The Editorial Board of the Journal adheres to the principles of academic integrity and publication ethics. In cases of serious violations of scientific or ethical standards, the Editorial Board may decide to retract (officially withdraw) a published article.
Grounds for retraction
A decision to retract may be made in the following cases:
- detection of plagiarism or incorrect text borrowings;
- falsification or fabrication of research results;
- significant errors in data or methodology that make the research results unreliable;
- re-publication of the same work in another publication without proper notification to the Editorial Board;
- improper authorship (inclusion of persons who did not make a scientific contribution, or exclusion of those who did);
- violation of ethical standards of research;
- identification of a conflict of interest that could have affected the research results.
Initiating the retraction procedure
The retraction procedure can be initiated by:
- the author or authors of the article;
- the Editorial Board of the Journal;
- reviewers;
- institutions or organizations to which the authors belong;
- readers or other representatives of the scientific community.
Review procedure
The Editorial Board verifies the information received, analyzes the submitted materials and, if necessary, contacts the authors of the article for explanations.
Based on the results of the review, the Editorial Board may make one of the following decisions:
- leave the article unchanged;
- publish corrections or clarifications;
- withdraw (retract) the article.
Publication of information on the retraction
In the event of a decision to retract:
- the article is not removed from the Journal archive;
- a notice of its retraction is placed on the article’s website;
- the PDF file of the article contains a clear indication of the retraction.
The retraction notice must include the reason for the retraction of the article and the date of the relevant decision.
Principles of Transparency
The Editorial Board of the Journal ensures transparency of the retraction procedure and informs the scientific community about cases of retraction of publications.
All decisions on retraction are made in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).