General Policy

Sustainability Science and Resources (SSR) is not yet a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), but we adhere to all guidelines issued by COPE. Our peer-review process follows COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. We have zero-tolerance against misconducts and all other violations of scholarly publication ethics. Authors and reviewers are strongly advised to refer to COPE’s guidelines here as we intend to join COPE membership at the earliest possible opportunity.

Open Access

All articles are published in full open access, freely and permanently available online without registration restrictions or subscription charges, immediately upon publication. At present, no article-processing charges (APCs) are applied, but they will be applied in the future. IFCC and MRA, with the supports of SDI, incur all the publishing costs. IFCC may provide a small honorarium to author(s) of articles published in this journal.  Authors are the copyright holders of articles published in Sustainability Science and Resources, but by publishing in this journal they have agreed to grant the right to use, reproduce and or disseminate their articles to any third party.

Peer Review

All submitted manuscripts will initially be checked by the Managing Editor to determine whether they follow the journal’s ethical policies, including those for human and animal experimentation, and whether they meet the standards of this journal. Manuscripts that do not satisfy this initial check will not proceed to the peer review stage and will be returned to the author(s). Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After this initial check, the Managing Editor will consult the Editor-in-Chief or relevant Editors to determine if the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. Once a manuscript passes this stage, it will be assigned to 1-2 independent experts for peer review. 

As the standard of this journal, a double-blind review is applied whereby both the reviewer(s) and the author(s) remain anonymous. However, a single-blind review might be implemented, for example in the case of invited authors, where the identity of the reviewer(s) is kept hidden from the author(s). Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with a written agreement from the reviewer(s). Authors will be allowed to nominate potential peer reviewers and or to name scholars whom they prefer not to be invited as peer reviewers; objective and sound arguments should be provided. Selection of peer reviewers, however, is the sole discretion of this journal’s Editors.

Competing Interests

All potential conflicts of interest that could inappropriately influence or bias the manuscript must be disclosed. For example, financial interests (e.g., employment, honoraria, and grants) and non-financial interests (e.g., professional relationships, affiliations, and personal beliefs). Authors should avoid sponsors that interfere with data access, analysis and interpretation, as well as preparation and publication of the manuscripts independently.

In the first two years of this journal’s publication, the number of articles submitted might fall below that needed to issue an edition of the journal. For this reason, editors are invited to publish their work (research, review, and commentary articles) in this journal, either individually or collaboratively with other author(s). All efforts will be made to minimize bias and conflict of interest, as well as to maintain transparency, fairness, and rigorousness in the peer review processes. The manuscript will be handled by another editor, who is not an author of the manuscript, and will be peer-reviewed independently. Editors publishing their work in this journal must declare their conflict of interest explicitly.

Inclusive Language

Use inclusive language in all parts of the manuscript, acknowledging diversity, respecting other groups of people, being sensitive to differences, and promoting equal opportunities. The manuscript must be free from bias, stereotypes, slangs, and assumptions about beliefs and culture. Avoid using singular nouns indicating gender (e.g., he, she) in the manuscripts.

English

Use appropriate scientific English in the manuscript. This journal accepts American or British English as long as consistent (not a mixture of both). All parts of the manuscript should be free from grammatical and spelling errors. Using professional English editing services or grammatical software before or during the publication processes might be helpful to improve the manuscript language.

Authorship

All authors must have substantial contributions to the manuscript submitted in this journal. For example, conceptualizing or designing the manuscript, analyzing or interpreting the data, and drafting or revising intellectual content. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship could be listed in the acknowledgements. All correspondences will be sent only to the corresponding author representing other authors. The list and order of authors should be considered and approved by all authors before submitting the manuscript. Any change of authorship must be approved by all authors and approved by the editor.

Reporting Standards

Research Articles should consist of Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussions, and Conclusions. However, there is no strict reporting standard for Review Articles and Commentaries.

Availability of Data and Materials

Author(s) must publish their experimental and research data as supplementary material to maintain data integrity, transparency and reproducibility. The data must be available and accessible during the peer review process in a common file format.

Citations

Citations must follow Harvard referencing style. Authors need to ensure that material taken from other sources is cited clearly and to avoid excessive self-citation. Copying references from other publications without reading the original cited work is prohibited. Advertisements should not be cited. Original wording from other sources must be in quotation marks with appropriate citation. All sources inspiring the design, structure and language of the manuscript must be explicitly cited.

Duplicate Publication

Duplicate publication is prohibited. For example, submitting and publishing the same study in multiple journals, reusing substantial parts of own published work, and only adding a small amount of new data to a previously published article. The duplicate publication will result in paper rejection or retraction.

Verification of Originality

To verify originality, all manuscript will be checked by the originality detection systems. Manuscript submitted in this journal must not be published previously or under publication processes in other journals.

Misconducts

Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices. Misconducts such as plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, and image manipulation will not be tolerated. These practices will result in paper rejection or retraction. Plagiarism is copying text, images, ideas, or data from another source, without appropriate citation. Data fabrication is constructing data that never occurred in real data gathering. Data falsification is manipulating research data to give a false impression. Image manipulation that could lead to misinterpretation of the original image is prohibited. However, it is allowed to technically improve images for readability.

Correction and Retraction

Suspicion of misconducts will be investigated by the journal and/or publisher. The authors will be contacted for clarification and addressing the issues. Depending on the investigation results, one of these actions might be implemented by the journal and/or publisher:

a.   Returning the manuscript to the author during the peer-review process.

b.   Rejecting the manuscript during the peer-review process.

c.   Placing correction with an explanation in the published article.

d.   Placing editorial concern with an explanation in the published article.

e.   Retracting the published article. In this case, the article will be watermarked “retracted” with an explanation, the author’s institution will be informed, and a notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system will be included.

Appeals and Complaints

Appeals to editorial decisions (e.g., against rejection) will be handled by the Editor-in-Chief. Decisions on appeals will be made based on careful consideration on the authors’ arguments and appeals, reviewer reports and decisions, and other independent opinions. Decisions on appeals are final. Complaints to the process of handling paper (e.g., duration of peer review) will be investigated by the Editor in Chief. Appropriate feedback will be provided to the complainant and stakeholders to improve publication processes. Complaint to publication ethics (e.g., author's or reviewer's conduct) will be handled by the Editor in Chief.