Ethical Standards Expected of the Editor-in-Chief
- Absolute Commitment to Editorial Independence: Maintaining a strict separation between editorial decisions and the financial, commercial, or political interests of the publishing house or sponsoring institution.
- Objective Evaluation of Manuscripts: Appraising all submitted research solely on its intrinsic scholarly merit and scientific originality, without regard to the authors' gender, race, nationality, citizenship, or political or religious beliefs.
- Prohibition of Citation Manipulation: Strictly refraining from enforcing or suggesting coercive citations from the journal's own published articles to artificially inflate its Impact Factor.
- Immediate and Comprehensive Recusal: Standing down completely from handling any manuscript that involves personal, professional, financial, departmental, or institutional conflicts of interest.
- Complete Exclusion from the Editorial Process for Personal Submissions: If the Editor-in-Chief submits their own work to the journal, they must be entirely excluded from the editorial system. The entire decision-making process must be delegated to an independent external editor to guarantee academic objectivity and impartiality.
- Adherence to COPE Guidelines: Adhering strictly to the principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This includes honoring acceptance decisions made by previous editors-in-chief, unless a definitive ethical or methodological breach is demonstrated with compelling, conclusive evidence.
