Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
The publication ethics policies of the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy have been developed in accordance with the guidelines and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal fully adheres to COPE's principles and ethical standards.
All individuals involved in the journal's publication process, including authors, the Editor-in-Chief, members of the Editorial Board, reviewers, editorial officers, and administrative staff, are expected to comply with these ethical principles. Any form of plagiarism or other unethical conduct will result in the immediate withdrawal of the manuscript from the peer-review process.
This statement sets out the duties and responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief, authors, Editorial Board members, and reviewers.
1. General Ethical Principles
1.1. Protection of Intellectual Property Rights
The journal is committed to protecting the intellectual property rights of authors by accurately acknowledging their contributions and ensuring that their moral rights are respected. It also takes measures to prevent the unauthorized publication or use of materials submitted to the journal by third parties. Manuscripts submitted to the journal remain confidential prior to publication and are accessible exclusively to authorized journal personnel.
1.2. Scientific, Specialized, and Impartial Peer Review
Decisions regarding the scientific merit of submitted manuscripts shall be made at all stages without discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion, political views, or ideological beliefs. All manuscripts are subject to a double-anonymous peer-review process, whereby the identities of authors are concealed from reviewers.
1.3. Confidentiality
The identities and personal information of authors shall remain strictly confidential throughout the editorial and peer-review processes and until publication. Access to author information and submitted manuscripts is restricted to authorized journal personnel.
Authors, reviewers, editors, and Editorial Board members are encouraged to consult the website of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for further information about publication ethics and the ethical standards governing scholarly journals.
2. Duties and Responsibilities of Authors
Manuscripts must be written exclusively in Persian and accompanied by an English abstract. Author affiliations must be clearly indicated, and the manuscript must adhere to proper grammatical standards and appropriate academic terminology.
By submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author confirms that the work has not been previously published elsewhere, except in the form of an abstract, as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis, and that it is not currently under consideration by another journal or being prepared for publication by another publisher.
The corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the manuscript and have authorized its submission for publication.
To support the integrity and sustainability of the peer-review system, authors are expected to participate in the peer-review process by reviewing manuscripts submitted by other researchers when invited.
For manuscripts involving an institutional affiliation, authors are responsible for obtaining any necessary institutional approval prior to submission.
By submitting a manuscript, authors agree to allow the journal to make editorial revisions where necessary to improve the manuscript's clarity and readability.
Authors must clearly identify all sources of financial support for the research and/or preparation of the manuscript and briefly describe the role of each funding organization or sponsor in the different stages of the work.
The Copyright Agreement and Declaration of Conflicts of Interest forms must be completed and signed by the relevant author(s). In cases of multiple authorship, all authors must sign the required forms before the manuscript is accepted for publication. These documents establish the necessary legal and ethical responsibilities concerning publication practices and the journal's confidentiality policies.
Under the terms of the open-access license, authors retain the copyright to their published work while granting others permission to download, reuse, reprint, distribute, and reproduce its content, provided that the original authors and source are properly acknowledged in all cases.
All co-authors agree to authorize the corresponding author to act as the primary contact with the editorial office and to review the final edited version of the manuscript prepared for publication.
If authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, they must promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief or publisher so that appropriate action can be taken to correct or retract the article.
All authors should be aware that manuscripts submitted to or published by the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy are subject to plagiarism screening using plagiarism-detection software (HamYab). Plagiarism constitutes a serious breach of publication ethics.
Authors must review the journal's final submission checklist before submitting their manuscripts.
Reference: COPE – International Standards for Authors
3. Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers are expected to assist the journal's editors in making informed decisions regarding the publication of submitted manuscripts.
Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of all manuscripts they are invited to evaluate.
Reviewers must submit their evaluations within the specified timeframe to assist editors in deciding whether a manuscript should be accepted for publication.
Reviewers must treat manuscripts received for peer review as confidential documents and must not use any information obtained through the review process for personal advantage.
Reviews and evaluations must be technical, professional, objective, and constructive.
Reviewers must decline to review manuscripts when a conflict of interest exists involving the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the work.
