Publication Ethics Statement

The formal component in publishing a research paper in a peer reviewed journal and an integral part during the submission process of a manuscript is ethical declaration. Any type of article submitted to Global Sustainability Challenges must provide a full ethics statement that confirms that proper consideration has been given to any ethics issues raised. Ethical procedures are the evidence for the quality and impact of the research work of its authors as well as their institutions. All parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher should be involved in this kind of scientific method.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in Global Sustainability Challenges need to take into consideration some important aspects of authorship and assure that following is fulfilled:

• The manuscript is original author’s work, which has not been previously published elsewhere.
• Quality and integrity of the research as well as the significance of scientific findings should be accurately presented including an objective discussion.
• The manuscript should not be simultaneously submitted to another journal.
• The results are appropriately placed in the context of prior and existing research.
• Submitting work that is a translation of a publication from another language is not tolerated.
• Methods and data analysis used in the research should be clearly explained, in order to have impact on the scientific community.
• Authors should ensure that data or codes that have been used in research are either publicly available or archived for a reasonable time after publication, in case of their reusability.
• All co-authors have substantially contributed to the publication and take full responsibility for their part of involvement. Prior to paper submission, there should be approved no conflict of interests among involved parties.
• If authors discover some errors or inaccuracy in their peer-reviewed or published article, they are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. Depending on the nature of the error, this could lead to a correction or retraction of the article.
• Correct citation should be provided for all used sources. Literally copied text must be put under quotation marks and referenced, while for using of previously published figures, images, tables or datasets, authors should hold a statement of permission from the copyright holder.

• Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.  

For all articles published in Global Sustainability Challenges, copyright is retained by the authors. As an open access journal, all published articles are freely available to scientific community. Depending on the quality of the work or popularity of the research area, these conditions ensure that the authors receive proper credit for their work.

Plagiarism is not acceptable in Global Sustainability Challenges and editorial board will use the originality detection software iThenticate to verify originality of the manuscript.

Plagiarism refers to literal copying a substantial part of a work of another author without permission and acknowledgment of the original source.

To avoid plagiarism, authors should quote text used from another source and properly cite it. Usage of ideas, images or data from another or even your own publications must be explicitly cited. Image manipulation or adjustment in any way (enhancement or removing features from the original image) falls also under the violation of the Ethical Statement rules. When using an image from another source, authors should include source information to the bottom of the digital image, giving attribution to image creators in citations.

If reviewer discovers any potential ethical issue in the paper, including any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and other publication, he/she is obliged to inform editorial board about it.

Editors of the journal have responsibilities that include the vetting and reviewing of articles submitted by authors. They should know a lot about publishing ethics and ethics misconduct. If any questions arise with the proposed approach to ethics issues, or evidence of misconduct is found, editors should make inquiries of the authors and/or their institutions. Appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication. Therefore, authors should be aware and follow with the Ethical Statement rules when publishing in our journal.