Ethical considerations for Authors:

• The authors of research articles should substantially contributre to the study and research articles should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work.
• All references must be cited in thereference list and only cite references that they have read.
• Authors should disclose any sources of funding and relevant/potential conflicts of interests
• Authors should note that there is a complete difference between an author and a contributor. Only researchers who have contributed significantly to the research and/or article and meet the criteria for authorship according to the ICMJE can be listed as an ‘author’. Other researchers who contributed partially to the research should be acknowledged as a ‘contributor’ in the Acknowledgement section.
• Authors must take part in the peer review process and provide  the necessary revision in time.
• Authors should inform the editor(s) regarding their decisions about the withdrawal of their work from review process or in case they will not be able to revise their work after receiving the reviewers comments.
• The corresponding author should be available, punctual, and proficient in providing the necessary documents and interacting with the journal.
• Authors should avoid bias in data analysis,display, and using unrepresentative data sets.
• Authors are responsible for providing valid data, calculation, data presentation, proofs and methods used.
• Authors are obliged to respond properly to post-publication comments and published correspondence.
• Authors must inform the editor immediately about any error(s) in their submitted, accepted or published work and collaborate for any required correction. Otherwise it is interpreted that there is no revision needed in their proof or published work.
• The reported study must comply with all ethical principles issued by ethical bodies.
• Authors should avoid data fabrication, data falsification, cherry picking, or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Methods need to be described clearly and unambiguously in order to be reproducible by other researchers.
• Authors should adhere to publication ethics, assure that the submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere.
• The author(s) are fully responsible for the submitted and published work.

 Ethical considerations for the Editorial Board:

• The Editor(s) should keep the identity of the reviewers unknown unless they are granted permission.
• The editor-in-chief is responsible for and has the authority to pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct.
• It is the editor(s)’duty to assess the ethical consideration and standards of human and animal studies.
• It is the editor(s)’duty to determine the ethical standards of the journal.
• The editor(s) are accountable towards their publication,
• Editor-in-chief has authority to reject or accept an article.
• The editor(s)’decisions should be fair and unbiased.
• Editor(s) should not be involved in papers in which they have a conflict of interest.
•  Editors are accountable toward the integrity of the published article by issuing corrections and retractions while required and they need to pursue suspected or alleged research and any publication misconduct.

Ethical considerations for Reviewers:

• The reviewers must only accept to review manuscripts that they are expert in and can assess them in a timely manner.
• In reviewing an article, the reviewer must respect the confidentiality of the review process and the rights of the authors of the articles.
• The reviewers should not use any information obtained during the review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage or disadvantage. Accordingly, they should keep confidential any acquired information at any time during or after review process.
• The reviewers must declare all conflict of interests or potential conflict of interests.
• It is crucial for reviewers to keep unbiased by considerations related to the origins of a manuscript, nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, appeal to authority or other characteristics of the authors, or commercial considerations. Peer review process is set up to minimize any cases of potential influence and bias.
• The reviewers must be professional, objective and constructive in their reviews and refrain from being hostile or inflammatory.
• The reviewers must represent their knowledge and expertise accurately and thoroughly.
• Only editorial staff and reviewers are aware of the submitted manuscripts.. All persons involved adhere to confidentiality guidelines and requirements.
• Reviewers' and authors' identities are kept confidential.

Publishing Ethics Issues:

• The editorial board are accountable toward the integrity of the academic record of the journal.
• The plagiarism and fraudulent data are not acceptable in this journal.
• The editorial board are accountable toward the publishing ethics of the journal
• The article retraction guidelines are as follows:

-. Unreliable and redundant articles will be lead to retraction. Those articles with minor errors or authorship changes only return to authors with correction notice.

- The reasons for article retraction will be clarified for authors and the retracted articles will be marked.

• The journal will not compromise intellectual or ethical standards in favor of the business needs of the journal.

Correction and Retraction of Articles:

A published article may need corrections with the authorization of the editor of the journal. The magnitude of the corrections whether minor or major is up to the editor. In cases of minor corrections, the original articles will be corrected. However, in cases of major corrections, two versions of article including original version and corrected version will be published with a statement that explains the reasons for the major change. When necessary, retraction of articles will be done according to COPE retraction guidelines

Further reading

ICMJE - Scientific Misconduct, Expressions of Concern, and Retraction

COPE Guidelines

COPE Flowcharts

COPE retraction guidelines

WAME - Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals

STM - International Ethical Principles for Scholarly Publication

Ethical Consideration for Human and Animal studies:

1) research with human subjects have to be registered with the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials website (www.irct.ir) or the related country and ethical committee of the research center or University where the study was carried out.

2) Research with human subjects should be conducted in full accordance with ethical principles, including the WMA Declaration of Helsinki-Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (2008) http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html

3) Authors should place a statement in the Method section of their submitted manuscript outlining that the study has been independently reviewed and approved by an ethic committee..

4) Moreover in research with human subjects, an informed consent explaining the nature of the procedure and possible inconveniences and risks should be obtained from all participants  in the experimental investigation and subjects should be able to freely reject participation.

5) If animals are used, a statement protocol approval by the institutional animal care and use committee must be included. Methods section must clearly show that adequate measures were taken to minimize pain and/or distress, for example the administration of local anesthetics or general anesthesia. Experiments should be carried out in accordance with the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC) and in accordance with local laws and regulations governed within that country or with the guidelines laid down by the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the USA regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures.

Authorship Conflicts:

According to ICMJE recommendations "all those who designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged".

Any change in authorship (i.e. order, addition, and deletion of authors) after initial submission must be approved by all authors via written confirmation, in line with COPE guidelines. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to take the authors confirmation for the proposed changes. If there is disagreement amongst the authors concerning authorship and a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached, the authors must contact their institution(s) for a resolution. It is not the journal editor’s responsibility to resolve authorship disputes. A change in authorship after publication of an article can only be amended via publication of an Erratum.

Plagiarism Policy:

Definition: plagiarism is presenting the work or idea of someone else as your own. In addition, Self-plagiarism is commonly described as recycling or reusing one's own specific words from previously published texts without properly citing the reference. , it is also called a duplicate publication.

Policy: The editorial team/reviewers of “International Clinical Neuroscience Journal” will check the submitted manuscripts for plagiarism twice (once after submission and once before publication) using available plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate. If suspected plagiarism is found in an article either before (by reviewers or editorial team) or after (by readers) publication, the journal will act according to COPE’s code of conduct and flowcharts.