The International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Food Sciences (e-ISSN: 2618-5946) is committed to the highest standards of research and publication ethics. The journal follows the Core Practices and Flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and aligns with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the European Association of Science Editors (EASE). The journal adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOAJ, COPE, OASPA, WAME) and to the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive of the Council of Higher Education of Türkiye (YÖK) and TR Dizin ethical criteria.

This policy defines the ethical responsibilities of authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher, and describes the journal's editorial, open access, licensing, and preservation practices.

Contents

1. General Ethical Standards
2. Authorship, Contributions, and Acknowledgements
3. Ethics Committee Approval
4. Research Involving Humans and Animals
5. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure
6. Data Availability, Materials, and Reproducibility
7. Preprints and Prior Dissemination
8. Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools
9. Editorial and Peer Review Process
10. Responsibilities of Authors, Reviewers, Editors, and the Publisher
11. Research Misconduct and Sanctions
12. Retractions, Corrections, and Expressions of Concern
13. Appeals and Complaints
14. Special Issues
15. Open Access, Licensing, and Copyright
16. Archiving, Preservation, and Self-Archiving
17. Revenue Sources, Charges, and Advertising
18. Policy Updates and Contact

1. General Ethical Standards

• Only original and unpublished manuscripts that are not under consideration elsewhere are accepted.
• Plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, duplicate or overlapping publication, image manipulation, citation manipulation, and unethical experimentation are prohibited.
• All submissions are screened for similarity using iThenticate and intihal.net before peer review. As a general benchmark, an overall similarity index above 20% (excluding references and properly quoted material) requires revision or may result in rejection. Editors evaluate similarity reports holistically, taking into account the nature and distribution of overlaps.
• Studies involving human participants, animals, or personal data must comply with the requirements set out in Sections 3 and 4.

2. Authorship, Contributions, and Acknowledgements

• Authorship follows the ICMJE criteria; all four conditions must be met by each listed author.
• Individual contributions must be declared in the manuscript using the CRediT taxonomy.
• Non-author contributors are acknowledged with their consent. Ghost, guest, and gift authorship are unacceptable.
• Changes to the author list after submission require the written consent of all authors and the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, in line with COPE guidance.
• The corresponding author acts on behalf of all co-authors throughout the submission, review, and publication process.

3. Ethics Committee Approval

Authors must obtain ethics committee approval before conducting studies involving:

• human participants, including data collected through questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observations, or experiments;
• clinical research involving human subjects, patients, or biological samples;
• animal research, including experimental studies, tissue analyses, and retrospective animal data;
• personal or sensitive data regulated under GDPR, KVKK, or equivalent data protection frameworks.

The official approval document must be uploaded at submission. Where approval is required, the manuscript must state the name of the approving institution or committee, the date of approval, and the approval or protocol number.

If ethics committee approval is not required, this must be stated explicitly in the manuscript, for example: "This study does not require ethics committee approval as it does not involve human or animal participants or data subject to ethical review." In such cases, the signed Ethics Statement and Approval Form confirming exemption must be uploaded at submission.

Ethics Compliance Summary

• Studies involving human participants (questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observations, experiments) — approval required; the approval certificate must be uploaded.
• Clinical studies involving human subjects, patients, or biological samples — approval required; the approval number and protocol ID must be cited in the manuscript.
• Animal experiments, tissue studies, or retrospective animal data — approval required; institutional animal ethics approval must be provided.
• Studies using secondary or publicly available datasets without personal or identifiable data — not always required; may be exempt where data are anonymised and publicly accessible. An Ethics Statement is required.
• Studies involving personal or sensitive data under GDPR or KVKK — approval required; a data protection compliance statement and evidence of consent must be included.
• Laboratory or field studies with plant, soil, or chemical materials — usually not required unless human or animal subjects are involved.
• Studies including identifiable individuals or photographs — approval and informed consent are both required and must be declared.

Authors are responsible for obtaining and retaining ethics approval documents. The Editorial Board may request verification at any stage of the review or publication process.

4. Research Involving Humans and Animals

• Human studies: institutional review board or ethics committee approval (name and approval number), informed consent, clinical trial registration where applicable, and written permission for the use of identifiable data or images.
• Animal studies: institutional approval and compliance with internationally recognised standards, including the ARRIVE guidelines. Procedures must be scientifically justified and animal suffering minimised.
• Plant material: studies must comply with national and international legislation on the collection, transfer, and use of plant genetic resources, including the Nagoya Protocol where applicable.

5. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure

• Authors must declare all financial and non-financial conflicts of interest, including employment, consultancies, stock ownership, patents, grants, personal relationships, and academic competition.
• All sources of financial support must be stated, together with the role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and the decision to publish.
• Where no conflict of interest or funding exists, this must be stated explicitly.
• Editors and reviewers must declare conflicts of interest and recuse themselves where necessary.

6. Data Availability, Materials, and Reproducibility

• Every manuscript must include a Data Availability Statement indicating how the underlying data, code, and materials can be accessed, or providing a justification for any restrictions.
• Authors are encouraged to deposit datasets and code in recognised repositories and to cite persistent identifiers.
• Methods must be described in sufficient detail to allow replication of the study.
• Authors must cooperate with the journal in providing raw data if requested during review or after publication.

7. Preprints and Prior Dissemination

• Manuscripts previously posted on recognised preprint servers may be submitted, provided that the preprint is disclosed at submission. Upon acceptance, authors are expected to update the preprint record with the final DOI.
• Presentation as a conference abstract or inclusion in a thesis is acceptable, provided that the overlap is disclosed at submission.
• Authors may deposit the submitted, accepted, and published versions of their work in institutional or subject repositories without embargo, in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 license (see Section 16).

8. Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools

• Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors, since authorship implies accountability that such tools cannot assume.
• Authors must disclose any use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in the preparation, analysis, writing, translation, or editing of the manuscript, stating the name of the tool, its version, and the purpose of use. The disclosure is made in the Generative AI Statement within the Compliance with Ethical Standards section.
• Acceptable use: improvement of language, grammar, and readability, and support for data analysis, provided that the use is disclosed and does not compromise scientific integrity.
• Unacceptable use: fabrication of data, results, references, or images; manipulation of figures; and any use that breaches confidentiality or data protection requirements. Such practices constitute research misconduct and result in rejection or retraction.
• The journal may screen submissions for undisclosed AI-generated content. Editors and reviewers may use AI tools only for language support or similarity checking, never for evaluating scientific content or making editorial decisions. Confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded to generative AI systems.
• Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the entire manuscript.

9. Editorial and Peer Review Process

• All manuscripts are first assessed by the Editorial Office against the editorial screening criteria set out on the Peer Review Process page, covering scope, article type, originality, formatting compliance, ethical documentation, and similarity. Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements are returned or rejected without external review.
• Manuscripts that pass the initial assessment undergo double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers, under the oversight of a member of the Editorial Board.
• Editorial decisions are based solely on scientific merit, originality, methodological soundness, and relevance to the journal's scope.
• Target periods for each stage of the editorial process are set out on the Peer Review Process page. The intervals actually achieved in the preceding year, including the mean time from submission to decision and from acceptance to publication, are reported on the Statistics page.
• Authors are notified of the editorial decision through the DergiPark system.
• Submissions authored by editors or members of the Editorial Board are handled independently by another editor, and the authors have no access to the review records of their own submissions.

10. Responsibilities of Authors, Reviewers, Editors, and the Publisher

Authors

• Ensure the originality and accuracy of the work, cite all sources appropriately, and avoid plagiarism and self-plagiarism.
• Obtain and declare all required ethics approvals, consents, and permissions for third-party material.
• Disclose all funding sources and conflicts of interest.
• Provide a transparent description of the methodology and share data and code as stated in the Data Availability Statement.
• Notify the journal promptly of any error discovered after submission or publication and cooperate in issuing corrections or retractions.

Reviewers

• Provide objective, constructive, and timely evaluations, avoiding personal criticism of the authors.
• Treat all manuscripts as confidential documents and refrain from using unpublished material for personal advantage.
• Declare conflicts of interest and decline the invitation where impartiality cannot be maintained.
• Report any suspicion of plagiarism, data fabrication, or other ethical concerns to the editor.
• Refrain from uploading manuscript content to generative AI systems.

