Policies
The Journal of Scientific Culture and Research is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity in scholarly publishing. The journal adheres to the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expects all parties involved in the act of publishing — editors, reviewers, authors, and the publisher — to observe these standards. The policies below define the ethical obligations of each party and the procedures the journal follows when concerns arise.
Authors must ensure that their work is entirely original. Where the work or words of others have been used, this must be appropriately cited and quoted. Manuscripts must not be submitted to more than one journal simultaneously, and submissions must report original research that has not been published elsewhere in whole or in part.
All forms of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism and redundant or duplicate publication, are unacceptable. Submitted manuscripts are screened using recognized similarity-detection software, and any manuscript found to contain plagiarized material at any stage will be rejected or retracted.
Authorship must be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All who have made substantial contributions must be listed as co-authors, and all listed authors must have read and approved the final manuscript and agreed to its submission. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the author list is accurate and that no contributor has been inappropriately omitted or included. Any change to authorship after submission requires the written consent of all authors.
All authors must disclose any financial, personal, institutional, or other relationships that could be perceived to influence the work. All sources of financial support and the role of funders must be declared.
Authors may be required to provide the raw data, materials, and analytical methods underlying their findings to enable editorial review and reproducibility. Authors should retain such records for a reasonable period after publication and include a clear data-availability statement.
Any use of generative artificial intelligence or AI-assisted tools in the preparation of a manuscript must be transparently disclosed in a dedicated statement describing the tool used and its purpose. AI tools cannot be credited as authors, as they cannot assume responsibility for the content or its integrity.
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is their obligation to notify the editors promptly and to cooperate in issuing a correction or retraction.
Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on their intellectual merit, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, institutional affiliation, or political stance.
Editors must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and the publisher, as appropriate. Unpublished material must not be used by editors for their own research without the author's written consent.
Editors must recuse themselves from handling any manuscript in which they have a competing interest and arrange for an alternative editor to manage the submission.
Editors are responsible for deciding which submissions are published, guided by the journal's policies, the peer-review process, and legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Editors must take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised regarding a submitted or published manuscript.
Peer review assists editors in making decisions and helps authors improve their manuscripts. The journal operates a double-blind peer-review process.
Any reviewer who feels unqualified to assess a manuscript, or who knows that a prompt review is not possible, should notify the editor and decline the invitation.
Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Reviews must be conducted objectively and constructively. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited and alert the editor to any substantial similarity between the manuscript and other published work of which they are aware.
Reviewers must not consider manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest and must not use information obtained through peer review for personal advantage.