Journal Policy & Ethics

The EJTCM Editorial Team is responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of our Journal, as described below. We are are obligated to follow the current laws regarding copyright, libel, personal data protection and plagarism.

The EJTCM Editorial Team is obligated to evaluate all deposited manuscripts strictly in terms of their scientific and linguistic quality. We do not collect any data about the Authors' ethnicity, nationality, political or religious beliefs, race, sex nor sexual orientation and none of those factors play any role in our editorial decisions about a manuscript.

During the editorial and peer review processes, the EJTCM Editorial Team is obligated to keep information about the Authors and their manuscript (including manuscript content) confidential. The Reviewers have access only to a "blinded" version of the manuscript, meaning all information that can identify the Authors and/or their institutions are removed.

The EJTCM fully supports the ethical principles published in the Declaration of Helsinki.

We do not publish articles whose authors did not follow these principles their research on human subjects, particularly the vulnerable groups. We pay additional attention to studies involving participants with institutional vulnerability (e.g. prisoners, military personnel, person whose relationship with a superior might make it difficult to make an independent decision), cognitive or communicative vulnerability (difficulty with comprehension and decision-making), medical vulnerability (person with serious illness/es for which there are no standard treatment options), economic vulnerability (in terms of income, housing or healthcare) and social vulnerability (persons who belong to undervalued social groups). In case of studies involving children, we require the authors to submit detailed information about the process of obtaining consent from their parents/guardians.

All communication and/or evidence submitted to the EJTCM Editorial Office about the author/s’ alleged academic (research) misconduct shall be treated seriously and promptly investigated by either the Editor-in-Chief or the Vice-Editor-in-Chief and handled in accordance with the COPE guidelines.
All appeals shall be handled by the EJTCM Editorial Team in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

The European Journal of Translational and Clinical Medicine is owned and funded by its publisher, the Medical University of Gdańsk, a public, tax payer-funded university.
EJTCM does not collect any fees from article authors.
EJTCM is open for cooperation with biomedical societies, biomedical conference organizers, biomedical and pharmaceutical industry regarding reprints and commercial distribution of EJTCM articles. Such requests are reviewed by the EJTCM Editorial Team on a case-by-case basis. These for-profit activities are undertaken for the sole purpose of funding the EJTCM budget and cover the costs of publisher association memberships, software license renewal and other expenses necessary for the functioning of the Journal.

Responsibilities of the Authors

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Large Language Models) do not meet the requirements for authorship of a manuscript. The reason is that AI tools do not take responsibility for the submitted work, are unable to manage copyright and license agreements and cannot determine the presence or absence of conflicts of interest.

In the Materials and Methods section of their manuscript authors must disclose which AI tool was used and for what task/s (e.g. writing the manuscript, images, data collection or analysis). Authors are fully responsible for the entire content of their manuscript, including the parts produced by an AI tool.

Authorship should be limited only to those people who have made a significant contribution to the submitted work, specifically: research concept and design, data collection and/or organization, data analysis and interpretation, writing the manuscript, critical revision of the manuscript, final approval of the manuscript. Likewise, it is unethical for authors to omit from the author list a person/s who contributed to the above-listed tasks (that is the so-called “ghost authorship”).
Furthermore, guest authorship (also referred to as “gift authorship”) is not allowed.
The Acknowledgements section is the appropriate place to list the names of all people who do not meet the criteria of significant contribution.

During the submission process, the authors are required to list all authors and mark their contribution to the submitted manuscript. During the initial screening process, the Vice-Editor-in-Chief reviews this information. In case of doubt, the Vice-Editor-in-Chief directly contacts the corresponding author, investigates the issue and requests appropriate changes to the author list and/or contributions.

All requests to add or remove authors from the author list before or during publishing the article in the EJTCM shall be handled by the Vice-Editor-in-Chief by contacting all the remaining authors (if possible) and obtaining their permission for the addition or removal of any authors.
All equivocal cases shall be resolved in accordance with the COPE guidelines https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines.

Manuscript authored, co-authored or submitted by an Editor.
If an EJTCM Editor is an author or co-author of a manuscript submitted to the EJTCM, this manuscript follows the same editorial process as all other manuscripts (no "fast-track," no preferential treatment). In addition, an Editor may not review his/her manuscript (always 2 independent peer Reviewers) and does not oversee his/her article as the Section Editor (always an independent Section Editor).

Authors may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article.

