Complaints consideration procedure
The journal intends to answer and solve all complaints promptly and in a constructive manner. Every particular complaint will be studied and analyzed in accordance with its nature and complexity and any decision reached will take into consideration the recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Suggestions or complaints are to be sent to the journal’s e-mail address. All messages will be considered on a period up to 30 working days. However, depending on the degree of complexity of the complaint, the complainant will be informed if additional time is required to conclude the inquiry of the case.
The complaint must be succinct, specific, and have enough data to demonstrate any possible fault to the publication ethics. If possible, complimentary documents as evidence of the particular request should also be provided.
Personal complaints against authors, editors, reviewers or the journal’s editorial board shall receive an answer that indicates the reasons why the complaint has been regarded as beyond the journal’s responsibility. In addition, the journal will refrain from undertaking the pertinent inquiry when complaints are addressed in an offensive, threatening or defamatory manner.
Procedure for withdrawing published papers
In some cases, the Editorial Board may decide to withdraw (retract) a paper. Reasons for potential retraction of a paper:
- there is clear evidence that the results are not reliable, regardless of whether they are the result of misconduct (e.g., fabricated data and image manipulation);
- the results of the study have been previously published elsewhere without proper citation, license or justification (e.g. in cases of redundant or duplicate publication);
- the research is plagiarized;
- there is evidence of fraudulent authorship;
- the peer review process has been proven to have been compromised;
- there is evidence of unethical research and violation of professional ethical codes.
Retraction requests can be submitted by authors, editors or third parties. The editorial board conducts an investigation with the involvement of the authors and, if necessary, external experts. The decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or his/her deputy. After the decision to retract the article is made:
- the watermark "Retraction" will be added to the published version of the article;
- the title of the article will be "Retraction: [Title of the article]";
- a separate statement of retraction will be published under the title "Retraction: [Title of the article]".
The editors of the journal sign this message; the retraction statement will be numbered and have a DOI identifier.
In some cases, the authors of a scientific article that is subject to review by the journal may request the withdrawal of their manuscript. The request can be made only before the article is published. In order to withdraw a manuscript, the authors should send a letter to the journal's editorial board containing a clear and understandable explanation of the reasons for the withdrawal. The letter should be concise and signed by all authors of the article. The withdrawn manuscript will be completely removed from the publisher's database, but the copyright remains with the authors of the article.