Publication Ethics

In order to ensure high ethical standards in the publishing process, the Editorial Board of “Social Inequalities and Economic Growth” follows the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All parties involved in the publication process (journal editors, authors, reviewers) shall become familiar with the standards of ethical behaviour.

Obligations of Authors:

1. Submission standards, originality and plagiarism: The papers submitted for publication in the journal must be original works that do not infringe on any third-party rights, have not been published yet (also in another language version) and have not been submitted to any other publisher. Please make sure that the names of the authors of and/or the passages from the cited works are properly mentioned or quoted. Any conduct in violation of the above is unethical and prohibited.
2. Authorship: Authorship should be limited to those who substantially contributed to the research. Before submitting a paper to the Editorial Board, make sure that all authors have been listed and have approved the final version of the text. Ghost-writing and guest authorship are considered as scientific misconduct and as such as violations of the principles of ethics. Authors are obligated to disclose the contribution of particular individuals in the creation of the paper. A declaration available on the journal’s website is submitted for that purpose.
3. Disclosure and conflict of interest: Authors should reveal all sources of project funding in their work, the contribution of scientific research institutions, associations and other entities, as well as any relevant conflicts of interest that may affect the results or interpretation of the paper. The authors include such information in the declaration available on the journal’s website.
4. Access to data and retention of data: Authors should be ready to provide access to unprocessed data related to the paper in the period from paper submission for editing, for at least one year after its publication date.
5. Mistakes detected after submission of paper: Where authors discover a mistake or inconsistency in the text after submitting the article, they are obligated to promptly inform the Editorial Board about this.

Any violations of the above principles of ethics give rise to paper rejection.

Obligations of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board:

1. Responsibility for published papers: The Editor-in-Chief must follow the applicable laws regarding defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief is also responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published. A decision to publish a paper is based on reviews and opinions of representatives of the Editorial Board. The decision to publish also depends on the risk of infringement of copyright and other intellectual property rights, the risk of plagiarism or auto-plagiarism and on doubts as to article authorship or co-authorship.
2. Impartiality: The decision-making process for accepting or rejecting a scientific paper is impartial. The eligibility of a paper for publishing depends on its ingenuity, scientific quality and consistency with the journal’s range of interest rather than the origin, nationality, ethnicity, political views, gender, race or religion of the author.
3. Confidentiality: The paper evaluation process is confidential. The Editorial Team does not disclose authors’ details to reviewers or reviewers’ details to authors. No information obtained in the process of publication evaluation and no rejected articles or their parts may be used by editorial team members or reviewers in their own studies without the author’s explicit consent given in writing.
4. Conflict of interests prevention: The editorial team prevents conflicts of interest. It does not appoint as a reviewer anyone who remains in a direct reporting line or in any other direct personal relationship with text authors.

Obligations of Reviewers:

1. Objectivity: A reviewer must provide objective evaluation of the content of the paper to increase its scientific value. Personal criticism of the author is considered inappropriate. Reviewers should express their opinions in a clear manner and support them with proper arguments.
2. Confidentiality: All reviews are anonymous. The Editorial Board does not share the details of authors with reviewers. Reviewers must treat the papers they are reviewing as confidential – they must not share them with any third parties or discuss them with anyone except the Editorial Board. They must also not take unethical advantage of the papers for personal gain.
3. Conflict of interests: Reviewers should not review papers where there is a conflict of interest arising from their relationship with the authors or the company or institution connected with the paper. A reviewer should immediately inform the secretary of the editorial team of any conflict of interest.
4. Verification of originality: A reviewer should inform the secretary of the editorial team of any suspected violation of ethical standards by the author of the text and of any substantial similarity to or partial overlapping of the content of the paper under review, with any other published paper the reviewer knows, as well as about any suspicion of plagiarism.
5. Timeliness: A reviewer who is unable to review a paper at all, or by deadline, should promptly inform the secretary of the editorial team about this.