Any person may submit a complaint regarding a possible breach of academic integrity in a published article to the journal’s email address. Such breaches are determined by the editorial board in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Education’. Violations of academic integrity that may be identified during the editorial and publishing process include:
academic plagiarism – the publication (in whole or in part) of scientific (creative) results obtained by others as the results of one’s own research (creative work) and/or the reproduction of published texts by other authors without acknowledging authorship;
self-plagiarism – the publication (in whole or in part) of one’s own previously published scientific results as new scientific results;
fabrication – the invention of data or facts used in scientific research;
falsification – the deliberate alteration or modification of existing data relating to scientific research;
deception – providing knowingly false information regarding one’s own educational or scientific activities;
the provision or receipt by a participant in the editorial process, or an offer to provide (or receive) funds, property, services, benefits or any other advantages of a material or non-material nature, with the aim of distorting the publication process and securing a positive decision on the publication of an article;
biased evaluation of a work submitted for publication – the deliberate over- or under-rating of the results or content of the research by reviewers or editors;
making changes to the text of a submitted manuscript without the authors’ consent.
A complaint may be accepted for consideration provided it contains the following information:
details of the article to which the complaint relates;
a detailed description of the breach of academic integrity;
references to evidence confirming the breach; if the evidence consists of a work or document not freely available on the internet, a copy of such work (document) must be attached to the complaint;
the complainant’s name, position, place of work, academic degree (if applicable), academic title (if applicable) and contact details.
Within five working days of receiving a complaint, the editor-in-chief shall verify the information contained therein. If there are grounds for considering the complaint, the editor-in-chief shall appoint a committee comprising three independent experts.
The committee shall consider the complaint within 20 working days. During the consideration of the complaint, the committee has the right to request additional materials and/or explanations from the complainant and explanations from the author(s) of the article to which the complaint relates. If the case is complex and requires the involvement of additional materials and/or consultation with other experts, the time limit for considering the complaint may be extended.
Following consideration of the complaint, the committee shall decide whether the article contains evidence of a breach of academic integrity. The committee’s decision shall be forwarded to the editor-in-chief without delay. The journal’s editorial board shall send a copy of the decision to the complainant and the author(s) of the article in question.
If the article is found to contain evidence of a breach of academic integrity, the editorial board has the right to initiate the procedure for retracting the article.
If the violation consists of a significant portion of the article containing material borrowed from another work or works without attribution, or if the data presented in the article is fabricated and/or falsified, or if the article or parts thereof have been generated by artificial intelligence technologies, the editorial board reserves the right to decide to reject any future articles by the author (each of the co-authors) for a period of 3 years.
In the event of a repeat occurrence of any of the aforementioned violations in another article by the same author or in another article involving the same co-author, the editorial board reserves the right to decide on a permanent rejection of future articles by such an author (co-author) without review.