Editorial Policies

Editorial Policies

Other Resources

These Editorial Policies should be read in conjunction with our:

• Instructions to authors
• Open access policy
• Peer-review process

Overarching Principles

Premier Science subscribes to the following princples which help guide and shape our policies and behaviour across the board:

1. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing – version 4 published 15th September 2022 (these guidelines are jointly developed by The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
2. WAME Professionalism Code of Conduct
3. COPE Guidelines
4. ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals

Research Ethics

Work on human beings that is submitted to our journals should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki. These recommendations guide physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects and have been adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly (WMA), Helsinki, Finland, June 1964, amended by the: 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975,
35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983
41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989
48th WMA General Assembly, Somerset West, Republic of South Africa, October 1996
52nd WMA General Assembly, Edinburgh, Scotland, October 2000
53rd WMA General Assembly, Washington DC, USA, October 2002 (Note of Clarification added)
55th WMA General Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 2004 (Note of Clarification added)
59th WMA General Assembly, Seoul, Republic of Korea, October 2008
64th WMA General Assembly, Fortaleza, Brazil, October 2013
and by the 75^th WMA General Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, October 2024

When reporting experiments on human individuals, we request that authors indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki 1964, as revised in 2024.

Informed Consent and Privacy Policy

Protection of human individuals in research: Documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (Institutional Review Board or Ethics committee) is required for all studies (prospective or retrospective) involving people, medical records, and/or human tissues.

The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed consent to the work.  We request that the right to privacy of patients is respected and that informed consent is obtained. Patients and volunteers names, initials, hospital numbers and other identifiable information should not be used/disclosed.

All participants in a research study need to have given their informed consent to participation. For case reports, patients need to give their permission for publication. If the patient is deceased, then the next of kin needs to provide such consent. Authors will be required to provide a statement confirming informed consent and we will publish this in their paper, if accepted. Any patient-identifiable information and photos must be masked or edited to prevent identification. If a facial photo is necessary to illustrate a particular procedure, specific consent from the patient/participant needs to be gained for its publication.

Animal Research Policy

All animal research needs to be conducted in line with institutionally approved protocols and accepted standards and reported in line with the ARRIVE Guidelines.

Protection of animals in research: When performing experiments on animals or animal tissues, we request that authors seek approval by an institutional ethics committee and strictly follow the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals. At time of manuscript submission, we request that authors provide information on the study approval by an institutional ethical committee. We can only consider manuscripts reporting on studies on animals or animal tissues if ethical committee approval of the study can be documented.

Registration of Research Policy

The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki 2024 states in article 35: ‘Every research study involving human subjects must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first subject’. Editors of Premier Science journals require that all types of research studies involving human participants should be registered prospectively. There are many places to register your research, and you can choose which is the most suitable for your needs:

• Clinicaltrials.gov – for all human studies – free
• ISRCTN.com – for all human studies – charge
• Prospero – for systematic reviews – free
• Researchregistry.com – for all human studies – charge

Once registered, you will need to submit your assigned Unique Identifying Number (UIN) from your registration body as a mandatory part of your submission.

Data Availability Policy

Manuscripts must contain a data availability statement on whether data is available or not, as outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors policy. A data availability plan must be included in a trial’s registration for those that begin enrolling participants on or after 1 January 2019. Authors of secondary analyses using shared data must reference the source of the data and attest that their use was in accordance with any terms agreed.

What should a data availability statement include?

Your data availability statement should describe how the data supporting the results reported in your paper can be accessed. 

• Include both original data generated in your research and any secondary data reuse that supports your results and analyses.
• If your data are in a repository, include hyperlinks and persistent identifiers (e.g. DOI or accession number) for the data where available.  
• If your data cannot be shared openly, for example to protect study participant privacy, then this should be explained. 

Citing data sources

You should cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely. This includes novel data shared alongside the publication and any secondary data sources. 

Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI), should be included in the reference list using the minimum information recommended by Crossref or DataCite (Dataset Creator, Dataset Title, Publisher [repository], Publication Year, Identifier [e.g. DOI, Handle or ARK]) and follow journal style.

