Research and Publication Ethics
Research Involving Human Subjects
MedInnovations Journal is committed to maintaining high standards of research integrity, publication ethics and editorial transparency. The journal follows the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and applies good editorial practices at all stages of the publication process.
Authors, reviewers and editors are expected to act in accordance with ethical standards concerning authorship, conflicts of interest, research integrity, peer review, data transparency and responsible publication.
Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data, drafting the manuscript, revising it critically for important intellectual content, and approving the final version submitted for publication.
All authors must approve the submitted version of the manuscript and agree to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of the work.
Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section, provided that they have given permission to be named.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors meet authorship criteria, that no eligible authors have been omitted, and that all authors have approved the final manuscript.
Changes in Authorship
Any change in authorship after submission, including the addition, removal or rearrangement of authors, must be justified in writing and approved by all authors. The Editorial Office may request written confirmation from all affected authors.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial conflicts of interest that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the submitted work.
Conflicts of interest may include, but are not limited to, employment, consultancies, honoraria, grants, paid expert testimony, patents, stock ownership, personal relationships, academic competition or institutional affiliations.
If no conflicts of interest exist, authors should include the following statement:
“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”
Editors and reviewers must also disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest. Editors or reviewers with a conflict of interest must not participate in the assessment of the manuscript.
Research Involving Humans
Research involving human participants, human tissue, medical records or personal medical data must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and applicable national and institutional regulations.
Authors must state that the study was reviewed and approved by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board, where required. The name of the committee, approval number and approval date should be provided in the manuscript.
If ethics approval was not required, authors should clearly explain the reason.
Informed Consent
For studies involving human participants, authors must confirm that informed consent was obtained, unless waived by an appropriate ethics committee.
For case reports, clinical images or other materials that may allow identification of a patient, written informed consent for publication must be obtained from the patient or their legal representative.
Patient anonymity must be protected. Identifying details should not be published unless they are essential for scientific purposes and written consent for publication has been obtained.
Research Involving Animals
Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national and international regulations concerning animal welfare.
Authors must provide information about ethics approval for animal studies, including the name of the approving body and approval number, where applicable.
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials should be registered in a publicly accessible clinical trial registry before patient recruitment begins, where applicable.
Authors should provide the trial registration number and registry name in the manuscript.
Clinical trial reports should follow appropriate reporting guidelines, such as CONSORT, where applicable.
Research Misconduct
MedInnovations Journal does not tolerate research or publication misconduct.
Research misconduct includes, but is not limited to:
- fabrication or falsification of data;
- plagiarism;
- duplicate or redundant publication;
- inappropriate image manipulation;
- undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- unethical research involving humans or animals;
- manipulation of the peer review process;
- improper authorship practices;
- citation manipulation;
- failure to disclose relevant approvals, funding or competing interests.
Suspected misconduct may be investigated by the Editorial Office in accordance with COPE recommendations. The journal may contact authors, reviewers, institutions, funders or other relevant parties when necessary.
Plagiarism and Text Recycling
Submitted manuscripts must be original and must not contain plagiarized content.
Authors must properly cite all sources and obtain permission where required. Reuse of the authors’ own previously published text, data, figures or tables must be clearly disclosed and appropriately cited.
The journal may use plagiarism detection software or other tools to assess similarity. Manuscripts with unacceptable levels of similarity, unattributed copied text or substantial text recycling may be rejected.
Image Integrity and Manipulation
Figures, images and other visual materials must accurately represent the original data.
Authors must not manipulate images in a way that could mislead readers. Inappropriate manipulation includes selective enhancement, deletion, duplication, obscuring, splicing or alteration of image elements that affects interpretation.
Adjustments to brightness, contrast or colour balance are acceptable only when applied to the entire image and when they do not distort the data.
The Editorial Office may request original image files or raw data if concerns arise.
Data Availability and Transparency
Authors are encouraged to make research data available whenever possible, taking into account ethical, legal and privacy restrictions.
Manuscripts should include a Data Availability Statement indicating where the data supporting the findings can be accessed or explaining why the data cannot be shared.
Examples of acceptable statements include:
“The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.”
“The data are available in [repository name] at [link/DOI].”
“Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed.”
Funding
Authors must disclose all sources of funding, grants or financial support related to the submitted work.
If the study received no external funding, authors should include the following statement:
“This research received no external funding.”
Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern
MedInnovations Journal is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record.
If errors are identified after publication, the journal may publish a correction, retraction, expression of concern or other editorial notice, depending on the nature and seriousness of the issue.
Corrections may be published when an honest error affects the accuracy, interpretation or metadata of an article but does not invalidate the main findings.
Retractions may be issued in cases of serious error, unreliable findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, unethical research, data fabrication, peer review manipulation or other forms of serious misconduct.
Expressions of concern may be published when there are serious unresolved questions regarding the integrity or reliability of a published article.
Complaints and Appeals
Authors, readers, reviewers or other parties may submit complaints concerning editorial decisions, peer review, publication ethics, conflicts of interest, corrections or retractions.
Complaints should be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office and should include a clear description of the issue and relevant supporting information.
Authors may appeal editorial decisions if they believe that a significant error occurred during the editorial or peer review process. Appeals should include a detailed scientific justification and responses to the reviewers’ and editors’ comments.
Appeals and complaints are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief or by an independent editor who was not involved in the original decision, where appropriate. The journal aims to handle complaints and appeals fairly, objectively and in accordance with good editorial practice.
Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools
Authors must disclose the use of artificial intelligence tools or large language models in the preparation of the manuscript, including text generation, translation, language editing, data analysis, image generation or other relevant activities.
Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot take responsibility for the integrity, accuracy and originality of the work.
Authors remain fully responsible for all content of the manuscript, including any text, data, references, images or analyses generated or assisted by artificial intelligence tools.
Authors must ensure that the use of artificial intelligence tools does not result in plagiarism, fabrication of references, breach of confidentiality, image manipulation or violation of intellectual property rights.
Reviewers and editors must not upload submitted manuscripts or confidential peer review materials to publicly available artificial intelligence tools or external platforms that do not guarantee confidentiality.
Duplicate Submission and Prior Publication
Manuscripts submitted to MedInnovations Journal must not be under consideration by another journal at the same time.
Authors must disclose any related manuscripts, preprints, conference abstracts or prior publications that may overlap with the submitted work.
Preprints are allowed, but authors should disclose the existence of a preprint during submission and provide a link to the preprint where applicable.
Ethical Responsibility
The Editorial Office reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not meet ethical standards, request additional documentation, publish corrections or retractions, and contact relevant institutions or authorities when serious ethical concerns arise.
By submitting a manuscript to MedInnovations Journal, authors confirm that the work complies with the journal’s ethical requirements and that all information provided during submission is accurate and complete.
