The Romanian Journal of Regional Science (RJRS) aims at ensuring and maintaining a high-quality research standard and ethical behaviour for all the parties concerned with the publication process.
RJRS has in place a conflict of interest policy as well policies on data sharing and reproducibility, intellectual property, complaints and appeals, ethical oversight, options for post-publication discussions and corrections – all standards of publication ethics being aligned with the guidelines endorsed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which include, but are not limited to:
Ethical Obligations of Authors
When submitting the article into the system the author accepts the Journal’s standards of publication ethics in terms of originality, authorship, plagiarism, multiple or concurrent publication, access to raw data, conflicts of interest, post-publication corrections, as described below.
The author guarantees that the article and any supplemental information submitted for publication are the author’s original work and that other authors’ works used in the manuscript were appropriately cited.
Every author mentioned on the article should have had a significant contribution to the reported work. The author and co-authors share the responsibility and accountability for the article content. ‘Gift’ and ‘ghost’ authorship must be avoided.
Authors should not engage in plagiarism. Any source of quotation should be appropriately attributed and referenced both within the text and in the References section, as indicated in the Instructions for Authors. Self-plagiarism is not acceptable by the journal either.
The author guarantees that the manuscript has not been submitted for publication (in English or any other language) elsewhere.
The author should provide the raw data for editorial review if requested and should be prepared to allow access to these data for the replication of the research if requested.
If the research the article is based on received financial support, this should be clearly stated in the Acknowledgement section at the end of the article.
Authors should disclose to the editor any potential conflict of interest that may affect the independence of their manuscript’s evaluation for publication.
Shall any error or inaccuracy occur after the publication of the manuscript, it is the author’s responsibility to inform the editor, to correct or even to retract the manuscript.
Ethical Obligations of Reviewers
When accepting the article for peer-review the reviewer accepts the Journal’s standards of publication ethics in terms of objectivity, conflict of interest, confidentiality, as described below.
Reviewers should demonstrate objectivity in performing the peer-review process. Their duty is to complete the peer-review form in an objective manner, and by providing clear and concise recommendations for the improvement of the reviewed manuscript. If relevant published work on the article topic is not yet cited, they should recommend it. They should also inform the editor in case they notice that the submitted paper displays similarities with other papers they previously reviewed or read.
Reviewers should inform the editor if they consider themselves to be unqualified to review the assigned paper, they lack time to do that, or they consider that their objectivity and correctness of evaluation is being threatened by any reason.
The reviewer should disclose any potential conflict of interest to the editor immediately after receiving the paper for revision or after its occurrence.
Reviewers should treat the manuscript as confidential, and should not pass the paper or parts of the paper to third parties for revision or for any other reason. More so, reviewers are not allowed to use the information gained from unpublished manuscripts for their own interest.
Ethical Obligations of Editors
The editors are fully committed to observing the Journal’s standards of publication ethics in terms of confidentiality, reviewing management and publication decision, independence and conflict of interest, discrimination, privileged information, as described below.
The Editor-in-Chief and the members of the Editorial Board (“the editors”) should treat any submission with confidentiality.
The editors should guarantee the double-blind peer review process in which both authors and referees are anonymous.
The editors have full authority and responsibility to accept or reject a submitted manuscript. After the initial screening (including the plagiarism check) they may decide whether the manuscript can go for review. Based on reviewers’ recommendations or concerns expressed with regard to copyright violation or plagiarism, they are entitled to reject the article proposal. The final decision regarding the publication belongs to the Editor-in-Chief, who may consult other editors or reviewers. When necessary, corrections, retractions, apologies will be published.
In dealing with the evaluation process the editors should reject any discrimination, bias towards race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, citizenship.
The editors should demonstrate independence in making the decision regarding which of the submitted articles should be published. He/she should notify the Editor-in-Chief with regard to any potential conflict of interest.
In case the editors become aware of any allegation of research misconduct, they must deal with it appropriately.
The editors should not use the information gained from unpublished manuscripts for their own interest.