly used terminology;
  • whether the manuscript contains unattributed reuse of text, data, figures, tables, or ideas.

Manuscripts exceeding the expected similarity level may be returned to the authors for revision or rejected before peer review.

A manuscript with a similarity rate below 20% may also be rejected where the report reveals plagiarism, concentrated copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, or unattributed reuse of scholarly content.

Reuse permitted under CC BY 4.0 must still satisfy the license’s attribution requirements and the journal’s standards concerning originality and transparent scholarly practice.

Serious plagiarism, duplicate publication, data plagiarism, or unauthorised reuse discovered after publication may result in correction or retraction.

10. Data Integrity, Availability and Retention

Authors must maintain accurate and complete records of the data, materials, methods, and analyses supporting their research.

Data must not be:

  • fabricated;
  • falsified;
  • selectively manipulated;
  • omitted in a misleading manner;
  • presented in a way that distorts the findings.

Where applicable, authors are encouraged to include a Data Availability Statement indicating:

  • where the supporting data can be accessed;
  • whether the data are publicly available;
  • whether the data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request;
  • whether access is restricted for ethical, legal, commercial, privacy, or confidentiality reasons;
  • whether no new data were generated or analysed;
  • the applicable license or conditions of reuse where the data are separately published.

Where necessary, authors may be asked to provide raw data, analytical code, questionnaires, ethical approvals, or other supporting documentation during editorial evaluation or following publication.

The CC BY 4.0 license applied to an article does not automatically make confidential, restricted, personal, proprietary, or separately licensed research data openly reusable.

11. Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosure

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any relationship or interest that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, the research or editorial process.

Conflicts of interest may include:

  • financial interests;
  • employment relationships;
  • consultancy arrangements;
  • institutional affiliations;
  • personal or family relationships;
  • academic competition;
  • intellectual commitments;
  • patent ownership;
  • funding relationships.

Authors must include a conflict-of-interest statement in the manuscript.

Where no conflict exists, the following statement should be used:

Conflict of Interest: The author(s) declare no conflict of interest.

Authors must also disclose all sources of financial and material support.

Where no external funding was received, the following statement may be used:

Funding: This research received no external funding.

Editors and reviewers must withdraw from handling manuscripts where a conflict of interest could affect their impartiality.

The existence of a conflict of interest does not automatically prevent publication, provided that it is fully disclosed and appropriately managed.

12. Submissions by Editors and Editorial Board Members

Manuscripts submitted by editors or members of the Editorial Board are handled by an independent editor who has no conflict of interest with the authors.

The submitting editor or Editorial Board member:

  • has no access to confidential peer-review information;
  • does not select or recommend reviewers;
  • does not participate in the editorial evaluation;
  • does not participate in the editorial decision.

The same peer-review, ethical, and academic standards apply to these manuscripts as to all other submissions.

13. Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants, personal data, identifiable information, or human biological materials must comply with applicable ethical standards and legal requirements.

Where applicable, authors must:

  • obtain approval from an appropriate institutional or national research ethics committee before beginning the research;
  • provide the name of the approving body;
  • provide the ethical approval or reference number;
  • obtain informed consent from participants;
  • protect participants’ privacy, dignity, safety, and confidentiality;
  • minimise potential risks;
  • apply additional safeguards when vulnerable groups are involved;
  • obtain consent for publication where identifiable information, images, or case details are included.

Human participant data must be collected, stored, processed, shared, and reused in accordance with:

  • informed consent;
  • ethical approval;
  • applicable data-protection legislation;
  • appropriate anonymisation or pseudonymisation procedures.

Publication of an article under CC BY 4.0 does not waive participants’ privacy, confidentiality, publicity, or data-protection rights.

Where ethical approval or informed consent was not required, authors must provide an appropriate explanation.

14. Research Involving Animals

Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international standards for animal welfare.

Authors must:

  • obtain prior approval from the relevant institutional or national animal ethics committee;
  • provide the name of the approving body;
  • provide the approval or reference number;
  • use the minimum number of animals necessary to achieve the research objectives;
  • minimise pain, distress, discomfort, and unnecessary harm;
  • provide appropriate care, housing, food, water, and environmental conditions;
  • follow the principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement—the 3Rs.

The journal may reject manuscripts where animal welfare and ethical approval requirements have not been adequately addressed.

15. Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

Authors may use artificial intelligence tools for:

  • language editing;
  • grammar improvement;
  • formatting assistance;
  • coding or other technical assistance.

