Publication ethics

We follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices. This page sets out what that means in practice.

Authorship

Authorship requires a substantial contribution to the work, involvement in drafting or revising it, and agreement to be accountable for it. Acquiring funding or supervising a group does not by itself justify authorship. Everyone who qualifies must be listed; nobody who does not qualify may be. Changes to the author list after submission require written agreement from all authors.

Originality and prior publication

Submissions must be original and not under consideration elsewhere. Posting a preprint is explicitly permitted and does not count as prior publication. All submissions are screened with similarity detection software.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must declare financial and non-financial interests that a reasonable reader might consider relevant. Reviewers must decline where they have a conflict. Editors recuse themselves from handling submissions by close collaborators, by colleagues at their own institution, or by themselves.

Research integrity

Research involving human participants must have appropriate ethical approval and informed consent, stated in the article. Image manipulation beyond routine adjustment applied evenly to the whole image is not acceptable.

Corrections and retractions

Where an error affects the interpretation of a paper we publish a correction notice, linked bidirectionally to the original. Where findings are unreliable, or where there has been serious misconduct, we retract. Retracted articles remain online, clearly marked, so that the record stays complete.

Allegations of misconduct

Concerns about a published or submitted paper should be sent to the editorial office. We follow the relevant COPE flowchart, contact the authors for a response, and where necessary involve their institution. We do not act on anonymous allegations without corroborating evidence, and we protect the identity of good-faith complainants.

Appeals

You may appeal a rejection by writing to the Editor-in-Chief with specific grounds. Appeals based on misunderstanding or on a reviewer error of fact are taken seriously; appeals that simply disagree with an editorial judgement rarely succeed. One appeal per manuscript.

Reviewer conduct

Manuscripts under review are confidential. Reviewers must not share them, must not use the material in their own work, and must not upload them to generative AI services.