The ethical policy of the Ревија за социјална политика/Journal of Social Policy is based on recommendations from international committees, such as the European Association of Science Editors and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Ethical guidelines for the editors

Editor and co-editor have sole responsibility for acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. The manuscript may be rejected by the editor on the stage prior to peer-review for a solid reason (inappropriate topic for journal, obviously poor scientific quality, the article was previously published elsewhere, essential contradiction to ethical principles of the Journal was detected, etc). Editors should guarantee that the quality of the papers conforms to internationally accepted scholarly and publication ethical guidelines. If there is conflict of interest of the editor with the author of the article, the article is to be conveyed to another editor.

The articles that are not rejected by the editor are considered for blind peer-review. The editorial board decides on the selection of reviewers out of the most competent specialists on the topic of the article.

Editors preserve anonymity of both the reviewers and the authors.

Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record and be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

A Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) was developed  by ELSEVIER. The PERK kit can be found here: http://www.elsevier.com/editors/publishing-ethics/perk

Ethical guidelines for the authors

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial ‘opinion’ works should be clearly identified as such.

Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

Plagiarism takes many forms, from passing off another paper as the author(s) own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another(s) paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

The Editorial Board considers the following to be the forms plagiarism:
- Use (word for word citing) of any materials in any value without indicating the source;
- use of images, pictures, photographs, tables, diagrams, schemes or any other forms of graphical information presentation without indicating the source;
- use of images, pictures, photographs, tables, diagrams, schemes or any other forms of graphical information presentation published in scientific and popular issues without approving by copyright holder;
- use of the materials without written permission, the authors or copyright holders of which don’t permit use of their materials without special approvement.

The Editorial Board considers the following to be the forms of incorrect borrowing:
- Absence of graphical highlighting of literal text citation when there are references to the source;
- incorrect references (incomplete bibliographic description of the sources, which prevents their identification;
- reference not to the first source of the borrowed text without clear indication of this fact (mistake in primary source determination);
- absence of references from the text to the sources enumerated in the list below the article;
- excessive citation (in case there are references to the sources and graphical highlighting of the cited text), the volume of which is not justified by the genre and aims of the article.

Only original works are acceptable for publication in journal. The journal does not allow any forms of plagiarism. If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Papers will be rejected from any stage of the publication process (even if the article were published already) if plagiarism is determined.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expertise, grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Editorial Policy for Corrections to Published Articles

If inaccuracies and factual errors are made in the article that do not require retraction of the article, the editorial carries out the procedure for reprinting the article with corrections.

The purpose of corrections made to a scientific article after publication is to convey truthful, accurate information to the reader, help avoid illegal borrowing, and eliminate erroneous data.

Reprinting of the article is carried out in the case of multiple typos, incorrect citation, incorrect wording, incorrect facts, the need for corrections to the team of authors and other cases requiring correction of errors.

Reprint of the corrected article may be initiated by the author (s), readers or the editors of the journal.

The procedure for correcting errors when reprinting an article

If the editorial board has received information about the need to make corrections from third parties, the editor or the Editor-in-Chief will politely send the authors a notification about the need to analyze the identified errors.

After an analysis of the identified errors, the editorial representatives report the need to reprint the article with corrections to the author (s) to agree on the corrections.

In the printed issue of the journal, an error message is published indicating the number / year and pages of the issue with the article in which the error was made, a description of the error and the text with the error corrected. It is also indicated on whose initiative the reissue procedure is carried out. In the online version of the journal, an error message is posted on the site page and / or PDF file with the article. Readers are given the opportunity to work with the revised version of the article by posting it on the site.

Retraction guidelines

In some cases the Editorial Board may consider retracting a publication due to the following reasons:
- it constitutes plagiarism, including borrowed pictures, tables, diagrams, etc. If plagiarism was detected after publication (see Plagiarism Policy);
- third party expresses claims concerning copyrights for the article or its parts;
- the findings have previously been published elsewhere before the date of its publication in the journal.
- The published article has serious errors, which place its scientific value in question.

In such cases, the editor should initiate the revision, after which the article may be retracted. The Act on retraction is complied, which is signed by the editor-in-chief. The copy of the Act is being sent to the author of the article.

In this case the article is not physically withdrawn from the published edition and the file of the issue on web site. The Editorial Office publishes the notification on retraction of the article on the corresponding page of the issue content on the official site of the Journal. The Editorial Office should attentively consider issuing an expression of concern about the revealed problems in the published materials.

The Editorial Board considers it a responsibility of authors and reviewers to promptly inform about the missed mistakes and breaches revealed after the publication of the article.

The page is based on the original materials from Elsevier: https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#