Ethical principles

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Compliance with Ethical Standards
When selecting (including reviewing), preparing (editing), and publishing articles in the Journal, the editors are guided by international standards of publication ethics. The Journal's editors will carefully and responsibly review all justified requests regarding violations discovered in published materials.
The editors consider it the responsibility of the author and reviewer to promptly notify the editors of any overlooked errors or violations discovered after the article's publication.
The editorial board of the journal is guided in its activities by the Declaration of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP), as well as international standards of publication ethics developed by the Committee on Scientific Publication Ethics (COPE).

Ethical Principles of the Journal's Editors
The Editor-in-Chief has the exclusive right to accept or reject a manuscript for publication. A manuscript may be rejected prior to peer review if there is a compelling reason for doing so (the article's topic is inconsistent with the journal's scope; the article is of obviously low scientific quality; the article has been previously published elsewhere; the submitted materials reveal a fundamental contradiction with the ethical principles upheld by the Journal and others).

Ethical Obligations of the Reviewer
A reviewer participating in the expert assessment of manuscripts bears responsibility for the objectivity and quality of the scholarly evaluation. In the performance of his or her duties, the reviewer shall be guided by the following ethical principles:
The manuscript submitted for review is a confidential document. The reviewer is prohibited from disclosing the manuscript to third parties, discussing its contents with colleagues without the editorial office’s permission, or copying or using it for any personal purposes.
Assessment of the manuscript must be objective, constructive, and fact-based. The reviewer is obliged to substantiate his or her conclusions clearly. Personal criticism of the author is inadmissible.
If the reviewer becomes aware of a conflict of interest (competition, joint projects, personal or financial ties with the author), he or she is obliged to notify the editorial office thereof immediately and recuse themselves from reviewing the manuscript.
The reviewer is not entitled to use unpublished data, ideas, hypotheses, or interpretations obtained from the manuscript under review for his or her own research purposes prior to their official publication.
The reviewer is obliged to bring to the editorial office’s attention instances of substantial similarity between the manuscript under review and other published works, as well as to identify instances of improper textual borrowing (plagiarism).

General Requirements for Manuscripts
Authors must present accurate results of their work, as well as an objective discussion of the significance of the research. False information in a manuscript will result in its rejection from publication.

Originality and Plagiarism
Plagiarism can take many forms, from presenting another author's work as their own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial portions of another author's work (without attribution), to claiming the results of another author's research. Plagiarism in all forms constitutes unethical conduct and is unacceptable.
Authors must present completely original work. References to the work of others must be accompanied by citations to the relevant primary sources (which must be included in the reference list). Including large sections of plagiarized text in a manuscript is unacceptable.
For full requirements regarding text originality and the plagiarism check procedure, see the "Article Requirements" section.

Use of Artificial Intelligence
The use of artificial intelligence tools to generate (create) the text of an article or its significant parts is prohibited. This violation constitutes a form of academic misconduct, equivalent to data falsification, and will result in the unconditional rejection of the manuscript.
This prohibition does not apply to the use of AI for auxiliary operations (spell checking, translation, literature search, statistical data analysis). However, responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and scientific value of the final text rests entirely with the authors.

Handling Violations of Publication Ethics and Retraction Procedure

1. Violations Detected During the Submission and Peer Review Stage: If any instances of plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, or copyright infringement are detected during the manuscript evaluation or peer review stage, the submission shall be rejected immediately. The author's name (or the names of all co-authors) may be included in the journal’s internal registry of non-compliant researchers ("black list"), resulting in a restriction on submitting new materials for a period of 1–3 years.
2. Violations Detected After Publication (Retraction Procedure): If ethical violations (including plagiarism, unethical text recycling/duplicate publication, or data manipulation) are discovered after the article has been published, the editorial board will immediately initiate a formal retraction procedure to withdraw the publication from the scientific record.
The retraction procedure comprises the following mandatory steps:

  • Issuing an official written notification regarding the established violation to the author(s) and their affiliating institution or employer.

  • Publishing a formal Retraction Notice on the journal's official website, explicitly stating the technical and ethical grounds for the retraction and providing a direct link to the original publication.

  •  Submitting an official request to the Scientific Electronic Library (eLibrary.ru) to retract the metadata and full text from the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) database and nullify its citation metrics.