Reviewers must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could affect their impartiality.
Reference: COPE – Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
4. Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
Editors must have full authority and responsibility for accepting or rejecting submitted manuscripts.
Editors must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts throughout the review process and until their publication.
The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with Editorial Board members and reviewers, must make decisions regarding the publication or rejection of submitted manuscripts.
Editors must preserve the anonymity of reviewers throughout the peer-review process.
Editors must identify, disclose, and appropriately manage any potential conflicts of interest.
Editors must uphold academic integrity and strive to address the needs of both readers and authors.
Editors are responsible for investigating plagiarism and issues involving fabricated or falsified data. They must also be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies whenever necessary.
Editorial assessments must be based solely on the scholarly content and academic merit of submitted manuscripts.
Editors must not disclose information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, prospective reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by the Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board members in their own research without the author's explicit written consent.
Reference: COPE – Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors
5. Duties and Responsibilities of the Publisher
The Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy and its publisher undertake the following responsibilities:
To respect and uphold the editorial decisions made by the Editor-in-Chief regarding submitted manuscripts.
To ensure that decisions concerning manuscript submission and publication are based on professional and impartial judgment and are not influenced by commercial interests.
To safeguard the integrity of the academic and scholarly publication record.
To promote and monitor adherence to publication ethics by the Editor-in-Chief, associate editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, authors, and readers.
To continuously monitor submitted manuscripts for plagiarism and issues involving fabricated or falsified research data.
To remain committed to publishing corrections, clarifications, and retractions relating to its publications whenever necessary.
Reference: COPE – Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers
6. Principles of Transparency
6.1. Peer-Review Process
The Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy is an electronic, quarterly journal that operates a double-anonymous peer-review system. The peer-review process and all relevant policies and procedures are clearly described on the journal's website.
Reference: COPE – Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
6.2. Editorial Board
The Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy has an established Editorial Board comprising recognized experts in the subject areas covered by the journal. The full names and institutional affiliations of the journal's editors are provided on the journal's website.
6.3. Contact Information
The contact details of the Editorial Board and editorial office of the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy are provided on the journal's homepage.
6.4. Author Fees and Open Access
The journal operates under a fully open-access model. The full text of all published articles is freely available to anyone accessing the journal's website. Furthermore, authors are not charged any fees for manuscript submission, processing, or publication.
6.5. Copyright
The journal clearly specifies the copyright arrangements under which authors publish their work. Following acceptance of a manuscript, authors are required to complete the journal's Publication Agreement.
6.6. Identification and Handling of Allegations of Research Misconduct
The Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable measures to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts involving research misconduct, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, data fabrication, data falsification, and other forms of unethical research conduct.
6.7. Website
The journal's website (https://stpj.ir) is maintained with due attention to high ethical and professional standards.
6.8. Journal Name
The title of the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy is distinctive and sufficiently unique to avoid confusion with other scholarly journals.
6.9. Conflicts of Interest
Authors are required to disclose any potential or actual conflicts of interest when submitting their manuscripts to the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy by completing the relevant Conflict of Interest Declaration Form.
6.10. Publication Schedule
The journal's publication frequency and schedule are clearly specified. The journal is published quarterly.
6.11. Archiving
The journal clearly outlines its arrangements for electronic backup and the long-term preservation of its published content to ensure continued access to the scholarly record.
Reference: COPE – Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
7. Publication Misconduct
The following practices are considered violations of publication ethics:
7.1. Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the deliberate use of another person's ideas or original work while presenting them as one's own. Copying even a single sentence from another person's manuscript, or from one's own previously published work, without appropriate citation is considered plagiarism by the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy.
All manuscripts submitted to or published by the journal are subject to screening using plagiarism-detection software. Plagiarism is considered a serious violation of publication ethics. Similarity-detection services assist editors in assessing the originality of submitted manuscripts.
7.2. Data Fabrication and Falsification
Data fabrication occurs when a researcher has not actually conducted the reported study but instead invents data or results and records or reports fabricated information.
Data falsification occurs when a researcher has conducted the study but manipulates, alters, or omits data or research findings, thereby misrepresenting the results.
