Ethical and legal basis of editorial policy

The Editorial Board bears the full responsibility for taking a decision on publishing a paper. All the decisions are based on expert judgments by the Editorial Board members and/or Editorial Council members and external specialists in the field which published materials belong to who were invited to act as reviewers.
Any decision on publishing a paper is to be based on the relevance, scientific significance, novelty, and authenticity of the materials.

The Editorial Board policy

The policy pursued by the Editorial Board of the "Health Risk Analysis" journal is based on the latest legal requirements in the sphere of copyrights, inadmissibility of plagiarism and slander, as well as on ethical principles accepted by the global community of scientific periodicals publishers which are stated in the following standards:

The Editorial Board advise everybody participating in the process of preparing and publishing the journal (authors, reviewers, the Editorial Council members, publishers, and readers) to follow the publishing ethics standards which are given below. In case of any suspicions that some of the principles given below are violated, the Editorial Board will act in conformity with COPE instructions.

Authorship and copyrights

All copyrights on papers belong to their authors. An author who sends his or her paper to "Health Risk Analysis" journal thereby gives his or her consent on its publishing in the journal and transfers the publishers the rights to use it; the publishers have the right to translate the paper; to place it on the journal web-site in the Internet to be openly accessible; to give the text of the paper (including links and/or references etc.) to people who are to be given such information, or to any other people in order to provide possibility to cite the publication and to increase citation index of an author and the journal.
Should any author materials published in "Health Risk Analysis" journal be reprinted, link to the journal, an author and the title of a paper is obligatory. Violation of copyrights on use of materials submitted for publishing and corrected by the editorial staff is persecuted by law.
An Author is understood to be all people (co-authors) who took part in research work and in creation of a paper and who bear full responsibility for its contents. A person (author) who submitted a paper to the editorial office is fully responsible for correctness and completeness of the information about the authors team and coordination of all changes made in the text of a paper as per results of its reviewing and editing with them.

Author ethics

The Editorial office expects that authors who submit their materials to be published in the journal strictly adhere to the following principles:

  • originality of research;
  • objective discussion of research relevance;
  • submission of authentic research results, absence of false statements and errors in the given data; qualitative statistic processing of the given data;
  • inadmissibility of personal, critical or disdainful remarks and accusations of other researchers;
  • exclusion of plagiarism; acknowledgments of other people's contribution into research, obligatory reference links to all the external information sources, and to all publications which were significant in preparing this paper (including previous scientific publications by the same authors);
  • absence of repetitions and duplications of previously published materials. To send the same paper to other publisher before it has been rejected by the journal is not allowable;
  • receipt of consent to use (copy) other authors' materials, tables, images and obligatory indication of authors of these materials and/or owners of copyrights on these materials;
  • submission of information obtained via private channels, i.e. in letters, talks, or discussions with the third parties, or any information from confidential sources only if these third parties grant their consent to it;
  • WMA Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects adopted by the World Medical Association in 1964 and last amended on the 64th WMA General Assembly in 2013 (url), European Convention for the protection of Vertebrate animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes (ETS №123) adopted on March 18, 1986 in Strasburg. and all the regulations adopted in the RF and Eurasian Economic Union countries on the basis of these documents;
  • introduction of all the participants who made substantial contribution into research and creation of a paper as co-authors; approval of a paper final version by all the co-authors and their full consent to its being submitted for publication;
  • expression of gratitude to any other colleagues who are not co-authors of this paper but still they influenced the process of its creation;
  • advice on potential conflicts of interest (information on employment, consulting, stock ownership, expert reports submission, patent application or registration, receipt of fees);
  • clear indication contained in the text of a paper to information on received grants, other sources of funding the research, on any other support, i.e. facts which can be viewed as influencing the results or conclusions contained in a paper);
  • prompt notification in case any significant errors or inaccuracies were detected in a paper and interaction with an editor in order to eliminate them as soon as possible; or withdrawal of a paper, timely correction of errors and inaccuracies detected by a reviewer or an editor.

Reviewing ethics.

As the Editorial office see reviewing as a most vital part in providing exchange of scientific information, we strictly recommend all our reviewers to observe:

  • confidentiality, that is not give any information on a submitted paper to anybody except an editor;
  • objectivity, that is to assess a paper comprehensively, without any personal criticism towards an author; immediately advise on a possible conflict of interest between a reviewer and a reviewed paper, its authors or an organization funding this research;
  • impartiality, that is to assess intellectual contents of a paper regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political views of its author(s);
  • clearness and validity in expressing his or her opinion; adherence to original sources acknowledgement, that is to indicate publications on the same subject matters as a reviewed paper links to those are not given in it; to attract an editor's attention to any substantial similarity or coincidence of a reviewed paper and any other publication they have some knowledge of.

