Publication Ethics
Last updated: August 2026. Review the code of conduct, disclosures, and ethical standards expected from all authors, editors, and reviewers.
1. Author Responsibilities
Authors submitting papers to VA-RA journals must guarantee that their work is original, has not been published elsewhere, and does not infringe on existing intellectual copyrights. Proper citation, acknowledgement of data sources, and the disclosure of funding inputs are required.
2. Reviewer & Editor Integrity
Peer reviewers and editors must treat all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents. Evaluations must be objective, constructive, and free of personal bias. Conflict of interests must be immediately declared, resulting in the re-assignment of the manuscript.
3. Corrections, Retractions & Malpractice
In cases of proven scientific misconduct, data fabrication, or major plagiarism, the editorial board reserves the right to issue public corrections or retractions of the published work. Allegations of malpractice are investigated according to the guidelines set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
4. Authorship & Contributorship
Authorship must be limited to those who made a significant intellectual contribution to the conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported work. All listed authors must approve the final manuscript and agree to be accountable for its content. Non-author contributors (funders, technical assistants, proofreaders, etc.) should be named in an acknowledgements section rather than listed as authors. Any change to the author list after submission — addition, removal or reordering — requires written consent from every author, including any being removed, and is disclosed to the editor with a stated reason.
5. Conflicts of Interest & Editorial Independence
Authors, reviewers and editors must disclose any financial, professional or personal relationship that could be perceived to influence the handling of a manuscript. Editorial decisions are made solely on scientific merit through double-blind peer review. VA-RA's paid manuscript-support and formatting services operate under an Editorial Independence Firewall: staff providing those services have no communication with the editors or reviewers assigned to a manuscript, and purchasing any support service confers no advantage in the review or acceptance decision.
6. Complaints & Appeals
Authors, reviewers or readers may raise a complaint or appeal an editorial decision by writing to the journal's editorial office with a clear statement of the concern and any supporting evidence. Complaints are acknowledged, investigated by an editor not involved in the original decision, and resolved following COPE's complaints-handling guidance. Outcomes are communicated in writing to the complainant.
7. Research & Publication Misconduct
Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, duplicate submission and undisclosed AI-generated content are treated as research misconduct. Reports are investigated in line with COPE's flowcharts; substantiated cases may result in rejection, correction, retraction, or referral to the author's institution, and are recorded to prevent repeat submission under a different title.
8. Data Availability & Reproducibility
Authors are encouraged to make the underlying data, code and materials necessary to reproduce their findings available, either as supplementary files or via a stated public repository, and to describe access conditions where data cannot be shared openly (e.g. participant privacy). Reviewers may request access to underlying data as part of evaluating a submission.
9. Ethical Oversight
Research involving human participants, human tissue or animals must have been approved by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, and the manuscript must state the approving body and approval/reference number. Studies involving human participants must confirm informed consent was obtained. Manuscripts lacking this documentation where it is applicable will not proceed to review.
10. Intellectual Property & Licensing
Authors retain copyright in their work and grant VA-RA a license to publish under the open-access terms stated on each journal's site. Authors are responsible for securing permission for any third-party material (figures, tables, extended quotations) reproduced in the manuscript, and for disclosing any patent or funding-related IP considerations relevant to the work.