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The Journal practices responsible attitude towards maintaining its scientific reputation. When publishing, selecting and editing articles the editorial staff of the Journal relies on the traditional ethical principles of academic scientific periodicals (freedom in expressing opinions and scientific integrity), experience of high profile international magazines and publishing houses and is guided by international norms for publication ethics developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as well as the guidelines of international committees and associations, including: the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), the Council of Science Editors (CSE),the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).
The Institute of State and Law of the RAS as the publisher of the Journal supports the Declaration of ASEP (Association of scientific editors & publishers) “Ethical principles of scientific publications”.
The standards of ethical behavior are binding for editorial staff, authors, reviewers and persons engaged with the preparation of manuscripts for publication.
Ethical standards for editorial staff
The editorial staff of the Journal bears responsibility for trustworthiness of the scientific publications and adopted decisions on publication of the inputs. The decisions on publication shall be adopted subject to the significance of the inputs, their originality, scientific novelty, reliability of the information contained therein and correspondence to the topic of the Journal.
The content of the manuscripts shall be evaluated irrespective of citizenship, race, sex, ethnic origin, religious beliefs, political preferences and other features of the author’s personal status. The articles of the editorial board members shall be reviewed to the same extent impartially as the articles of all other authors.
The editorial staff takes all possible measures to ensure high quality of publications, exclude incorrect borrowings and unreliable data and to review and edit articles by the professionals with relevant competence.
The editorial staff is not entitled without necessity to disclose the information on the received manuscript, except for informing the authors, reviewers, potential reviewers or the editor.
The Journal practices the prevention of guest, gift or anonymous authorship[1].
The editorial staff organizes a process of reviewing in such a way as to prevent conflict of interests between the reviewers in respect of the input, its authors or sources of financing of the research forming the basis of the input.
The editorial staff should respect the authors’ wishes that someone or any person should not review their work if such request is reasoned and feasible.
The editorial staff ensures the protection of confidentiality of reviewers. A “double-blind” method of reviewing is used in the magazine, where the surnames of the reviewers are not disclosed.
It is not accepted to use plagiarism in any form in the magazine’s inputs, including plagiarism of the text, concepts and data. All manuscripts presented in the Journal undergo compulsory verification in the system “Anti-plagiarism”.
The reviews on the manuscripts as well as all correspondence of the authors with the editorial staff are used only in the internal paperwork of the editorial staff. The copies of the reviews can be transferred to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation upon request.
Upon identifying errors in the articles, all necessary corrections or objections shall be published in the next editions of the magazine.
The inputs published in the Journal can be printed in other editions and placed in electronic databases (inter alia, translated into foreign languages) with the consent of the editorial staff and with compulsory indication of the outputs of the publication in the Journal “Proceedings of the Institute of State and Law of the RAS”.
The control over observance of editorial ethics is performed by the editorial staff of the Journal that together with the editor takes adequate measures to settle ethical claims related to the presented manuscripts or published inputs irrespective of the term of presentation of the inputs or release of the article. These measures presume, in particular, the notification of the author and consideration of the complaint as well as the referral, if needed, to the respective organizations and research centers. If the validity of the complaint was confirmed, the correction, clarification, refutation, excuses or other adequate statement shall be published. The editorial staff is obliged to react to violations of the accepted norms even if it is not going to publish the respective input.
The editorial staff should encourage the discussions and constructive criticism of papers published in the Journal. The authors of the criticized inputs should have an opportunity to respond to the criticism.
Ethical standards for authors
The presented inputs should comply with the requirements of the scientific novelty, contain reliable information and demonstrate originality of the approaches. The delivery of the same manuscript to more than one Journal at a time shall be deemed as unethical conduct and unacceptable.
The author cannot submit earlier published article or article presented in another edition for consideration to the Journal. The exclusion from that rule is presentation of translations of the inputs published earlier abroad in the foreign language, with compulsory indication of the outputs of the publication in the foreign language.
The authorship of the publication should cover the contribution of certain personalities into the underlying research results. Only those individuals who significantly contributed to shaping the concept, development, execution or interpretation of the presented research can be the authors. If an individual in any form participated in execution of the part of work, an acknowledgment should be expressed in the text of the article or it should be included among the authors. All co-authors should approve the final version of the manuscript and agree with its presentation for publication.