Editors

• Ensure fair, unbiased, and timely peer review and base decisions solely on scientific merit.
• Safeguard the confidentiality of manuscripts and the anonymity of reviewers.
• Manage conflicts of interest transparently and exclude themselves from decisions on manuscripts in which they have an interest.
• Follow COPE flowcharts when handling suspected misconduct and issue corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern where necessary.
• Maintain editorial independence from the publisher and from any commercial interest.

Publisher

• Supports the editorial team in maintaining the integrity of the publication process and guarantees editorial independence.
• Ensures compliance with COPE, DOAJ, and TR Dizin standards, and provides the technical infrastructure for publication, DOI registration, and long-term preservation.
• Addresses verified cases of misconduct in cooperation with the relevant institutions and authorities.

11. Research Misconduct and Sanctions

Research misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

1. Plagiarism — using another person's ideas, text, data, or images without proper acknowledgement.
2. Duplicate or concurrent submission — submitting the same or a substantially similar manuscript to more than one journal at the same time.
3. Self-plagiarism or redundant publication — republishing substantial parts of one's own previously published work without citation.
4. Data fabrication or falsification — inventing, manipulating, or selectively reporting data, figures, or results.
5. Citation manipulation — including citations for the primary purpose of increasing citation counts.
6. Improper authorship attribution — omitting contributors who meet the authorship criteria or including individuals who do not.
7. Undisclosed use of generative AI, or use of such tools to fabricate content.

Where misconduct is established following investigation in accordance with COPE flowcharts, the journal may apply one or more of the following measures:

• rejection of the manuscript or retraction of the published article;
• a ban on submissions by the authors concerned for a period of up to 36 months;
• removal of the individuals concerned from the editorial or reviewer board;
• notification of the authors' institutions, funders, and relevant oversight bodies.

Authors are given the opportunity to respond before any sanction is applied.

12. Retractions, Corrections, and Expressions of Concern

• The journal follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines and the relevant COPE flowcharts.
• Corrections (errata) are issued for errors that do not affect the validity of the findings; retractions are issued where the findings are unreliable, whether as a result of misconduct or honest error.
• An expression of concern may be published where an investigation is inconclusive or ongoing.
• All notices are linked bidirectionally to the original article, published in the earliest possible issue, and made freely available without charge. Retracted articles remain accessible and are clearly marked as retracted; they are not removed from the journal or from indexing services.

13. Appeals and Complaints

• Authors may appeal an editorial decision or raise an ethical concern by writing to editorialoffice@jaefs.com, stating the manuscript identifier and providing a detailed justification.
• The Editorial Office acknowledges appeals and complaints within 7 working days and aims to reach a resolution within 30 working days.
• Appeals are assessed impartially by an editor who was not involved in the original decision, in accordance with COPE dispute resolution guidance.
• Cases that cannot be resolved internally may be referred to an independent external expert or to COPE.

14. Special Issues

• Special Issue proposals may be submitted to editorialoffice@jaefs.com and must include the title, rationale, scope and themes, the guest editorial team with affiliations and short biographies, a tentative timeline, and the estimated number of articles (typically 5–10 research articles).
• Proposals are assessed by the Editorial Board for scientific relevance, alignment with the journal's scope, and editorial feasibility; the final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief.
• All Special Issue submissions undergo the same double-blind peer review, similarity screening, article type restrictions, and ethical requirements as regular submissions.
• Guest Editors must not handle or review manuscripts authored by themselves, by recent co-authors, or by colleagues from their own institution. Such manuscripts are handled by the Editorial Board.
• Guest Editors may publish at most one manuscript in their own Special Issue.
• Citation manipulation, including requests to cite the Special Issue or the journal, is strictly prohibited.
• The Editor-in-Chief may appoint independent reviewers, review or override editorial decisions, and reject submissions that do not meet the journal's quality, scope, or ethical standards.

15. Open Access, Licensing, and Copyright

The journal is a fully open access journal in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and the DOAJ Best Practice Guidelines. All articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, without subscription, registration, or any financial, legal, or technical barrier.

Licensing

All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this license, users are free to:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format;
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material;
• for any purpose, including commercial use;

provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and the source, a link to the license is provided, and any changes made are indicated.

Copyright

Authors retain the full copyright of their published work without restriction and grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish, reproduce, and distribute the article under the open access model. Authors also grant the journal the right of first publication.

