Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Applies to: all 6 EP Journals Group journals.
Effective: 1 May 2026, version 1.0.

Journal of Natural Science Research and Review follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing jointly maintained by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME. This document describes how we apply those frameworks to the actual operation of Journal of Natural Science Research and Review.

1. Editor responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Natural Science Research and Review is responsible for the journal's editorial decisions, the quality of its published content, and the integrity of its peer-review process. Specifically:

  • The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on each submission. Section Editors handle screening, reviewer selection, and recommendations.
  • Editorial decisions are made on the scholarly merit of the manuscript only — the originality, methodological soundness, contribution to the field, and clarity of presentation. Author identity, institutional affiliation, country, and gender are not part of the decision.
  • The Editor-in-Chief recuses from any submission where they have a conflict of interest. Recusal is documented in the OJS record.
  • The Editor-in-Chief responds to allegations of misconduct involving the journal — whether against authors, reviewers, or members of the editorial board — following COPE flowcharts.
  • The Editor-in-Chief reviews any appeal of an editorial decision (see Peer Review Process — Appeals).

2. Author responsibilities

When you submit a manuscript to Journal of Natural Science Research and Review, you are confirming the following:

  • The manuscript reports your own original work. Where you have used others' ideas, words, figures, datasets, or software, these are properly cited. Where you have reused your own previously published work, you state this and identify the original publication.
  • The manuscript is not under simultaneous review at another journal.
  • All authors listed have made a substantive contribution to the work and approve of submission. Authors who contributed less than substantively are credited in the Acknowledgements rather than listed as authors. We use the CRediT taxonomy to disambiguate roles where needed.
  • Any sources of funding are declared.
  • Any conflict of interest (financial, personal, professional) that could be perceived as influencing the work is declared.
  • Where humans or animals were the subject of research, appropriate ethics approval was obtained and is documented in the manuscript. For human-participant research, informed consent procedures are described.
  • Where generative AI tools were used in the research or in preparing the manuscript, this is disclosed in the manuscript per our AI Policy. AI cannot be listed as an author.
  • Data and materials underlying the research will be made available where possible (see Reproducibility & Data Availability).

3. Reviewer responsibilities

Reviewers contribute their expertise to assess submissions. We ask reviewers to:

  • decline an invitation if they have a conflict of interest (recent co-authorship within 4 years, institutional affiliation overlap, ongoing collaboration, personal relationship, or competing research agenda)
  • complete the review within the agreed timeframe (typically 4 weeks) or notify the editor if they need an extension
  • provide an honest, constructive, evidence-based assessment, even when the recommendation is to reject
  • maintain manuscript confidentiality — reviewers must not share the manuscript, cite it, use it as the basis for their own work, or discuss it outside the review context until publication
  • not use generative AI to draft, summarize, or augment their review (see the AI Policy)
  • alert the editor to any concerns about misconduct, plagiarism, data fabrication, or duplicate submission detected during review

4. Misconduct: what we investigate and how

We investigate the following with COPE flowchart guidance:

Plagiarism. All submissions are screened with iThenticate (Crossref Similarity Check). Submissions with text similarity above 30% are typically desk-rejected. Submissions in the 18–30% range are reviewed by the Section Editor for context (extensive quotation, methods sections that are necessarily similar across studies, self-citation patterns) before any decision. After publication, allegations of plagiarism are investigated by the Editor-in-Chief; outcomes range from a published correction to retraction.

Duplicate submission and duplicate publication. Submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals simultaneously is not allowed. Where we detect this during review, the manuscript is rejected. Where it comes to light after publication, we follow COPE guidance and, in most cases, retract the Journal of Natural Science Research and Review version with a public retraction notice.

Data fabrication and falsification. Allegations of fabricated or falsified data trigger a formal investigation. We may ask the author to provide raw data, lab notebooks, or other primary records. We may consult the author's institution. Confirmed fabrication leads to retraction.

Image manipulation. We screen figures during copy-editing for signs of inappropriate manipulation (cloning, splicing, contrast adjustments that obscure original signal). Confirmed image manipulation that affects scientific conclusions leads to retraction.

Authorship disputes. Disputes about who should be listed as an author, in what order, or who should be acknowledged are addressed before publication where possible. Post-publication authorship disputes are referred to the authors' institution(s) for adjudication; the journal records the dispute and any resolution in a published correction note.

Undeclared conflicts of interest. Where a conflict of interest comes to light after publication that should have been declared at submission, we publish a correction. Severe undeclared conflicts that materially affect the article's findings can lead to retraction.

Misconduct by editors or reviewers. Allegations against editors or reviewers (breach of confidentiality, undeclared conflicts, retaliatory rejections) are investigated by the Editor-in-Chief, or — where the Editor-in-Chief is the subject of the allegation — by the Editorial Board. Outcomes can include removal from the editorial board.

5. Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions

We follow COPE guidance on retractions and corrections.

  • Corrections are issued for honest errors that do not affect the article's main findings. The original article remains accessible and is linked to the correction notice.
  • Expressions of concern are issued when there is credible reason to question an article's reliability but the investigation is incomplete or the issue cannot be definitively resolved. The original article remains accessible.
  • Retractions are issued for confirmed serious misconduct (plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication) or for honest errors that invalidate the article's findings. The retracted article remains accessible (we do not remove the file) but is clearly marked as retracted, with a retraction notice that explains the reason. The retraction notice has its own DOI.

6. Allegations and complaints

Allegations of research misconduct, allegations against editorial board members, and complaints about how a manuscript was handled all go to ethics@ep-journals.org.

We acknowledge receipt within 5 working days. Investigations follow COPE flowcharts. The complainant receives an outcome notification when the investigation closes. We do not publish identifying information about complainants without consent. Where an allegation involves an author or reviewer at an institution, we may liaise with the institution's research integrity office.

We take all allegations seriously and we treat all parties — authors, reviewers, editors, complainants — with procedural fairness. We do not tolerate retaliation against people who raise concerns in good faith.

7. Special issues

Special-issue articles are subject to the same misconduct rules as regular articles, with additional safeguards:

  • Where a guest editor is a co-author of an article in their own special issue, the article is reassigned to a non-guest editor for handling, and the guest editor is excluded from any decision about it.
  • Guest-editor-authored papers may not exceed 25% of the special-issue article count.
  • Guest editors' credentials and scope-relevance are checked by the Editor-in-Chief before the special issue is approved.

8. Reporting concerns

If you have a concern about Journal of Natural Science Research and Review, EP Journals Group, or any journal in the group, you can contact us at ethics@ep-journals.org. If you prefer to raise the issue externally, you can contact:

  • COPE: https://publicationethics.org/contact-cope
  • DOAJ helpdesk: helpdesk@doaj.org

We treat external referrals as legitimate paths and do not penalize anyone for using them.

Effective: 1 May 2026 (v1.0).
Editorial contact: editor@jnsrr.ep-journals.org
Ethics contact (publisher-level): ethics@ep-journals.org