In order to ensure the research integrity of our publications, and by so doing to ensure that we achieve our aim of providing scholars with superior service, Brill works closely with authors and editors to promote adherence to the core principles of publication ethics as articulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We encourage further exploration of COPE’s resources on their website.

All manuscripts, archival materials, and supporting files (to include but not limited to interviews, images, data, infographics, audio and video, and facsimiles), whether submitted to a peer-reviewed publication (book series, journal, or major reference work) or a primary source online collection, are expected to conform to the standards of ethical behavior promulgated by COPE. For the benefit of our authors, editors, reviewers, readership, and staff, we have listed below the most pressing ethical concerns facing the academic publishing community.

We encourage you to direct questions and concerns to [email protected]. For detailed discussion of and an abundance of resources to assist in handling specific cases of research misconduct and violations of publication ethics, please visit the COPE website.

Read more:
AI Policy for authors
Code of Conduct for Editors
Publishing Ethics - Life Sciences Publications

Download Brill’s Publication Ethics here: Brill’s Publication Ethics
Download Brill’s Name Change Policy here: Brill’s Name Change Policy

Code of Conduct for Editors

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion refer to efforts to create a more welcoming environment for all people and to foster more diverse, inclusive, and equitable communities. Brill is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic communities we serve. We are collaborating closely with other publishers in this respect. This Code originates from those collaborations.

In collaboration with Brill, the editors of journals and book series shall endeavour to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the editorial processes and policies, including, but not limited to, ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusivity within journals’ and book series’ editorial teams, reviewer pools, and authorship bases.

Editors hold a position of power in the peer review process. They commission content, are responsible for rejections and reviewer selection, and have the final decision on what gets published in their journal or series. Therefore, editors have a pivotal role to play with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within journal or book series processes. It is important that this responsibility is clearly set out to editors themselves and made publicly available to support accountability.

Recommendations

1. Expectations regarding editors’ code of conduct in relation to DEI should be clearly set out, with their responsibilities, beyond quality, clearly defined. Some examples of the likely responsibilities of editors are listed below. We recognise that the role of editor varies among journals and book series, and so this list is not intended to be either prescriptive or exhaustive.

• Transparent decision-making process, independently of personal agreement with the arguments forwarded
• Inclusive and diverse representation among reviewers
• Inclusive and diverse representation among editorial board members (where the editor has responsibility for appointing members)
• Respectful and professional conduct
• Transparent appeals process

2. Editors shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, or citizenship of the authors.

3. The editorial policies of the journal or series shall encourage transparency and complete, honest reporting, and the editor shall ensure that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

4. When nominating potential editorial board members, the editor shall take account of the need for appropriate, inclusive, and diverse representation. When selecting editors, the editor-in-chief and the publisher should endeavour to ensure that the composition of the team is diverse in terms of both expertise and levels of seniority, with members providing balanced representation of different geographical regions, racial/ethnic groups, gender groups, various levels of seniority, and other groups. When selecting peer reviewers, editors should also endeavour to procure those from a diverse pool to ensure a balanced point of view.

5. Editors shall develop, with the guidance of the acquisitions editor, a thorough acquaintance with Brill’s Publication Ethics policy and procedures and shall abide by these in all matters related to the journal or book series and shall expect the same adherence of their editorial boards, authors, and peer reviewers. Brill’s Publication Ethics may be downloaded here. Questions and concerns related to publication ethics should be directed to [email protected].

Appeal

For questions and appeal against editorial decisions, please contact the acquisitions editor of the journal or book series.

Publishing Ethics - Life Sciences Publications

Contents

• Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement
• The Publisher
• Editors
• Reviewers
• Authors
• Studies involving animals or human subjects

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement
Below you will find the publication ethics and malpractice statement valid for all Brill | Wageningen Academics’ journals and books. These guidelines are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Duties of the Publisher

Peer review
All submitted papers are subject to strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper.

The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language. The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.

Commercial activities
Brill | Wageningen Academic declares that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.

Plagiarism
Brill | Wageningen Academic has an obligation to assist the scientific community in all aspects of publishing ethics, especially in cases of (suspected) duplicate submission or plagiarism.

Duties of Editors

Publication decisions
The editor of a journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor is guided by the policy of the publisher and the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may consult other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play
An editor should always evaluate manuscripts for their content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

For a manuscript submitted by an author to a journal, who is also an editor of that journal, this editor may not be involved in the evaluation, peer review and decision process on that manuscript.

Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Reviewers’ identities will not be disclosed. However, if reviewers wish to disclose their names, this is permitted.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Corrections
When genuine errors in published work are pointed out by readers, authors, or editors, which do not render the work invalid, a correction (or erratum) will be published as soon as possible. The online version of the paper may be corrected with a date of correction and a link to the printed erratum. If the error renders the work or substantial parts of it invalid, the paper should be retracted with an explanation as to the reason for retraction (i.e. honest error).

Ensuring the integrity of the published record – suspected research or publication misconduct If serious concerns are raised by readers, reviewers, or others, about the conduct, validity, or reporting of academic work, the journal’s Management Team will initially contact the authors and allow them to respond to the concerns. If that response is unsatisfactory, it will be taken to the institutional level or other appropriate bodies. Once an investigation is concluded, comment will be published that explains the findings of the investigation. It may be decided to retract a paper if the Editorial Board is convinced that serious misconduct has happened.

Retracted papers will be retained online, and they will be prominently marked as a retraction in all online versions, including the PDF, for the benefit of future readers.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They will not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of 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 behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention
Authors are 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
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s 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 behaviour and is unacceptable.

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.

Acknowledgement 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.

Authorship of the paper
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.

Use of Artificial Intelligence writing tools
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, also called large language model (LLM) tools, such as for instance ChatGPT, can be of help to authors in writing better readable English texts. However, these LLM tools are not scientists and lack the necessary understanding of the science involved in the manuscripts. Its use is not prohibited, but they may only be used to improve the language. The use of LLM tools has to follow the stipulations mentioned below:

• First, no LLM tool will be accepted as a credited author on a research paper. That is because any attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility.
• Second, researchers using these LLM tools must document this use in the ‘Materials and methods’ or the ‘Acknowledgements’ sections of their manuscript. Failure to do so will lead to immediate rejection or retraction of the paper if it is already published when this is detected.

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.

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.

Duties of Authors for studies involving animals or human subjects

Ethical requirements for studies involving animal subjects
When reporting experiments involving animal subjects, authors must indicate that institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed, including adherence to the legal requirements of the study country.

Authors must mention the institutional, regional or national ethical approval committee, together with the registration number for the study.

Studies involving animal subjects must meet the ethical guidelines (i.e. applicable to the institution, jurisdiction, etc., where the research was performed). Authors must demonstrate that experimental procedures conform to the accepted principles of animal welfare in experimental science. These principles are defined and explained in the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes and its appendix, or in the National Research Council Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. If experimental methodology raises particular ethical or welfare concerns then the Editor can take additional guidance from Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, when making decisions.

Ethical requirements for studies involving human subjects
Authors that have used human subjects in their research, whether medical or not, must confirm that subjects have signed a Statement of Informed Consent and indicate this in the article. They must archive these statements.

The authors must ensure that the identity of the subjects is not infringed by the information in the publication. Human subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the human subject (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable human subject be shown the manuscript to be published.

Medical studies on human subjects must follow the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (most recent revision), including adherence to the legal requirements of the study country.

Ethical requirements for (medical) trials
For studies regarding medical trials, registration in a public trials registry at or before the time of first (human) subject enrolment is mandatory. The registry and the registration number must be mentioned in the manuscript as well as at the end of the abstract.

The publisher defines a clinical/medical trial based on the ICMJE guidelines as any research project that prospectively assigns people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome. Health-related interventions are those used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome; examples include drugs, devices, behavioural treatments, educational programs, dietary interventions, quality improvement interventions, and process-of-care changes. Health outcomes are any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events.

The publisher accepts publicly accessible registration in any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) that includes the 24-item trial registration data set or in ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP. These registers are accessible to the public at no charge, open to all prospective registrants, managed by a not-for-profit organization, have a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and are electronically searchable.

The purpose of clinical/medical trial registration is to prevent selective publication and selective reporting of research outcomes, to prevent unnecessary duplication of research effort, to help patients and the public know what trials are planned or ongoing into which they might want to enrol, and to help give ethics review boards considering approval of new studies a view of similar work and data relevant to the research they are considering. Retrospective registration, for example at the time of manuscript submission, meets none of these purposes. Those purposes apply also to research with alternative designs, for example observational studies.

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