Sample Data Availability Statements

Below is a list of standardised, suggested text for the statements that will appear in the “Data Availability Statement” of your article. This will form part of your submission’s metadata. These statements are samples and considered guidance to help authors. Specific situations may require alterations to them or a combination of the relevant parts e.g. when combining data sets from different sources (commercial and non-commercial). These sample statements are provided courtesy of Yale University’s Journal of Industrial Ecology (published by Wiley).

Statement number	Availability of data	Template for data availability statement
1	Data openly available in a public repository that issues datasets with DOIs	The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name e.g, “figshare”] at http://doi.org/%5Bdoi%5D, reference number [reference number].
2	Data openly available in a public repository that does not issue DOIs	The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [URL], reference number [reference number].
3	Data derived from public domain resources	The data that support the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI], reference number [reference number]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs].
4	Embargo on data due to commercial restrictions	The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following an embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialisation of research findings.
5	Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions	The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
6	Data subject to third party restrictions	The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party]. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party] or directly from the third party.
7	Data available on request from the authors	The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
8	Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated	Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
9	Author elects to not share data	Research data are not shared.
10	Data available in article supporting information	The data that supports the findings of this study are available in the supporting information of this article.
11	Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated, or the article describes entirely theoretical research	Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study

Publishing Ethics and Malpractice Policy

Premier Science journals adhere to the ethical principles outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines.

Premier Science journals subscribe to the COPE core practices:

• Allegations of misconduct
• Authorship and contributorship
• Complaints and appeals
• Conflicts of interest
• Data and reproducibility
• Ethical oversight
• Intellectual property
• Journal management
• Peer review processes
• Post-publication discussions
• Corrections and retractions

Duplicate Submission and Publication

Manuscripts containing original material are accepted for consideration if neither the article nor any part of its essential substance, tables, or figures has been or will be published or submitted elsewhere before appearing in Premier Science (in part or in full, in other words or in the same words, in English or in another language), and will not be submitted elsewhere unless rejected by the Journal or withdrawn by the author. (This restriction is exclusive of abstracts of the Work submitted for presentation to learned societies and scholarly forums.) Simultaneous submissions of the same article to multiple journals are prohibited. If an author violates this requirement or engages in similar misconduct, Premier Science’s Editorial Board may reject the manuscript or impose a moratorium on acceptance of new manuscripts from the author. If it deems the misconduct sufficiently serious, the Editorial Board can refer the matter for investigation to the author’s academic institution or hospital or to the appropriate state or local disciplinary body. A letter of permission is required for any and all material that has been published previously or is “in press” by another journal. It is the responsibility of the author to request permission from the publisher for any material that is being reproduced. This requirement applies to text, illustrations, and tables. These permissions must be supplied to PREMIER SCIENCE upon submission of the article, along with ample acknowledgement of the original source of the materials in the legend and/or text.

To reiterate, any previously published material (including material published in foreign-language, open access, or e-journals) that is included in a submission to Premier Science needs to:

a) Clearly reference the original publication of the previously published material.

b) Be accompanied by a letter of permission from the copyright holder of the material. Any fee associated with permission to reuse previously published material is the responsibility of the author of the manuscript.

Copyright and intellectual property

All authors are required to agree to our open access policy when submitting their work to Premier Science, and agreeing to this policy, the submitting author agrees on behalf of all authors that:

• the work is original, has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere; and
• the author has obtained permission to use any material which has been sourced from third parties (eg illustrations, photographs, charts or maps), and the terms granted agree with our requirements (whether open access or not).

If an author submits an article to Premier Science that contains material to which he or she holds the copyright (figures, material from articles published on open-access or e-journals, and so on), he or she needs to clearly indicate that he or she holds the copyright and provide Premier Science with written permission to use the previously copyrighted material. Authors retain copyright of all material published in Premier Science. All permission statements allowing Premier Science to publish previously published or copyrighted material (including but not limited to text, illustrations, photographs, charts or maps) must extend to all print and digital media (so that material can be both printed and placed on the Journal’s website) and must not include any time limitations.

Authors submitting to Premier Science journals are opting for open access publication of their work under a CC-BY licence, which allows redistribution and reuse, with attribution to the authors.