Artificial intelligence tools must not be listed as authors because they cannot accept responsibility for the content, disclose conflicts of interest, or approve the final manuscript.

Authors remain fully responsible for:

  • the originality of the manuscript;
  • the accuracy of the content;
  • the validity of citations and references;
  • the integrity of the data, analysis, results, and conclusions;
  • identifying and correcting inaccurate, fabricated, biased, or misleading AI-generated content;
  • the ethical compliance of the submission.

Any substantial use of artificial intelligence tools in preparing the manuscript should be transparently acknowledged where appropriate.

Where artificial intelligence is used as part of the research methodology, authors should describe the relevant tool, version where applicable, purpose, procedure, and validation approach in the manuscript.

Authors must not upload the following to external AI systems without appropriate authorisation and adequate protection:

  • submitted or unpublished manuscripts;
  • confidential peer-review material;
  • personal or sensitive data;
  • proprietary or restricted research information;
  • third-party content for which they do not have the necessary rights or permissions.

This confidentiality requirement applies to submitted, unpublished, protected, or restricted materials. It does not impose additional restrictions on the lawful reuse of publicly available content under CC BY 4.0 or another applicable license.

Undisclosed or inappropriate use of artificial intelligence may result in rejection, correction, retraction, or investigation.

16. Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern

The journal is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

Corrections

A correction may be issued when a published article contains an error that does not invalidate its principal findings but requires clarification or amendment.

Corrections are linked transparently to the original article and are normally made available under the same license as the original publication.

Retractions

An article may be retracted where there is clear evidence that:

  • the findings are unreliable because of major error, data fabrication, or data falsification;
  • plagiarism or substantial unattributed overlap has occurred;
  • the article reports unethical research;
  • the article has been published elsewhere without proper disclosure;
  • peer review or the editorial process has been manipulated;
  • a serious undisclosed conflict of interest has compromised the reliability of the work;
  • the findings or conclusions can no longer be considered reliable.

Retracted articles remain accessible in the journal archive but are clearly and prominently marked as retracted.

A retraction notice explains the reason for the retraction and identifies the party initiating the retraction where appropriate.

Retraction changes the scholarly status of the article but does not revoke a Creative Commons license that was validly applied at the time of publication.

Reuse of a retracted article remains subject to the applicable license, but users must not misrepresent the article’s retracted status.

Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be issued when serious questions have been raised about a published article but:

  • the available evidence remains inconclusive;
  • an institutional investigation is ongoing;
  • the journal is unable to obtain sufficient information to reach a final decision.

Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern are transparently linked to the original article.

17. Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct

The journal takes all credible allegations of research and publication misconduct seriously.

Potential misconduct includes:

  • plagiarism and self-plagiarism;
  • data fabrication or falsification;
  • image or figure manipulation;
  • duplicate or redundant publication;
  • peer-review manipulation;
  • citation manipulation;
  • undisclosed conflicts of interest;
  • authorship manipulation;
  • unethical research practices;
  • misuse of confidential information;
  • inappropriate or undisclosed use of artificial intelligence;
  • unauthorised use of third-party material.

Allegations are evaluated fairly, confidentially, and without prejudice.

Authors, reviewers, or editors may be asked to provide:

  • written explanations;
  • original research data;
  • ethical approval documents;
  • informed consent records;
  • authorship confirmations;
  • copyright permissions;
  • other relevant supporting evidence.

Where serious misconduct is reasonably suspected, the journal may refer the matter to the relevant institution, research funder, ethics committee, regulatory body, or another competent authority.

18. Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, and other interested parties may submit complaints concerning:

  • editorial procedures;
  • ethical concerns;
  • reviewer conduct;
  • conflicts of interest;
  • published content;
  • alleged misconduct;
  • procedural irregularities;
  • copyright or licensing concerns.

Complaints must be submitted in writing and supported by relevant information or evidence.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they believe that:

  • a significant factual or procedural error occurred;
  • the reviewers or editors misunderstood a material part of the manuscript;
  • a conflict of interest affected the decision;
  • the journal’s stated procedures were not followed.

An appeal must provide a detailed academic and procedural justification. Mere disagreement with the editorial decision is not sufficient.

Where possible, an appeal is reviewed by an editor who was not directly responsible for the original decision. The outcome of the appeal is final.

19. Ethical and Licensing Standards

The journal’s publication ethics and licensing policies have been developed with reference to:

  • the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and Guidance;
  • COPE Retraction Guidelines;
  • the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing;
  • the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License;
  • internationally recognised ethical standards for research involving human participants and animals.

 

Further information is available at:

https://publicationethics.org/