Guidelines on Ethics and Scientific Integrity

Scientific integrity is essential for the advancement of knowledge and the credibility of research. This set of guidelines, based on editorial policies (menu) and the guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), provides fundamental directions to ensure ethics and transparency at all stages of research and publication.

Authorship and Contributions

Authorship Criteria: All authors of a work must have significantly contributed to the development, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the research. Including authors who do not meet these criteria or excluding contributors constitutes scientific misconduct.
Order of Authorship: The sequence of authors should reflect the level of contribution of each, unless there is a justified prior agreement.
Final Approval: All authors must review and approve the final version of the manuscript before submission.

Originality and Plagiarism

Originality: Submitted works must be original and must not contain excerpts copied from other publications without proper citation.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable, including copying texts, ideas, data, or structures without appropriate credit to the original author. Plagiarism detection tools may be used to ensure the originality of manuscripts.
Self-Plagiarism: Republishing one’s own work without proper citation or justification is also considered misconduct.

Conflicts of Interest

Disclosure: All authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest, such as funding, institutional affiliations, or personal relationships that may influence the research or its interpretation.
Transparency: The absence of conflicts of interest must be explicitly stated.

Data Manipulation and Fabrication of Results

Data Integrity: The data presented must be real, accurate, and obtained ethically. Fabrication, falsification, or manipulation of data constitutes serious violations of scientific integrity.
Reproducibility: Authors must be prepared to provide access to raw data and methods used, whenever requested, to allow verification and replication of results.

Peer Review and Confidentiality

Impartiality: Reviewers must evaluate manuscripts objectively, based solely on the scientific merit of the work.
Confidentiality: Manuscripts under review are confidential and should not be shared or discussed with third parties without the editor's authorization.
Conflict of Interest for Reviewers: Reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest that may compromise their impartiality.

Ethics in Research Involving Humans and Animals

Ethical Approval: Research involving humans or animals must be approved by an ethics committee, following international guidelines such as the Declaration of Helsinki (for humans) or ARRIVE (for animals).
Informed Consent: In studies involving humans, participants must provide written informed consent.

Retractions and Corrections

Errors and Inconsistencies: If errors or inconsistencies are identified after publication, authors must immediately notify the editor and cooperate to publish a correction or retraction as necessary.
Scientific Misconduct: Proven cases of misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, or improper authorship, may result in the retraction of the article.

Responsibilities of Editors

Impartiality: Editors must ensure that manuscripts are evaluated fairly and impartially, regardless of gender, nationality, institutional affiliation, or other factors irrelevant to scientific merit.
Transparency: Editors must follow clear and transparent procedures for the evaluation and publication of manuscripts.
Protection for Whistleblowers: Reports of scientific misconduct must be treated seriously and confidentially, ensuring the protection of whistleblowers.

Education and Awareness

Training: Institutions and journals should provide training on ethics and scientific integrity for researchers, reviewers, and editors.
Culture of Integrity: Fostering a culture of scientific integrity is crucial in preventing misconduct and reinforcing trust in research.