Ethical Issues

Publication ethics and malpractice statement

Our journal fully adheres to the rules developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All members of the preparation process for publishing from our side (editorial board members and reviewers) are following the standards of COPE. That is required from authors too. When you submit your article to the journal you automatically accept the following editorial requirements, complied under the COPE Code.

 The author should make sure that all participants who have made significant contributions to the study are presented as co-authors, and also that the co-authors do not include those who did not participate in the study. All co-authors have to approve the final version of the article and agree to submit it to the journal.

The author must be sure that his/her work is unique and usage of other authors' work is appropriately designed through references. Any form of plagiarism is not is inadmissible.

Self-plagiarism is also unacceptable. The articles which are submitted for publication in the journal should not be published before or to be under consideration in another edition.

The author must ensure that all data in the article (especially archival) are presented accurately. Providing incorrect source information and false and deliberately false statements is objectionable and regarded by editors as a non-ethical behavior.

The author needs to avoid personal cases and abusing statements toward other authors’ researches. The discussion has to be polite concerning the scientific opponent.

The editorial board makes a decision about publishing the article due to its scientific significance evaluation, originality, matching the topics of the journal and taking into account a review. The editorial board is solely responsible for making such a decision before the scientific community.

The editorial board has a right to decide on the withdrawal of the article in case the author/co-authors does not comply with the above requirements of publication ethics.

Plagiarism policy

 The journal Acta de Historia & Politica: Saeculum XXI are committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere, nor is under review elsewhere.

 The Editorial Team uses software (the system Unichek in accordance with the contract with the owner of the software) to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts.

 Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.

 If plagiarism is detected, either by the editors, peer reviewers or editorial staff at any stage before publication of a manuscript - before or after acceptance, during editing or at page proof stage, we will alert the author(s), asking her or him to either rewrite the text or quote the text exactly and to cite the original source. If the plagiarism is extensive  the article may be rejected and the author's institution/employer notified.

 If plagiarism is detected after publication, the paper will be retracted (see chapter Published Article Retraction).

Conflict of interests

 Conflict of interest in the editorial process can arise when individuals involved in the editorial process have financial, personal, or professional interests that could potentially bias their decisions or actions in favour of a particular outcome or group.

 The journal Acta de Historia & Politica: Saeculum XXI uses the following principles in resolving conflicts of interestof conflict of interest in the editorial process:
 1. If there is a potential conflict of interest, the author, editors and reviewers should immediately inform the editor-in-chief of the journal.
 2. Editors and reviewers should make decisions based solely on the quality, significance, and integrity of the submitted manuscripts, without being influenced by any conflicting interests.
 3. Editors, authors, and peer reviewers should disclose financial interests (for example, patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker's fees), or personal, political, or religious interests.
 4. Editors should manage peer reviewers' conflicts of interest. An invitation to review a manuscript should be accompanied by a request for the reviewer to reveal any potential conflicts of interest and a request for the peer reviewer to disqualify or recuse themselves when these are relevant.
 5. If there is a conflict of interest between the reviewer/editor and the author, the editors appoint another reviewer, and a member of the editorial board does not take part in the process of accepting the article for publication.
 6. When editors, members of editorial board, and other editorial staff are presented with papers where their own interests may be perceived to impair their ability to make an unbiased editorial decision, they should withdraw from discussions, deputize decisions, or suggest that authors seek publication in a different journal.
 7. Conflicts of interest are resolved on the basis of ethical principles developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).