Research misconduct policies

We strongly support upholding the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) ideals and are oppose any form ofresearch misconduct. A lot of focus is placed on making sure the papers are original and preventing plagiarism.Please review our Plagiarism statement for more information.

Norms for research misconduct:

1. Allegations regarding the authorship of contributions. According to our journal policy, all authors who have contributed to the manuscript must be listed in the Cover Letter form submitted with the manuscript. To be deemed an author, a person must be accountable for a specific aspect of the research, such as preparing the work, or making a unique addition to the idea, project, or research explanation. Any such contribution must be acknowledged in the final work form. However, a small contribution might not be counted as authorship. Authors and co-authors may designate someone as a contributor and acknowledge them in the paper’s acknowledgement section even if their contribution is small, their data is appropriate or they provide some other kind of assistance. As per our policy, authors and co-authors of submitted papers must complete the Cover Letter form to identify all contributors and affirm their approval for the paper’s publication.

2. Duplicate submission/publication. This refers to the practice of submitting or publishing essentially the same study in two journals, either simultaneously or years apart.

3. Redundant publication (known as “salami publishing”). It refers to the practice of submitting separate portions of one study to two or more journals, or disclosing results that have already been published elsewhere without the required citations, approval, or justification. The practice of “self-plagiarism” is also regarded as a form of redundant publication, where an author reuses or appropriates ideas from earlier works without properly attributing them. This behaviour could be inadvertent, and the information required to evaluate an author’s usage of previously published material is typically provided by the author’s disclosure of such use.

4. Citation manipulation. Citation manipulation refers to the following types of behaviour:

  • Excessive citation of an author’s research by the author (i.e., self-citation by authors) as a means solely of increasing the number of citations of the author’s work.
  • Excessive citation of articles from the journal in which the author is publishing a research article as a means solely of increasing the number of journal citations.
  • Excessive citation of the work of another author or journal, sometimes referred to as ‘honorary’ citations.

5. Data fabrication is the use of knowingly implausible data in the research process, the deliberate discovery of research results, the use of unreliable information in the process of data collection or data processing. It also includes referencing non-existent publications or distorting bibliographic information.

6. Falsification involves manipulating of research data by violating equipment parameters used in the process of conducting research, biased data correction during processing, setting individual data in the process of the experiment to obtain desired results.

Academic plagiarism applies to all types of sources, including texts, drawings, fragments, mathematical expressions and transformations, program codes, etc. Plagiarism sources can be published or unpublished books, articles, theses, manuscripts, etc.

The following main types of academic plagiarism are distinguished:

  • Verbatim borrowing of text fragments without designating them as quotations with reference to the source; in some cases, even the use of one word without reference to the source is considered incorrect, if this word is used in the unique meaning provided by this source.
  • Using facts, ideas, formulas of numerical values, etc. from a certain source without reference.
  • Paraphrasing the text of the source in a form close to the original text, or summarising ideas, interpretations or conclusions from a certain source without reference to this source.
  • Submitting as one’s own works such as dissertations, monographs, textbooks, articles, theses, reports, control, calculation, course, diploma and master’s theses, abstracts and other academic papers that were made to order by others, including works for which the real authors have given consent to such use.

Other types of research violations

In addition to plagiarism, there are a number of cases in which the action is recognised as research misconduct:

  • Reprinting significant portions of early publications, including translations, without proper acknowledgement or citation of the original.
  • Concealing (silencing) of research results.
  • Allowing sponsors to compromise the independence of the research process or the reporting of results in such a way as to formulate or disseminate a biased view of the research.
  • Unjustified expansion of the research bibliography.
  • Maliciously accusing the researcher of committing a misdemeanor (crime) or other violations.
  • Distorting of scientific achievements.
  • Exaggerating of the importance and practical significance of the results.
  • Delaying or unnecessarily complicating the work of other researchers (sabotage).
  • Abusing of official position to encourage the violation of research integrity.
  • Ignoring alleged violations of research integrity by other persons, or covering up a misdemeanor (crime) or other violations by institutions.
  • Creating or supporting journals that neglect research quality control (“predatory journals”).

Procedure for handling allegations of research misconduct

If ethical violations are detected during submission, review or publication of the manuscript, the editorial board applies the following procedure:

  • Informing all authors and/or reviewers about discovered facts of research violations, non-compliance with publication ethics and misconduct.
  • If a manuscript has not yet been published, authors may be asked to make changes to it (only applicable for minor research violations, such as excessive citations, failing to designate quotations, using data without reference, etc.). In other cases, the editorial board terminates the consideration and review of the manuscript.
  • If the facts of unethical behavior are discovered after manuscript publication, the editorial board publishes a correction, addition, editor’s note, or editorial expression of concern, depending on circumstances (for Correction policy, see here). The published article may also be retracted.
  • If the discovered facts of ethical violations on the part of the authors are significant, the editorial board reserves the right to inform the organisations where the authors work, the institutions that funded the research, or other research bodies.

You can learn more about the complaints procedure here.

In the event of a violation of the Research misconduct policy, such additional sanctions may be imposed:

  1. Immediate rejection of the manuscript and any subsequent manuscripts submitted to any AR&P journal.
  2. Prohibition on submission of manuscripts for consideration for 1–2 years.
  3. Prohibition on holding the position of editor and performing reviewer duties of any AR&P journal.