The editorial staff should be notified of the conflict of interests that could potentially influence the findings formulated in the article (employment, consulting, and availability of shareholders’ ownership, receipt of royalties, submission of expert opinions, patent application or patent registration, grants or other financial support).
The authors should disclose sources of financing of researches, including direct and indirect financial support.
The authors should recognize the contribution of other researchers into investigation of the pending topic and refer to the publications that mattered for preparation of the input or exerted influence on it.
The literal reproduction of fragments of own earlier published papers or their rephrasing is unacceptable; they can be used only as a basis for new conclusions. If elements of the manuscript were earlier published by the author, it is necessary to refer to this publication.
In case of identifying errors or inaccuracies the authors should participate in their corrections. They should also cooperate with the editors in making edits or reducing the work.
The authors should respond to the comments of the reviewers in a professional manner and in the nearest term, submit, if needed, adequate clarifications and additional information.
The authors are entitled to challenge the decision of the editorial staff on refusal to publish the manuscript and its removal from the review process. The review of written reasoned referrals of the authors on the revision of the decisions of the editorial staff shall be done by the Executive Secretary or Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal.
Ethical standards for reviewers
In the process of reviewing the quality, originality and integrity of the presented manuscript shall be evaluated. The editor and the editorial staff consider the reviewing work as an integral part of the scientific activity.
Any manuscript received for reviewing is a confidential document. The reviewer should not expose the content of the manuscript or the review to criticism.
The reviewer should provide an objective and meaningful review that might help the author to improve his manuscript. One should avoid using groundless personal commentaries or groundless allegations in the review. The reviewer should in a clear and reasoned manner express his opinion.
The reviewer is entitled to withdraw from reviewing in case of the conflict of interests that could have an impact on the perception and interpretation of the manuscript’s content as well as the mismatch between the topic of the input and its professional competence.
The reviewer should timely notify the magazine’s editorial staff of failures to consider manuscripts within the prescribed time, existence of material similarity or mismatches between the reviewed manuscript and any other earlier published input and of serious factual errors identified in the manuscript.
The reviewer cannot use the information obtained in the process of reviewing for own benefit or for the benefit of other persons or organizations, for discreditation of other persons or otherwise inflicting damage to them.
Policy in respect of dishonest publication activity and incorrect borrowings
The editorial staff of the Journal implements a practice of preventing dishonest publication activity and incorrect borrowings. The editorial staff of the Journal together with the editor takes all measures to protect the copyrights and prosecute the violators thereof irrespective of whether the copyrights of the Journal were violated or not.
The editorial staff considers the withdrawal of the publication in the event where:
1) there is clear evidence of the inaccuracy of the published information, the fact arisen from conscious actions or dishonest errors;
2) the findings contained in the input were earlier published in another edition and there are no references and permissions allowing and justifying the need of repeated publication;
3) incorrect borrowings are in the publication.
In order to adopt an objective decision the editorial staff requests relevant information and thoroughly examines arguments of all stakeholders. The author notifies of the measures taken by the editorial staff due to the identified incidents of its dishonest publication activity.
In case of publishing the input in more than one Journal without justification or permission, the editorial staff informs the respective editions about the duplicating publications. If an input was published in the Journal “Proceedings of the Institute of State and Law of the RAS” for the first time, it shall not be withdrawn by the editorial staff. If a publication in the Journal is a secondary one, it shall be withdrawn from the electronic databases where the Journal is hosted. The notification on the withdrawal should contain indication of the reasons and grounds for withdrawal as well as the indication of the persons withdrawing the input (editorial staff, author).
The information on the withdrawal of the input shall be also published in the nearest printed edition of the Journal and shall be communicated to the editorial staff of the Journal where the input of the same content was published.
The similar actions are to be taken if following the release of the Journal it appears that the published input contains incorrect borrowings, i.e. reproduction of fragments of other published or hosted (in electronic databases) scientific papers without references to their author and source of publication (irrespective of the scope of such borrowings).
The withdrawn articles shall not be removed from printed or electronic versions of the magazine; however, their status should be clearly specified.
The editorial staff reserves the right to discard any allegations in plagiarism or dishonest publication activity expressed anonymously, under a false name or in unethical form.
[1]Guest authors – authors not complying with the formal criteria of authorship, not entered on the lists due to their ranks, reputation or assumed influence; gift authors – authors not complying with formal criteria of authorship but entered on the lists due to their personal relations or for a fee; anonymous authors – authors complying with the criteria of authorship but not indicated among co-authors of the publication.
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