7.3. Simultaneous Submission
Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript, or a substantial portion of it, is submitted to a journal while it is already under consideration by another journal.
7.4. Duplicate Publication
Duplicate publication occurs when two or more articles share substantially identical hypotheses, data, discussions, or conclusions without appropriate cross-referencing or acknowledgment of the previously published work.
7.5. Redundant Publication
Redundant publication refers to the inappropriate fragmentation of research findings from a single study into multiple publications, often motivated by the desire to increase an individual's publication record.
7.6. Improper Authorship or Attribution
All listed authors must have made substantial scholarly contributions to the research reported in the manuscript and must approve all of its claims and content. All individuals who have made significant scientific contributions, including students and laboratory technicians, should be appropriately acknowledged or included as authors, where applicable.
7.7. Citation Manipulation
Citation manipulation involves the inclusion of excessive references in a submitted manuscript that do not contribute meaningfully to its scholarly content and are included solely to increase citations to a particular author's work or to articles published in a specific journal.
Such practices misrepresent the scholarly significance of the research and the journal in which it appears and are therefore considered a form of research misconduct.
7.8. Sanctions
When a documented violation of any of the above policies is identified, regardless of whether the misconduct occurred within this journal or elsewhere, the following sanctions may be imposed:
a) Immediate rejection of any manuscript found to violate publication ethics.
b) Immediate rejection of any manuscript submitted to any journal published by the same publisher by any of the authors involved in the misconduct.
c) A submission ban of at least 36 months shall be imposed on all authors involved in the violation. During this period, they will be prohibited from submitting new manuscripts to any other journal, whether individually or jointly with other authors.
d) All authors found responsible for violating publication ethics shall be prohibited from serving on the Editorial Board of any journal.
Reference: COPE – Flowcharts for Handling Publication Ethics Issues
8. Procedures for Handling Allegations of Misconduct
When the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy confirms a violation of publication ethics, the journal addresses the matter seriously and follows a specific standard procedure, as outlined below.
The first step is for the Editor-in-Chief to notify the journal's editorial office and provide copies of the relevant materials, together with a draft letter to the corresponding author requesting an explanation. The request must be made objectively and without prejudging the case.
If the author's explanation is deemed unsatisfactory and serious unethical conduct appears to have occurred, the matter will be referred through the editorial office to the relevant publication ethics committee. Following an investigation, the committee will determine whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions.
In cases involving less serious violations, the Editor-in-Chief, following the committee's recommendations, will issue a formal letter of reprimand to the author and remind them of the journal's publication policies. If the article has already been published, the editor may request that the author publish an apology or correction in the journal to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.
A formal warning will be issued to the corresponding author. Any manuscripts by the corresponding author or other authors involved in the misconduct that are currently under consideration by the journal will be immediately rejected.
Authors involved in misconduct will be prohibited from serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy or acting as reviewers for the journal. The journal reserves the right to take further action where necessary.
In particularly serious cases, the authors' affiliated institutions will be notified, and the authors will be prohibited from submitting manuscripts to the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy for a period of five years.
In cases of serious fraud resulting in article retraction, a formal retraction notice will be published in the journal and linked to the retracted article in its online version. The online article will also be clearly marked with the date of retraction.
Reference: COPE – Sharing of Information Among Editors-in-Chief
9. Ready to Submit Your Manuscript? Publication Ethics Checklist
Before submitting a manuscript to the Journal of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, authors should ensure that they have completed the following steps:
Read the journal's Instructions for Authors and carefully reviewed and followed all relevant requirements concerning datasets, ethical approval, and required declarations.
Ensured that the names of all authors are included both in the manuscript and in the online submission form.
Provided clear and complete citations for all sources and materials used in the manuscript.
Carefully checked the research data and included all supplementary materials required by the journal.
Disclosed any relevant competing interests to the journal.
Obtained written permission to reuse any figures, tables, or datasets that are not their own.
Ensured that the manuscript is submitted to only one journal at a time.
Finally, after submitting the manuscript, the corresponding author must inform all co-authors of the submission.