Reviewers participate in development of the journal editorial policy. All the papers submitted to the Editorial office are to be reviewed twice. The Editorial office reserves the right to choose a reviewer. Original papers are to be given some comments of the Editorial Board members, Editorial Council members or recognized experts in the field. Prior to publishing of a paper reviewers do not have any right to use the information which became accessible to them in the reviewing process in their own research or in pursuing any personal goals.

Ethical principles of the journal editors

The Chief Editor and his or her Deputy have an exclusive right to accept a paper for publishing or to reject it; here the following ethical principles and requirements to published materials as well as requirements to quality of a paper, are to be observed:

  • objectivity at a stage of a paper preliminary assessment;
  • high quality of published materials;
  • allowance for conflict of interest;
  • observation of copyrights;
  • confidentiality.

A paper can be rejected by an editor at a stage prior to reviewing should there be any substantial reason for that, i.e. the subject matters of a paper do not correspond to those of the journal; a scientific quality of a paper is obviously low; a paper has previously been published in another edition; submitted materials contain principle contradictions with ethical principles which the journal adheres to. The Editorial office can also reject a paper if it is not arranged properly. An editor assesses conformity with ethical standards for research performed on people and animals and accepts a paper for publishing only if there are firm evidences that all the fixed requirements in the ethical principles sphere have been observed.
The Editorial office reserves the right to shortcut a paper or make editorial amendments into it which do not influence its essence and its contents thus preserving a paper integrity. Editors should guarantee that published materials correspond to international standards of scientific and publishing ethics. Should there be any conflict of interest between an editor and an author of a paper, a paper is to be given to another editor.
The journal editors are to profoundly study all the original information which is contained in papers reviewed by them; however, they do not have any right to use it in their own research or in pursuing personal goals. Use of such information is allowed only after a paper has been officially published and provided that it is cited correctly in conformity with all the conventional citing requirements.

The journal editors should not urge authors to cite any papers published in "Health Risk Analysis" journal in order to artificially improve the Journal scientometric parameters.
All the submitted papers which have not been rejected due to any above-mentioned reasons at the first stage of considering are to be submitted for reviewing; an editor should choose reviewers out of the most competent experts in the field. Editors should keep reviewers' names in secret; they should not give names of a paper authors to reviewers.
Editors should guarantee high quality of materials which are published in the journal and should provide their conceptual integrity; they should as well publish corrections, explanations, or apologies in case of necessity.
Materials which are published in the journal contain only an author's personal view which can be different from that of the Editorial office. Authors bear full responsibility for facts and data given in papers.

Policy towards conflict of interest

Potential conflict of interest occurs in situations when there are financial, personal, or professional conditions which can influence a scientific judgment by a reviewer or an editor and, consequently, the Editorial Board decision on a paper publication. The Journal suppose that if an author submits his or her paper for publishing, he or she thereby states that:

  • all the research funding sources are mentioned in it;
  • there are no any commercial, financial, personal, or professional factors which could possibly create a conflict of interest in relation to a submitted paper.

Or an author should make an unambiguous statement on a possible conflict of interest in a covering letter when a paper is submitted to be considered by the Editorial Board.
Should a conflict of interest occur, an author has a right to exclude any specific editor and/or a reviewer out of consideration of a paper submitted by him or her. Editors and reviewers are to make a statement on a potential conflict of interest which can influence the Editorial Board decision.
Should a conflict of interest occur between an editor or a reviewer and an author of a paper, it is to be given to another editor or reviewer correspondingly. A paper assessment should not be prejudiced. Conflict of interest occurrence stated by any participants in the process of considering and reviewing can not in itself be a reason for rejecting a paper as the most significant criterion in a paper assessment is its scientific quality.

Declaration on privacy

Any information about authors (family name, name, patronymic, affiliated organization denomination, organization address, e-mail address, phone number for readers to communicate with authors), given by them to be published in the journal, becomes accessible for anybody; authors grant their written consent to it by signing relevant cover documents submitted together with a paper and by signing a form containing complete information about authors required for Russian editions indexing in reference database of the Russian Scientific Citation Index (the list of required data on authors can be found on the Journal web-site, in “For Authors” section). Publication of the above-mentioned data is accomplished allowing for authors' interests as it makes for complete and correct account of publications and their citation by relevant reference organizations and for providing possible contacts between authors and scientific society as a whole.
Private information which is given to the journal by authors apart from the above-mentioned obligatory data, including additional e-mail addresses and phone numbers, will be used only for contacting authors in the process of preparing a paper for publication. The Editorial board undertakes not to give this private information to any third parties which can use it for pursuing any other goals.