Plagiarism and Fabrication

Plagiarism is when an author passes off the work of someone else as his or her own. This can also include self-plagiarism, which happens when an author reuses portions of his or her previously published work without the proper references. Manuscripts containing plagiarized content will not be considered for publication in Premier Science. All authors need to take responsibility for their manuscripts. If your name is on a manuscript, make sure all of the material in the paper either is original or is properly cited and has proper permission to be reproduced. If you have a question about the originality of any part of a manuscript, verify it with your co-authors. Senior authors should pay special attention to what the junior authors are doing and where they are sending their manuscripts.

All articles submitted to Premier Science will have a plagiarism check performed via iThenticate from our partners at turnitin. The scheduled maintenance and operational status of such systems is available here.
iThenticate helps to check high-stakes writing for potential misconduct through a series of processes and looks for:

• Highlighting collusion between authors
• Identifying AI-generated writing
• Surfacing text manipulations
• Categorising and excluding similarity matches

If you realize you have made an error of dual publication or plagiarism inadvertently, proactively contact the editorial office. It is much better to come forward of your own volition than to have an accusation made against you.

If Premier Science learns of a case of plagiarism after publication, Premier Science will conduct an investigation. If plagiarism is found, the author, the author’s institution and funding agencies, and the original publication will be notified. A statement noting the plagiarism, providing a reference to the plagiarized material, and linking to the original to the original paper may follow. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may also be formally retracted.

Paper mills

Papers mills are fraudulent organisations that sell fake or fabricated research papers to authors who wish to publish them for career advancement. At Premier Science we screen every submitted paper using Clear Skies Papermill alarm – the first service dedicated to detecting organised research fraud. The Papermill Alarm uses a broad range of innovative methods and unique data including; artificial intelligence (AI), large language models (LLMs), network analysis and more to find signals consistent with organised research fraud. This integration is seamless within the eWorkflow manuscript submission system that Premier Science uses.

Citation checking

We use Crossref’s Simple Text Query service to check DOIs for all references listed in manuscripts we go on to publish.

We use Veracity by Grounded AI to assess and fact check citations in every submitted manuscript. Veracity uses artificial intelligence to enhance our peer-review process:

1. Verifying claims and citations within academic content.
2. Ensuring claims are backed by credible sources.
3. Flagging common errors related to citations and interpretations.

Image Integrity Policy

Illustrations, figures, and tables should be labelled clearly, arranged symmetrically, in either “portrait” or “landscape” orientation, and numbered sequentially in the text. Photographs should be identical in terms of size, position, and lighting. Figures must be accompanied by legends attached at the end of the manuscript.

Graphics altering programs can be used to assemble multi-panel images, clean up dust specs from scanning in originals, and cropping. However, these programs should not be used improperly to attempt to modify results. Editors will be looking for signs of image manipulation during their review of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest and Sources of Funding Policy

All conflicts of interest and sources of funds supporting the work and a statement of financial interest, if any, must be included for each author of a manuscript, along with a list of all products, devices, drugs, etc. used in the manuscript. All manuscripts must have this information. Each author is required at the time of submission to disclose any commercial associations or financial disclosures that might pose or create a conflict of interest with information presented in any submitted manuscript. Such associations include any of the following: consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, patent licensing arrangements, payments for conduction or publicising a study described in the manuscript, royalty recipient, grant recipient, employee, board member and review panel member.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Artificial Intelligence (AI) authoring tools (generative AI) do not meet the requirements for Authorship as recommended by the ICMJE. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.

Content should not be created purely using a chatbot, language model, or similar tools and they cannot be authors. However, content can be checked for spelling, grammar, syntax, language using such tools/models. Such use should be declared in your cover letter and acknowledgements.

Expressions of Concern Policy

According to COPE, expressions of concern are:

Expressions of concern are notices issued by journals to highlight potential issues with a publication, often related to misconduct or unreliable findings, or if there are ongoing investigations which may take time. There are currently varying practices among journals. Journals face challenges in determining when to publish expressions of concern, especially if those concerns later prove invalid. Premature notices may unfairly affect authors, particularly when investigations are confidential.

