Publication Ethics

Publication rules and ethics

Nanomedicine Research Journal (NMRJ) attempts to follow best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing as defined by the guidelines of the Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). NMRJ abides by the international regulations on human and animal experimentation as defined in “1985 International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals” and “International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects” bythe Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS)

Ethical guidelines

Experiments on animals or humans must abide by international guidelines and declarations as well as local regulations administered by ethical committees of the countries where the research is done. Experiments on human subjects must be performed only after a written informed consent form has been obtained from the subject or his/her guardian. Nanomedicine Research Journal (Nanomed Res J) reserves the right to reject papers based on ethical considerations.

For further information about ethical issues, please visit the following links:

1985 International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals

International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest in the context of scholarly publishing is defined as a circumstance occurring when normal expectations of reasonable fairness, impartiality and objectivity of a scholar are compromised to uphold a party’s interest because of personal relationships, financial gains or role obligations.

The corresponding author, on behalf of all the authors of the manuscript, should submit a conflicts of interest disclosure form to the journal’s office and disclose all possible sources of conflicts of interests.

Informed consent

According to the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human subjects provided by CIOMS, informed consent is:

A decision to participate in research, taken by a competent individual who has received the necessary information; who has adequately understood the information; and who, after considering the information, has arrived at a decision without having been subjected to coercion, undue influence or inducement, or intimidation.

Informed consent is based on the principle that competent individuals are entitled to choose freely whether to participate in research. Informed consent protects the individual’s freedom of choice and respects the individual’s autonomy. As an additional safeguard, it must always be complemented by independent ethical review of research proposals. This safeguard of independent review is particularly important as many individuals are limited in their capacity to give adequate informed consent; they include young children, adults with severe mental or behavioral disorders, and persons who are unfamiliar with medical concepts and technology.

For all biomedical research involving human subjects, Nanomedicine Research Journal (NMRJ) requires from the authors to obtain the informed consent of the prospective subject or, in the case of an individual who is not capable of giving informed consent, the proxy consent of a properly authorized representative. The corresponding author is required to provide the signed written consent form if required.

Authorship criteria

According to the guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship should be based on the following four criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  • Final approval of the version to be published
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as unauthorized or unacknowledged appropriation of someone else’s ideas to present them as if they were original or common knowledge. Submitted manuscripts must be original, i.e., neither published nor under review for publication elsewhere. Submitted manuscripts will be checked by plagiarism detection software to identify overlapping and similar text with manuscripts from other authors. Plagiarized material will incur plagiarism sanctions.

Duplicate or simultaneous submission

Duplicate or simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript submitted to the journal is already under consideration or published, whether in whole or in part, by another journal. If authors have based their new manuscript on their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review elsewhere, they are required to cite their previous work and explain how their new manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.

Citation manipulation

Submitted manuscripts found to have included unnecessary citations, that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article, for the primary purpose of increasing the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, will incur citation manipulation sanctions.

Data fabrication and falsification

Data fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research results by making up data. Data falsification is the intentional misinterpretation of data, usually done to support a hypothesis.