All submissions must be accompanied by a signed Copyright and License Agreement, uploaded under the supporting files section at submission. Requests concerning the reuse of journal material should be directed to editorialoffice@jaefs.com.

Third-party material

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all content is original or reproduced with written permission, that reused third-party material is appropriately credited, and that documentation of permissions can be provided on request.

16. Archiving, Preservation, and Self-Archiving

All published content is permanently archived and remains accessible through the TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM DergiPark infrastructure. Articles are assigned DOIs through Crossref, ensuring permanent identification and access. Metadata are openly available for harvesting through the OAI-PMH interface at https://dergipark.org.tr/api/public/oai/jaefs/.

Preservation is supported by the LOCKSS system through the DergiPark platform; the LOCKSS permission page for the journal is available at https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jaefs/lockss-manifest.

Self-archiving

Authors may archive all versions of their work without embargo:

• Submitted version (preprint): may be shared on personal websites, institutional repositories, and public subject repositories.
• Accepted version: may be archived in institutional or subject repositories and on personal academic profiles; must include the full citation and the DOI.
• Published version (version of record): may be shared immediately on any platform, provided that the full citation and a link to the DOI are included, under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.

In all cases, the version type must be indicated and the published version must be properly cited with a link to the DOI.

17. Revenue Sources, Charges, and Advertising

The journal levies a single author-side charge, the Editorial Processing Charge (EPC). Under the definitions used by the Directory of Open Access Journals this charge is a submission fee: it is payable before peer review begins and is not conditional on acceptance. No article processing charge is levied on acceptance, and there are no colour, page, supplementary material, correction, or retraction charges. Readers are never charged for access to any content.

When the charge is requested

Every manuscript is first assessed by the Editorial Office against the editorial screening criteria set out on the Peer Review Process page. Manuscripts rejected or returned at this stage are not charged. For manuscripts that pass screening, the Editorial Office issues an invoice, and peer review begins once payment has been received. Current rates are published on the Price Policy page.

What the charge covers

Similarity screening, editorial coordination and peer review management, editorial office administration and correspondence, technical and language checks, article production and proofreading, DOI registration and metadata deposit with Crossref and with abstracting and indexing services, dissemination, and long-term digital preservation.

Refunds

The charge is levied for the conduct of the peer review process. Where the journal is unable to obtain two completed reviews within 120 days of payment, the corresponding author may withdraw the manuscript on that ground and the charge is refunded in full. Refunds are made to the account from which payment was received, normally within 30 days of the request.

In all other circumstances the charge is not refunded, because the process for which it is levied will have been carried out. This includes manuscripts rejected following peer review, manuscripts withdrawn by the authors after peer review has begun, and manuscripts rejected on grounds of research misconduct.

Editorial independence

Payment of the EPC does not guarantee acceptance and has no bearing on the editorial decision. Invoicing and payment are administered exclusively by the Editorial Office. Payment status is not recorded in the editorial file on which decisions are taken, and handling editors and reviewers are not informed whether a charge has been paid, reduced, or waived. Reviewers receive no payment from the EPC on a per-manuscript basis.

Waivers

A full waiver is granted where the corresponding author is affiliated with an institution located in a country classified by the World Bank as a low-income or lower-middle-income economy. Waivers are applied automatically on the basis of the corresponding author's affiliation; no separate application is required. Waiver decisions are taken by the Editorial Office and are not communicated to the handling editor or to the reviewers.

Publisher and payment recipient

The journal is published by Prof. Dr. Gültekin Özdemir. Editorial production and administrative services are provided under contract by EDİT TEKNOLOJİ AR-GE SANAYİ VE TİCARET LİMİTED ŞİRKETİ (Türkiye), which issues invoices and receives EPC payments on behalf of the journal. This company has no editorial function and no ownership interest in the journal.

Advertising

The journal carries no advertising and no sponsored content, and no commercial interest influences editorial decisions.

18. Policy Updates and Contact

This policy is reviewed periodically and updated in line with developments in COPE, ICMJE, DOAJ, and TR Dizin guidance. Updated versions are published on the journal website.

International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Food Sciences
E-mail: editorialoffice@jaefs.com
Website: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jaefs

Related pages: Price Policy · Privacy Policy · Author Guidelines · Peer Review Process