Where a reader identifies significant errors in an article, they should raise these to the Editor-in-Chief of the relevant journal by email. They may be invited to submit a formal letter to the editor, which can be published in the journal with the authors of the original article being invited to respond and potentially having their response published in the journal as well.  Where relevant, COPE guidelines will be followed depending on the nature of the concern.

Article Withdrawal Policy

Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be “Withdrawn” from the online platform. Articles cannot be withdrawn at the author’s discretion once accepted, published in press or in final form.

Correction Policy

Premier Science journals take full responsibility to correct errors as they occur. Content that is published online or in an issue is considered the final published record and must be preserved; therefore, all changes to articles must be made as a formal correction. Corrections will be published online and in the next available issue and will be bi-directionally linked to the original article..

Corrections will only be reviewed and considered if they affect the publication record (including indexing), the scientific integrity of the paper, or if they significantly affect the reputation of the authors or of Premier Science Corrections that do not markedly affect the outcomes of a paper may not be approved (ie, a spelling or grammar error).

An “erratum,” indicates when the mistake originates from the author. An erratum is used to simply correct a small but important mistake or omission that does not alter the conclusion of the paper. The erratum is a result of an honest error, but it does not excuse or invite post-publication corrections because not all corrections will be considered if they are not of sufficient importance. For example, the misspelling of an insignificant word or correcting an error in a reference list does not count.

The journal should be notified of any important corrections as quickly as possible so an erratum can be prepared and published soon after the original publication date. Common errors, whether introduced by authors or during typesetting, include mistakes in numbers in a table or labelling of an illustration legend, reagent and drug concentrations or other values such as parameter ranges used in grouping of results or patients in arms of a clinical trial, and missing authors. Author names are sometimes corrected, but not to make them consistent with how that author has been cited previously on PubMed or other indices. The latter can be avoided if each author takes responsibility for checking how his or her name appears on the title page of the submitted paper.

Check before submitting how the journal displays authors’ names so those working in journal production can readily identify first and last names. Authors sometimes approach the publisher for a correction because their last and first names have been reversed in the listing of an issue on a website or in a database such as PubMed. This may not need an erratum because it could be a result of how the information has been labelled electronically—resupply of a correctly labelled metadata to the indexers may be all that is needed and will be prompted by author contact.

More significant and comprehensive changes may warrant publication of a “letter to the editor” that explains the impact on the message of the paper in more detail, although sometimes this can be incorporated into an errata note.

A “corrigendum” is where the publisher has made an error and corrects it in a subsequent notice published in the journal.

Retraction Policy

Retractions will be considered if results are invalid or ethical guidelines have been violated (i.e. applicable cases of plagiarism or ghostwriting). All co-authors must sign a retraction detailing the error and how the conclusions were affected. Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct serious errors in submission or publication.

All decisions about corrections or retractions are made by the Editor. Author consultation may be required. In situations where co-authors disagree about a correction, the Editors will consult with independent peer-reviewers before applying the appropriate correction. The dissenting author(s) position will be noted on the correction.

The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this best practice has been adopted:

• A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
• In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
• The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
• The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”
• The HTML version of the document is removed.

Article Replacement Policy

In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.

Post-publication discussions

Authors or readers who wish to comment on a particular article or engage in discussion with the author can do so by submitting a letter to the Editor or directly by emailing the author.

How we will handle complaints and appeals

All complaints and appeals need to be made in writing (via email) to the Publisher or Editor-in-Chief. They will handle this in line with COPE Guidelines.

Our commitment to research integrity

All papers submitted to Premier Science go through the following research integrity stack as standard.

Complaints policy

Premier Science is committed to providing due process with fair and balanced consideration of any concerns raised about our publications and editorial processes. All appeals about editorial decisions, processes, correction requests or our handling of any issues raised to us should be emailed in the first instance using our contact us form.

When we receive a complaint, a senior member of the relevant team will review the issue and decide whether any feedback or intervention is needed. We will in the first instance, acknowledge receipt of the complaint. We will then update the complainant when we have concluded our review process but we may not disclose details about our assessment and actions taken to address any issues.

We will conduct a single review only for any complaint, and we have the sole discretion to make decisions in response to them. At times, your complaint may be best directed to a particular author, editor or institution. The complaints process should not be used as a tool to overturn an editorial decision.