Publication Ethics

Publication ethics and malpractice statement
Publication ethics and malpractice statements define the policies and practices that uphold the highest standards in scholarly publishing. All participants—authors, reviewers, and editors—must agree to clear expectations of ethical conduct. Our guidelines draw heavily on COPE’s Core Practices and Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics Resource Kit.

Three key roles
In addition to our Minds Europe Publishing team, three responsibilities shape manuscript handling:

1. Author role

• Reporting standards
  Authors must present an accurate, objective account of original research, including clear discussion of its significance. Data should be reported faithfully and with sufficient detail and references to allow replication. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are strictly prohibited.
• Originality and plagiarism
  Manuscripts must cite all sources—text, figures, and tables—both from others and from the authors’ prior work. Any reuse of eight or more consecutive words without quotation marks and proper citation constitutes plagiarism (including self-plagiarism).
• Provenance and double submission
  Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously is unethical, as it wastes peer‐review resources. Authors must confirm that their work is not under review elsewhere.
• Acknowledgment of sources
  All influential work must be cited appropriately.
• Authorship criteria
  Only those who made significant contributions to conception, design, execution, or interpretation should be listed as co-authors. Others may be acknowledged. The corresponding author ensures that all listed co-authors have approved the final version and its submission.
• Corresponding author responsibilities
  The corresponding author manages all communications throughout submission, peer review, and publication. Each paper may have only one corresponding author to ensure efficient communication.
• Conflict of interest disclosure
  Authors must declare any financial or other interests that could influence their work, and ensure that proposed reviewers have no conflicts of interest.
• Corrections and retractions
  If a significant error is discovered post-publication, authors must promptly notify the editor to arrange a correction or retraction.
• AI tools
  AI‐generated content (e.g., text, images, data analysis) must be fully disclosed in the manuscript’s Methods or an appropriate section. AI tools cannot be listed as authors, and authors remain fully responsible for all content.

2. Reviewer role

• Contribution to decisions
  Peer review helps editors decide on publication and offers authors constructive feedback. Reviewers evaluate a manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses and recommend one of: reject, major revisions, minor revisions, or accept.
• Promptness
  If unable to review in a timely manner or unqualified, reviewers should decline immediately.
• Confidentiality and objectivity
  Review materials are confidential and may not be shared or cited. Reviews should focus on the work, not the author, and be supported by clear arguments.
• Citation recommendations
  Reviewers should alert editors to uncited but relevant work and to any substantial overlap with other publications.
• Conflict of interest
  Reviewers must decline manuscripts where a conflict—competitive, collaborative, or personal—exists.

3. Editor role

• Final decisions
  The Editor-in-Chief makes all publication decisions, guided by the journal’s policies and legal requirements (libel, copyright, plagiarism). They may consult other editors or reviewers as needed.
• Impartiality
  Manuscripts are evaluated solely on intellectual merit, regardless of authors’ personal characteristics or affiliations.
• Confidentiality
  Editorial staff may only share manuscript details with those involved in the review and publication process.

Conflict of interest
Unpublished ideas disclosed in a manuscript may not be used by editors without the author’s written consent.