Code of ethics of publications

I. General

1. Regulation on publishing ethics for scientific articles in ‘Nuclear and Radiation Safety’ Journal (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Regulation’) was developed considering guidance (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines) of the Committee on Publication Ethics --- COPE --- https://publicationethics.org/ (hereinafter referred to as ‘COPE’).

2. The Research & Practice Quarterly Journal ‘Nuclear and Radiation Safety’ of the Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Journal’) strives to achieve high standards of publishing ethics.

3. The principles set forth in this Regulation are binding on all parties involved in the process of reviewing and publishing scientific articles in the Journal.

4. Adherence of all participants of the editorial and publishing process to ethics rules established for scientific publications helps to secure the author rights on intellectual property, promote the Journal appreciation by scientific community, and preclude unauthorised use of copyright materials for personal advantages.

II. Terms and definitions

Compilation is an article composed of materials previously published by other authors that has not been creatively processed by the author to introduce his own thinking. An article consisting of a set of references and citations, without the author's comments, evaluation or analysis, is also considered as compilation.

Original text is a genuine original text created as a result of independent creative activity, not borrowed or translated.

Plagiarism is the deliberate appropriation of authorship of someone else’s work of science, someone else’s ideas or inventions. Plagiarism is a breach of the Russian law.

Ethics of scientific publications is a system of norms of professional conduct in the relationships of authors, reviewers, editors, publishers, and readers involved in the process of production, dissemination and use of scientific publications.

III. Ethical principles that shall guide author of scientific publication

5. Author shall be aware of his prime responsibility for the novelty and fidelity of reported scientific research results. Author of an article shall provide correct results of a work or research, and shall be prepared to confirm, if necessary, that all data are actual and genuine. Obviously untrue or falsified statements are unacceptable.

6. Author shall participate in a peer review process. Author shall respond to reviewer’s questions and provide requested clarifications or additional information, as appropriate.

7. Author shall ensure that results of research presented in a submitted manuscript represent an independent and original work. Borrowed fragments and/or statements shall be provided with appropriate bibliographic references, with the obligatory indication of their authors and source. Excessive borrowing, as well as plagiarism in any form, including non-formalised citation, paraphrasing or assignment of rights to the results of other people's research, is unacceptable. Articles that are compilations from materials previously published by other authors are not accepted for publication unless the author has creatively processed the material and factored his own thinking into the paper.

   The Journal’s editorial team appraising an article may run it through anti-plagiarism (‘Antiplagiat’) system.

8. Author shall acknowledge the contribution of all persons who have influenced the course of the study or determined the nature of the reported scientific work. The article shall include bibliographic references to Russian-language and foreign publications that mattered during the study. All sources shall be disclosed.

9. Author shall submit to the Journal an original manuscript that has not been published elsewhere and has not been sent to other journals for consideration. Failure to comply with this principle is regarded as a violation of publication ethics and gives grounds for withdrawing the article from a peer review. The text of the article shall be original, which means that this is the first time that it will be published in a printed periodical. If some elements of the manuscript have already been published within another article, the author shall refer to the earlier work and point out the differences between the new work and the previous one. Word-for-word duplication or paraphrasing of author's own works is unacceptable; these may serve only as a basis for making novel conclusions.

10. Author shall provide a correct list of co-authors. All persons who have made an intellectual contribution to the article shall be listed as its co-authors. The author shall ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the article, and have agreed to its submission for publication. All authors mentioned in the article shall be accountable for the content of the article. It is unacceptable to mention as co-authors persons who have not been involved in the work.

11. If author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his own published work or the work being peer-reviewed, it is his obligation to promptly notify the Journal editorial team of this and make a joint decision to admit error and/or correct it as soon as possible.

IV. Ethical principles guiding peer reviewer activities

12. A peer review is meant to help author enhance article quality and help editor-in-chief make a decision on article publication.

13. The reviewer who does not believe himself to be an expert in the article theme area, or knows that he will not be able to submit the review report in time, shall notify the editor-in-chief of this and withdraw from the peer review process.

14. Neither author / co-author of the reviewed work nor scientific advisor of academic degree seeker can act as a reviewer in this case.

15. Any manuscript sent for a peer review is a confidential document. It cannot be discussed with other persons, except for those authorised by the editor-in-chief.

16. The reviewer shall be unbiased. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. The reviewer shall express his opinion clearly and definitely, and support it with arguments; shall write a peer review report that will help the author to improve the manuscript; suggest additional studies that can support the conclusions made in the reviewed manuscript and can reinforce or expand the article.

17. If possible, the reviewer shall identify published articles relevant to the article under review but not cited by the author. Any statement in the review that some observation, conclusion or argument mentioned in the reviewed article has already been made elsewhere shall be supported by the exact bibliographic reference. The reviewer shall also pay attention to significant similarity or partial coincidence of the article under review with any other already published work, and shall inform the editorial team of any errors found in the reviewed article.

18. The reviewer shall not use the information and ideas from the article submitted to him for a peer review for personal advantage, and shall respect the confidentiality of this information and ideas.

19. The reviewer shall not accept manuscript for a peer review if there is a conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors or institutions related to a manuscript under review.

20. The reviewer shall decline the invitation to make a peer review if he took part in the manuscript preparation or was engaged in the research discussed in the article.

21. The reviewer shall contact the editorial team if after submitting the peer review report he comes to know about any important fact that could affect his/her initial opinion and recommendations.

V. Professional ethics principles guiding editor-in-chief and editorial team activities

22. The Journal’s editor-in-chief makes decision on publishing an article based on the fidelity of the data and the scientific significance of the reported work, the importance, novelty and clarity of the article, and the relevance of the research to the Journal scope.

23. Editor-in-chief shall not have any conflict of interest in respect of the articles he rejects or accepts.

24. Editor-in-chief shall appraise manuscripts solely on their scientific content.

25. Members of editorial team shall not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for personal purposes or share it with third parties without the express of written consent by the author.

26. Editor-in-chief shall not approve publication of information if there is sufficient reason to believe it to be plagiarism.

27. Editor-in-chief may refuse to publish an article in the following cases:

• the article does not meet the Journal focus;
• there is a lot of information in the text that is identical or almost identical to a previous publication by the same author(s);
• a revised text reports previously published data and there is not enough novel information in the article to justify its publication considering earlier publication(s);
• there is falsification / fabrication of data;
• the version received by the editorial team after the manuscript has been revised by the authors two times still does not fully address (without proper justification) all comments made by the reviewer.

28. Editor-in-chief shall not leave unanswered claims concerning appraised manuscripts or published materials. In case of identifying a conflict situation, he shall take all necessary actions to redress the infringed rights, and, if errors are found, facilitate the publication of corrections, refutations or clarifications as appropriate, or to revoke the article.

29. Editor-in-chief shall promote the ethics duties of editorial team, reviewers and authors in accordance with the requirements of this Regulation.

30. Editor-in-chief shall maintain reviewer anonymity.

VI. Adherence to publishing ethics

31. The editorial team of the Journal shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent publication of papers featuring unethical scientific activity or scientific publication. If learning about a violation of the Journal publishing ethics for scientific publications, the editorial team shall follow the COPE guidance.

32. The editorial team of the Journal shall ensure that all published articles and overviews are peer reviewed by experts possessing proper competences. The editorial team may ask a reviewer to disclose any information about potential conflict of interest before authorising a peer review.

33. The editorial team of the Journal shall respect authors and reviewers right to confidentiality and privacy of personal information, and shall protect intellectual property and copyright.