Coordinating the Peer Review Process: The editor must ensure that the peer review process is fair, impartial, and timely. Research articles should be reviewed by at least two blind reviewers, and the editor should seek additional opinions when necessary.

Selection of Reviewers: The editor selects reviewers with appropriate expertise in the relevant field, taking into account suitability, inclusivity, and the need for diverse representation. The editor follows best practices to avoid the selection of fraudulent reviewers.

Maintaining Confidentiality: Unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers, the editor must maintain the confidentiality of all materials submitted to the journal and all correspondence with reviewers. In exceptional cases, and in consultation with the publisher, the editor may share limited information with editors of other journals when deemed necessary to investigate suspected research misconduct. The editor must protect the anonymity of reviewers. Information contained in a submitted manuscript must not be used in the editor’s own research without the explicit written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.

Impartiality: The editor must evaluate manuscripts based on their intellectual content, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political philosophy, or similar factors.

Investigation of Allegations: If an editor finds convincing evidence of an ethical violation, they must contact the editorial board and the publisher to ensure that the article is corrected, retracted, or otherwise amended as appropriate.

Conflict of Interest: The editor must not be involved in decisions regarding manuscripts written by themselves or by members of their family. Such works should be subject to all standard editorial procedures of the journal. The editor should apply COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines regarding the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers.

Publication Decision: The editor is responsible for deciding which of the submitted manuscripts should be published, based on the reviewers’ reports and in accordance with the journal’s established policies.
Citation Requests: The editor must not attempt to influence the journal’s ranking by artificially increasing any journal metric. The editor will not request citations to their own journal or any other journal unless there are valid scientific reasons for doing so.

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern: Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are found in a published article that do not affect the results, interpretations, or conclusions. If significant errors and/or ethical breaches are identified that invalidate the findings or conclusions, editors should consider retracting the article. If there are indications of possible research or publication misconduct and evidence suggests that the findings may not be reliable, and if the authors’ institutions have not investigated or the investigation appears unfair or inconclusive, editors should consider publishing an expression of concern. COPE guidelines are taken into account regarding corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern.