ARCC Journals are committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, editorial transparency and responsible scholarly publishing. Ethical conduct is fundamental to the creation, evaluation, dissemination and preservation of scientific knowledge. 

ARCC continually reviews and strengthens its policies to align with internationally recognised principles and best practices in scholarly publishing, research integrity and publication ethics. This wording does not represent a claim of membership, certification or formal listing by any external organisation. 

All participants in the publication process are expected to uphold honesty, transparency, accountability, fairness, confidentiality and scientific rigour. ARCC does not tolerate plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, authorship manipulation, peer review manipulation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest or other research and publication misconduct. 

This policy applies to all ARCC journals, article types, special issues, supplements and publication activities before submission, during editorial assessment and peer review, throughout production and after publication. 

Journal-specific instructions may supplement this policy but must not weaken its ethical requirements. Related ARCC policies should be interpreted consistently with this Publication Ethics Policy.

Research integrity requires honest, accurate, transparent and accountable conduct throughout the study and publication lifecycle. 

• Methods, data, analyses, findings and limitations must be reported accurately and completely. 

• Research records and supporting documentation must be retained for an appropriate period. 

• Significant errors must be reported and corrected promptly. 

• Research participants, animals, confidential information and sensitive data must be protected. 

• Authors must cooperate with reasonable editorial or institutional enquiries concerning the work. 

Editors must apply each journal's Aims and Scope consistently and should periodically review accepted and published content for scope drift. A manuscript must not be accepted solely because it is topical, commercially attractive or associated with a prominent author or institution.

Authorship is limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution, participated in drafting or critically revising the work, approved the final version and accepted accountability for it. 

Guest, gift and ghost authorship are prohibited. Contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged with their permission. 

Every manuscript must include an Author Contribution Statement. ARCC recommends the CRediT Contributor Role Taxonomy for transparent description of contributions. 

The corresponding author is responsible for: 

• Confirming that every author meets the criteria and approves the author list, order and manuscript. 

• Ensuring that affiliations, ORCID iDs and all required declarations are accurate. 

• Communicating decisions, revisions, proofs and post-publication matters to all authors. 

• Coordinating responses and obtaining co-author approval of material changes. 

Authorship Changes and Disputes 

Requests to add, remove or reorder authors after submission must include a written explanation and the written agreement of all affected authors. Changes after acceptance are permitted only in exceptional and fully documented circumstances. 

Where a dispute cannot be resolved, ARCC may pause processing and seek clarification from the relevant institution or another competent body. ARCC does not determine institutional contribution facts but remains responsible for deciding what editorial action is required. 

Authors must disclose substantive use of artificial intelligence or generative-AI tools in research, analysis, coding, translation, manuscript preparation, image creation or modification, or other content-generation activity. The disclosure should identify the tool and explain how it was used. 

AI systems cannot be listed as authors. Human authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, citations, permissions, confidentiality and the integrity of all submitted content. 

• AI must not be used to fabricate, falsify, plagiarise or misrepresent data, images, methods, results, approvals or citations. 

• AI-generated or AI-assisted output must be independently checked for errors, bias, unsupported claims and invented references. 

• Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, reports, correspondence or unpublished data to public or insecure AI systems. 

• Final peer review and editorial decisions must remain under accountable human control. 

Submitted work must be original and must acknowledge all sources, ideas, text, data, methods, images, figures and tables derived from previous work. 

Prohibited practices include: 

• Direct plagiarism and unattributed paraphrasing. 

• Translation plagiarism. 

• Unattributed reuse of ideas, data, images, figures or tables. 

• Misleading text recycling or substantial overlap without disclosure. 

• Image plagiarism and figure duplication. 

• AI-assisted plagiarism or alteration intended to conceal source material. 

ARCC may use similarity-detection software as a screening aid. A similarity percentage does not by itself establish plagiarism or determine rejection. Editors assess the source, context, amount, location, attribution and significance of the overlap. 

A manuscript must not be under consideration by more than one journal at the same time. Authors must disclose related manuscripts, prior publications, conference outputs and overlapping datasets. 

Duplicate or redundant publication without transparent justification and appropriate citation is prohibited. Legitimate secondary publication requires prior approval, transparent identification and compliance with applicable copyright and editorial requirements. 

ARCC may consider manuscripts previously posted on a recognised preprint server, provided the preprint is disclosed at submission and its DOI or permanent URL is supplied. A preprint must not be represented as the final peer-reviewed article.

Fabrication, falsification, selective reporting and misleading manipulation of data, images, graphs or figures are prohibited. 

• Authors must retain original data, images, protocols and analysis records for an appropriate period. 

• Permitted adjustments must be applied consistently and must not change scientific meaning. 

• Composite images and material adjustments must be disclosed where relevant. 

• Editors may request raw data, uncropped images, protocols, code or other supporting records before or after publication. 

Research data are not automatically the property of ARCC. Ownership, control and access may be subject to author, institution, participant, funder, contractual and legal rights. 

Every original research manuscript and other data-based submission must include a Data Availability Statement. 

• Data publicly available in a recognised repository, with a persistent identifier. 

• Data available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. 

• Data restricted because of ethical, privacy, legal, commercial, security or third-party requirements, with the restriction explained. 

• Data contained within the article and supplementary materials. 

• Not applicable because no new data were created or analysed. 

Authors are encouraged to use appropriate trusted repositories where ethical and legal conditions permit. Data sharing must not breach participant consent, privacy, confidentiality, law, security or legitimate third-party restrictions.

Research involving human participants, identifiable human data or human biological material must receive prior approval from an appropriate Institutional Review Board, Ethics Committee or equivalent authority, unless a documented exemption has been granted. 

Every applicable manuscript and published article must state: 

• The approving or exempting body. 

• The approval or reference number, where available. 

• The ethical and legal framework followed. 

• How informed consent was obtained or the basis for an approved waiver. 

• How participant privacy and confidentiality were protected. 

Written consent for publication is required where an individual may be identifiable. Supporting approval and consent documentation must be retained and provided to ARCC when requested.

Research involving animals must receive prior approval from an appropriate institutional animal ethics committee, animal care and use committee or equivalent authority and must comply with applicable welfare requirements. 

Every applicable manuscript and published article must state: 

• The approving body. 

• The approval or reference number, where available. 

• The relevant welfare standards, guidelines or legislation followed. 

• Measures taken to minimise pain, distress and unnecessary animal use. 

Authors must retain supporting approval records and provide them when requested. ARRIVE or another appropriate reporting guideline should be followed where applicable. 

Authors are responsible for obtaining and reporting any clinical-trial registration, biosafety or biosecurity approval, field-research permit, protected-species authorisation, genetic-resource or access-and-benefit-sharing approval, import or export licence, or other regulatory permission required for the work. 

Authors, reviewers, editors, editorial-board members and guest editors must disclose any financial, personal, professional, academic, institutional or other relationship that could affect, or reasonably be perceived to affect, their judgement. 

A Conflict of Interest or Competing Interests statement must appear in every published article. If no relevant conflict exists, the article should state: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” 

Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves where impartiality may be affected. A conflicted manuscript must be assigned to an independent editor. Failure to disclose a relevant conflict may result in correction, retraction or other proportionate action.

Authors must disclose all financial and material support, funding organisations, grant numbers and the role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing and the decision to submit. 

A Funding Statement must appear in every article. If no external funding was received, the article should state: “The authors received no external funding.” 

Sponsors and funders must not suppress accurate reporting or control editorial decisions.

The final HTML and PDF of every article should contain the following statements where applicable. A clear 'Not applicable', no-conflict or no-funding statement should be used rather than silent omission: 

• Author Contribution Statement. 

• Conflict of Interest or Competing Interests Statement. 

• Funding Statement. 

• Human or Animal Ethics Approval Statement. 

• Informed Consent and Consent for Publication Statements. 

• Data Availability Statement. 

• Clinical Trial Registration or other regulatory information. 

• AI or Generative-AI Use Disclosure. 

• Acknowledgements. 

ARCC Journals use a double-blind peer review model. Research manuscripts are normally evaluated by at least two independent external reviewers with relevant expertise. 

Any exceptional case proceeding with fewer than two external reports must be justified, documented and subject to additional editorial oversight. 

• Reviewers must maintain confidentiality and must not use unpublished information for personal or competitive advantage. 

• Reviewers must disclose conflicts and decline review where impartiality may be affected. 

• Reports must be objective, evidence-based, respectful and free from coercive citation or personal criticism. 

• Reviewer identities, numbers and review information displayed in article records must accurately reflect the completed process and the journal's confidentiality model. 

Editorial decisions must be based on scientific quality, originality, methodological rigour, relevance to scope, reporting quality and ethical compliance. 

Decisions must remain independent of APC payment, waiver or discount status, Open Access funding, sponsors, advertisers, institutions, publisher commercial interests, metrics, political pressure or personal influence. The acceptance decision must be recorded before an APC is requested. 

Editors must protect confidentiality, manage conflicts, recuse themselves where required, enforce scope and ethics requirements, provide reasons for decisions and remain responsible for corrections and other post-publication action. 

Editor, Board Member and Guest Editor Submissions 

Manuscripts authored by an Editor-in-Chief, handling editor, board member, guest editor or ARCC staff member must be handled independently. The author-editor must not select reviewers, access confidential reports, participate in discussion or influence the decision. 

Serving on more than one ARCC journal board is not automatically prohibited, but current disclosures, journal-specific confidentiality and case-specific recusal are required.

Special Issue submissions are subject to the same scope, peer review, ethics, authorship, data, conflict and editorial-independence requirements as regular submissions. 

• Guest editors must disclose relevant interests and must not handle their own work or submissions from close collaborators. 

• An independent ARCC editor must handle conflicted manuscripts. 

• Sponsors and partner organisations must not influence acceptance decisions. 

• ARCC retains oversight and responsibility for the integrity of the Special Issue and its published record. 

Misconduct may include: 

• Plagiarism, fabrication and falsification. 

• Duplicate or redundant publication. 

• Misleading image or figure manipulation. 

• Guest, gift or ghost authorship. 

• Citation manipulation. 

• Peer review manipulation or fabricated reviewer identities. 

• Paper-mill activity or fraudulent third-party manuscript services. 

• Undisclosed conflicts of interest. 

• Ethics, consent or regulatory misrepresentation. 

• AI-generated fraudulent content. 

• Breach of confidentiality or misuse of unpublished material. 

ARCC will assess credible concerns confidentially, fairly and proportionately. Raising a concern does not by itself establish misconduct. 

• ARCC may request explanations, raw data, original images, protocols, ethics records, consent documents or contribution information. 

• ARCC may seek independent expert assessment or pause review, production or publication. 

• Research-conduct allegations may be referred to the relevant institution, funder, regulator or another competent authority. 

• Institutions ordinarily conduct formal research investigations; ARCC remains responsible for the manuscript and published record. 

• The involved parties should be given a reasonable opportunity to respond. 

• Individuals raising concerns in good faith must not face retaliation. 

ARCC may publish a correction, corrigendum or erratum where a transparent amendment is required but the article's principal findings remain reliable. 

Notices should identify the article, explain the change, remain permanently linked and be reflected in relevant metadata where technically possible. Substantive changes must not be made silently.

An article may be retracted where: 

• Findings are unreliable because of major error, fabrication or falsification. 

• Plagiarism, duplicate publication or serious authorship misconduct is established. 

• Research was conducted or reported unethically. 

• Peer review or publication was manipulated. 

• A serious legal or rights violation makes the article unreliable or improper. 

Retraction notices should state the reason, identify who initiated the action, remain freely accessible and be permanently linked to the article. The article should normally remain available and clearly marked as retracted unless exceptional legal, privacy or safety circumstances require removal.

ARCC may issue an Expression of Concern when serious questions exist but an investigation is incomplete, delayed or inconclusive, or the evidence is not yet sufficient for correction or retraction. 

The notice should describe the concern without making unsupported allegations and should be updated when the matter is resolved.

Authors may request withdrawal before publication by providing a reason. ARCC may investigate suspected misconduct regardless of a withdrawal request and may retain an appropriate editorial record. 

Published content will be removed only in exceptional legal, privacy, safety or security circumstances. A removal notice should remain unless prohibited by law. 

A corrected or replacement version may be considered only after appropriate editorial assessment and peer review. The earlier record, notice and relationship between versions should remain transparent. Fees must not determine the ethical decision.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they believe a material error, procedural irregularity or significant misunderstanding affected the outcome. Appeals must be submitted in writing with an evidence-based explanation. 

Where feasible, an appeal should be reviewed by an editor who was not responsible for the original decision. Complaints concerning conduct, discrimination, conflicts, confidentiality, unreasonable delay or procedure must be assessed separately from scientific disagreement. 

Authors should follow the reporting guideline appropriate to the study design. Examples include CONSORT for randomised trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews, ARRIVE for animal research, STROBE for observational studies and CARE for case reports. 

Editors may request checklists, protocols, registrations, statistical review or other methodological information needed to assess transparent and reproducible reporting.

ARCC articles are published according to the Open Access and Copyright and Licensing policies. Authors retain copyright and grant ARCC the applicable non-exclusive publishing rights under the stated article licence. 

APC payment, waiver, discount or funding status does not influence peer review, acceptance, correction, retraction or publication priority. 

ARCC is committed to maintaining the long-term accessibility and integrity of published content. ARCC maintains journal archives and operational backups. 

Verified independent preservation services, journals covered and applicable date or volume ranges should be identified publicly once confirmed. ARCC will not claim third-party preservation without verified coverage.

Depending on the nature, evidence, seriousness and recurrence of a concern, ARCC may request clarification or correction, reject or withdraw a manuscript, publish a notice, notify an institution or authority, restrict future submissions or reviewer activity for a defined period, or take another proportionate action. 

Sanctions are not automatic and should not be based solely on a similarity percentage. Affected parties should receive a reasonable opportunity to respond, subject to confidentiality, legal and safety requirements.

• Author Guidelines. 

• Role of Authors. 

• Role of Editors. 

• Role of Reviewers. 

• Peer Review Process. 

• Open Access Policy. 

• Copyright and Licensing Policy. 

• Article Processing Charges Policy. 

• For Readers. 

Concerns regarding publication ethics, authorship, peer review, conflicts, misconduct, corrections, retractions, complaints or appeals should be submitted to the ARCC Editorial Office through the official contact channels on the ARCC Journals website. 

ARCC periodically reviews and updates this policy to reflect changes in editorial procedures, publication ethics, law, technology and internationally recognised scholarly publishing practices. The current online version represents the applicable policy. 

Last reviewed: June 2026