1. General Principles and Framework
Scientific Convergence (SciConvergence) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and quality. The ethical guidelines enforced by the journal are strictly based on the codes of conduct and best practice guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
All participants in the publication process, including authors, peer reviewers, editors, and the Publisher, are expected to adhere strictly to these ethical principles. Any form of scientific misconduct, including plagiarism, data fabrication, or ideological bias, is treated with zero tolerance.
2. Duties and Responsibilities of Authors
Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts are entirely original. If the work or words of others are used, they must be appropriately cited or quoted. All submissions are automatically screened using advanced plagiarism detection software. Any detected instance of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism (text-recycling), will result in immediate rejection or retraction.
Authors are required to present an accurate account of the research performed, followed by an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying raw data must be represented accurately. Fabricating, falsifying, or selectively manipulating data to support a predetermined hypothesis constitutes severe scientific misconduct.
Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is considered unethical and unacceptable. Authors must declare upon submission that the manuscript is not currently under consideration elsewhere.
Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a significant intellectual contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study. All contributors who meet these criteria must be listed as co-authors. The journal encourages the utilization of the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to explicitly define each author's contribution during the final production stage.
3. Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers
Peer review is a vital component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers assist the editorial board in making informed decisions and aid authors in improving the scientific quality of their manuscripts.
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.
Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers must express their views clearly with supporting arguments and scientific evidence.
Reviewers must decline to evaluate manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
4. Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are solely responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published. These decisions are guided by the journal's policies, scientific merit, originality, and the validation of the peer-review process, without regard to the authors' race, gender, citizenship, religious belief, or political philosophy.
Editors must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers.
Editors will take computationally and procedurally rigorous measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be investigated, even if it is discovered years after publication.
5. Conflict of Interest and Funding Declarations
Authors are required to disclose any potential financial or personal conflicts of interest that could be perceived to inappropriately influence their research. All sources of financial support for the project must be explicitly declared, including grant numbers and funding bodies. If no conflict exists, an explicit statement stating "The authors declare no conflict of interest" must be included.
6. Correction, Retraction, and Expressions of Concern
SciConvergence recognizes that the published record must remain accurate and reliable.
Corrections
Published if an honest error is discovered that does not invalidate the core scientific conclusions of the paper.
Retractions
Issued if the scientific integrity of the paper is substantially undermined due to misconduct, systematic errors, or unreliable data.
Expressions of Concern
Published by the editors if there is prolonged or inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct linked to a manuscript.