The authors must ensure that they are submitting an entirely original work. If the methods, data, graphics and/or words from other published articles have been used in the manuscript, this must be appropriately cited or quoted.
An author may not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. EJTCM does not consider the following uses of a work as prior publication: publication in the form of an abstract, publication as an academic thesis or dissertation, publication as an electronic preprint.

During the submission process, the authors are required to mark whether or not their submitted work has been copyrighted or published elsewhere. In addition, the corresponding author is required to send a signed copy of the EJTCM Author Agreement to the EJTCM Editorial Office.
During the initial screening process all submitted manuscripts are verified against plagiarism using the iThenticate service. Each report from iThenticate is analyzed for the extent of severity of the plagiarism on a case-by-case basis by the Language Editor and the Vice-Editor-in-Chief. The Editorial Team makes a decision to either:

• contact the corresponding author about the plagiarism and rejection of the manuscript,
• or to contact the corresponding author with request to revise the appropriated portion of the manuscript. In case of no response or the corresponding author’s lack of cooperation, all of the remaining authors shall be contacted with the same request. In case of no response, the manuscript shall be on hold while the authors’ respective superiors/institutions are contacted.

Funding sources

All authors are required to their funding sources relevant to the subject of their manuscript. Specifically, the authors are required to report if they or their institution(s) at any time receive payment or services from a third party (government, commercial, private foundation, etc.) for any aspect of the submitted work (including but not limited to grants, data monitoring board, study design, manuscript preparation, statistical analysis, etc.). The time frame for reporting this is from the initial idea and planning of the research to the present moment. EJTCM Editorial Office requests information about resources that the authors received, either directly or indirectly (via your institution), to enable them to complete their research and manuscript.

If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, then this should also be stated.
Include a statement describing the funding source in the Acknowledgments section.

Relevant financial activities outside of the submitted manuscript.

The authors are required to disclose any relevant conflicts of interest that were present during the 36 months prior to submitting their manuscript to EJTCM. Specifically, authors should disclose interactions with ANY entity that could be considered broadly relevant to the work you described in their manuscript.

Example: if the sbmitted manuscript is about testing a receptor antagonist to treat lung cancer, the authors should report all associations with entities pursuing diagnostic or therapeutic strategies in cancer in general, not just in the area of that specific receptor or just lung cancer.

We ask the authors to report all sources of revenue paid (or promised to be paid) directly to them or their institution on their behalf during the 36 months prior to submission of this manuscript to EJTCM. This should include all funding from sources that are relevant to the submitted manuscrpt, not just money from the entity that sponsored the research project. Please note that the authors’ interactions with the sponsor that are outside the submitted work should also be listed here. If in doubt, it is usually better to disclose a relationship than not to do so.

For grants received for work outside the submitted manuscript, the authors should disclose financial support ONLY from entities that could be perceived to be affected financially by the published manuscript, e.g. pharmaceutical companies or foundations supported by entities that could be perceived to have a financial stake in the outcome of the research described in the manuscript.
Public funding sources (e.g. government agencies, charitable foundations or academic institutions) do not need be disclosed.

Example: if a government agency sponsored a study in which one of the authors was involved and drugs were provided by a pharmaceutical company, then the authors need to only list the pharmaceutical company.

Patents & copyrights

The authors are required to disclose any patents and copyrights (planned, pending or issued) relevant to the manuscript submitted to the EJTCM.

Other relationships not covered above

The authors are required to disclose any other relationships or activities that our readers could perceive to have influenced, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing, what you wrote in the manuscript submitted to EJTCM.

Evidence of undisclosed conflict of interest

All communication and/or evidence submitted to the EJTCM Editorial Office about the author/s’ undisclosed conflicts of interest shall be treated seriously and promptly investigated by either the Editor-in-Chief or the Vice-Editor-in-Chief and handled in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

This is the section after the Discussion and before the References, dedicated to recognizing the names of all people who were helpful in the research project described in the manuscript and/or in writing the manuscript itself, however do not meet the criteria for authorship.

In addition, this section must contain disclosure of all sources of financial support for the described research, any potential conflicts of interest, and clinical trial registry information.
Specific information including examples can be found on our Journal Policy & Ethics page.

Statements of compliance are required if the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that has any unusual hazards inherent in their use, or if it involves the use of animal or human subjects.
Studies on patients or volunteers require their consent as well as an approval of the local ethics committee. Both should be documented in the Acknowledgements section.

Manuscripts describing research that required ethical approval but lacking a clear statement about it shall not be considered for review and publish by the EJTCM.

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with an article for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data.

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