Ethics Policy

This journal, via its publisher Palgrave Macmillan, is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE’s mission is to promote integrity in scholarly research and its publication, and the journal strives to uphold ethical principles across all its processes.

The journal expects all prospective authors to read and understand the Ethics Policy of the journal and its Publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, before submitting any manuscript to this journal. This policy details the responsibilities of all authors, editors and reviewers working with and for Palgrave Macmillan Journals as well as the journal’s own ethical responsibilities. This includes, but is not limited to, plagiarism, falsification of data, misuse of third-party material, fabrication of results and fraudulent authorship.

This journal does not charge for the submission of manuscripts to the journal.

The manuscript review process is handled via a manuscript management platform called Editorial Manager. All the steps taken in the review process, and all communications around the review of a manuscript, are typically logged on Editorial Manager, for ease of use and transparency. Not all journals follow this, please refer to the specific journal for instructions.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal are subject to checks using iThenticate to detect instances of overlapping and similar text. The iThenticate software checks submissions against millions of published research papers, documents on the web, and other relevant sources. If plagiarism or misconduct is found, consequences are detailed in Palgrave’s Ethics Policy.

Upon submission, authors are asked to state any conflicts of interest around their research. The order of authors for a manuscript needs to be clear and included in the cover page of the submitted manuscript. Any changes in author order, or in authorship, will be addressed formally and require the consent of all parties.

Journal reviewers are explicitly asked to decline any reviewership which may be subject to conflicts of interest.

Useful links