Policy of retracting a paper

The Journal Editorial Board in some cases can take a decision to retract a paper.
Reasons for retraction:

  • detection of plagiarism in a paper, including plagiarism of figures, graphs, tables, etc., if plagiarism was detected after a paper has been published (see Policy towards plagiarism); claims related to copyrights on a paper or its parts from the third parties;
  • detection of the fact that a paper has been published in another edition before its publication in the journal;
  • occurrence of grave errors in the published paper which make its scientific value rather doubtful.

Under such circumstances the Journal Editorial Board initiates an inspection the results of which can give grounds for retracting a paper. A statement on a paper retraction is drawn up and then signed by the Chief Editor. A copy of the statement is to be sent to an author of a paper.
A paper itself is not physically removed from the published issue and an electronic file of the issue on the Journal web-site. The Editorial office publish the statement on retraction and place it on the relevant web-page with the contents of the issue on the Journal web-site.
The Journal Editorial office will consider all the justified applications concerning detected violations in the published materials carefully and responsibly. The Editorial board consider it an author's responsibility to inform the Editorial office about any errors and violations which have been detected by him/her after a paper has been published.

Policy towards plagiarism

All the papers submitted to the Editorial office at the preliminary stage of consideration are to be inspected in relation to correctness of borrowings. Should there be any justified suspicions in plagiarism or should any technical tricks which can allow to hide it be detected a paper is not accepted for further consideration. Authors are informed about a paper rejection due to occurrence of suspicion in plagiarism. Should plagiarism be detected in a paper which has already been published such paper is retracted from publication without any possibility to be recovered (without physical removal and only by publishing a statement on plagiarism occurrence on the relevant web-pages on the Journal web-site and a paper file). Should any incorrect borrowing occur in a submitted paper, all cases of such borrowings are to be considered individually.
The Editorial office treat the following as plagiarism:

  • use (word-for-word citing) of any materials in any volume without indicating a source;
  • use of images, figures, photos, tables, graphs, schemes and any other graphic information without indicating a source;
  • use of images, figures, photos, tables, graphs, schemes and any other graphic information published in scientific and popular editions without a copyright holder's consent;
  • absence of written consent to use materials authors or copyright holders of which forbid use of their materials without firm agreement.
    The Editorial office treat the following as incorrect borrowings:
  • absence of graphic highlighting of a word-for-word cited text but with a link to s source;
  • incorrect references (incomplete data on reference description of a source which make its identification rather complicated);
  • a reference which is given not to the first source of a borrowed text without clear indication of the fact (an error in determining the original source);
  • absence of references from the text to sources given in a paper references;
  • excessive citing (when there are references to sources and graphic highlighting of a cited text), a volume of which cannot be justified by a paper genre and goals.

An acceptable volume of citing (correct borrowings) cannot exceed 30% of the total paper volume. This requirement is not applicable to reviews and other papers which objectively require greater citing volumes. Such materials are considered by the Editorial office individually. Papers the content of which corresponds to other scientific materials of the same author (thesis, abstract of a thesis, monograph, previous publications in journals and collections) in volume greater than 30% are not accepted for publishing.

Inspection of materials aimed at detecting plagiarism

All the submitted papers are checked in "Anti-plagiarism" system, as well as in other search systems in the Internet. Should the Editorial office have any reasons for more comprehensive inspection, the can apply additional tools to detect plagiarism.
The Journal Editorial office strictly recommend not to use any technical tricks which can improve a text assessment in "Anti-plagiarism" system. Papers which contain signs of technical modifications which were applied to artificially increase a text uniqueness cannot be published in the Journal. The Editorial office informs a reviewer about each detected fact; if an author is employed by an educational establishment, the information will be given to his or her supervisor.

This web-link leads to Collection of Russian translations of COPE recommendations on scientific publications ethics.

Business-model. Publication charges. Access to complete text

Federal Scientific Center for Medical and Preventive Health Risk Management Technologies as the Journal publishers bear all the expenses related to the journal production and publishing including organization of expert assessment, internet-hosting and archiving. Authors are not charged for publications of their articles. Reviewing is also free of charge. The journal printed edition is distributed as per subscription. Full-text files of all the archive and current journal issues are openly accessible at journal.fcrisk.ru/eng/. The journal electronic version is a open-access edition for readers. When using any materials, it is obligatory to give references to the journal and authors of scientific papers. Free replication of the journal materials in pursuing private goals, and free use of them in pursuing information, scientific, educational, or cultural goals is allowable in conformity with clauses 1273 and 1274, charter 70, part IV of the RF Civil Code. Any other use is possible only after concluding relevant written agreements with a copyright holder.

PAPER PUBLICATION in the Journal IS FREE OF CHARGE.

The Journal can publish and place on its site for certain charge only advertising materials which are directly linked to techniques, tools, and technologies of providing sanitary and epidemiologic well-being of the RF population. Advertisers bear the full responsibility for advertising materials validity.

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