Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics and International Relations is committed to the principles of research and publication ethics, academic integrity, editorial independence, and the reliability of the scholarly record.
The journal's editorial processes are conducted in accordance with internationally recognized principles of publication ethics and good scholarly publishing practice. In particular, the journal takes into consideration the core practices, guidelines, and recommendations developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). References to COPE do not imply that the journal is a member of COPE unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Editors, reviewers, and authors participating in the publication process are expected to comply with the following ethical principles.
1. Responsibilities of Editors and Editorial Independence
Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts fairly and impartially on the basis of their scholarly merit, originality, methodological and theoretical quality, research integrity, and relevance to the aims and scope of the journal.
Editorial decisions must not be influenced by an author's nationality, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, political views, institutional affiliation, or other personal characteristics.
Editors are responsible for:
- safeguarding the integrity and independence of the peer-review process;
- maintaining the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts;
- identifying and managing conflicts of interest;
- addressing allegations of research or publication misconduct; and
- protecting the integrity and reliability of the scholarly record.
The publisher, supporting institutions, sponsors, or other external parties shall not interfere with editorial decisions concerning individual manuscripts.
Where an editor has a personal, academic, financial, institutional, or other relevant conflict of interest concerning a submitted manuscript, that editor must withdraw from its evaluation and decision-making process. The manuscript will be handled by another qualified editor who has no relevant conflict of interest.
2. Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers contribute to editorial decision-making through independent and objective assessments based on their academic expertise.
Reviewers are expected to:
- evaluate manuscripts fairly, objectively, and constructively;
- base their assessments on scholarly considerations;
- maintain the confidentiality of all materials received for review;
- disclose any potential conflict of interest and decline the review where appropriate;
- inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, data manipulation, duplicate publication, or other ethical concerns; and
- complete their reviews within a reasonable period.
Reviewers must not use unpublished information, data, ideas, or materials obtained through the peer-review process for personal, professional, or academic advantage.
3. Responsibilities of Authors
Authors are responsible for the originality, accuracy, integrity, and ethical compliance of the work they submit to the journal.
Authors must ensure that:
- the submitted work is original;
- the manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal;
- all sources have been appropriately acknowledged and cited;
- research data, evidence, and findings are presented accurately;
- all required ethical approvals, participant consents, and institutional permissions have been obtained;
- all sources of funding and potential conflicts of interest have been disclosed; and
- authorship accurately reflects actual scholarly contributions.
Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate manipulation of data or images, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, and other forms of research or publication misconduct are not acceptable.
4. Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a meaningful scholarly contribution to the work.
All individuals listed as authors must have made a significant contribution to the study, reviewed and approved the final version submitted for publication, and accepted responsibility for the content of the work.
Individuals who have contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be appropriately acknowledged.
Ghost authorship, honorary authorship, and gift authorship are considered unethical practices.
Where disputes arise concerning authorship or the order of authors, the journal may request statements from the parties involved and, where appropriate, seek clarification from the relevant institutions. The journal does not act as an adjudicating body for authorship disputes between researchers.
5. Conflicts of Interest and Funding
Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, institutional, professional, academic, personal, or other relationships that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, the research, review process, or editorial decision.
Authors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and all sources of financial support at the time of submission.
Reviewers and editors must disclose any conflict that may compromise their impartiality and must withdraw from the evaluation process where appropriate.
6. Research Ethics and Ethical Oversight
Research involving human participants, personal data, interviews, surveys, experiments, or other activities requiring ethical oversight must be conducted in accordance with applicable institutional, national, and international ethical standards.
Where ethical approval is required, authors must obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional authority before conducting the research. Where applicable, the name of the ethics committee, date of approval, and approval or reference number should be reported in the manuscript.
Informed consent must be obtained from research participants where required.
Personal and sensitive information must be handled in accordance with applicable principles of confidentiality, privacy, and data protection.
Where ethical approval was not required for a particular study, editors may request an explanation of the institutional or legal basis for the exemption.
The journal reserves the right to request ethics approval documents, informed-consent information, research permissions, or other supporting documentation during the editorial process.
7. Data Integrity, Data Sharing, and Reproducibility
Authors must present research data, evidence, sources, analyses, and findings accurately and honestly.
Fabrication, falsification, selective or misleading reporting of results, and manipulation of research materials in a manner that compromises the scholarly record are unacceptable.
Authors are encouraged to make the data and other research materials supporting their findings available where legally, ethically, and practically possible.
Where appropriate, authors may provide a Data Availability Statement indicating whether the underlying data:
- are publicly available in a repository;
- are available upon reasonable request;
- are subject to specific access restrictions; or
- cannot be shared for ethical, legal, confidentiality, privacy, or data-protection reasons.
Editors may request access to underlying data or supporting documentation where necessary to assess the reliability or integrity of a submission.
8. Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication, and Citation Practices
All manuscripts submitted to the journal are screened for plagiarism and textual similarity before peer review. The journal may use similarity-detection software such as iThenticate and/or Turnitin for this purpose.
Similarity reports are evaluated editorially rather than solely on the basis of a numerical similarity score. Quotations, reference lists, methodological language, legitimate textual overlap, and the overall academic integrity of the manuscript are taken into consideration.
Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, inappropriate text recycling, duplicate or substantially overlapping publication, unattributed quotation, and citation manipulation are considered unethical practices.
Authors must not cite irrelevant sources for the purpose of artificially increasing citation counts. Editors and reviewers must not require authors to cite particular publications without legitimate scholarly justification.
9. Handling Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct
Novus Orbis takes credible allegations of research and publication misconduct seriously, whether they arise before submission, during editorial evaluation, or after publication.
Such allegations may concern plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, manipulation of images or data, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, citation manipulation, or other conduct that may compromise the integrity of the scholarly record.
When an allegation is raised, the journal may:
- conduct a preliminary assessment of the allegation and available evidence;
- request an explanation and supporting documentation from the author(s) or other relevant parties;
- request underlying data, ethics documentation, or other research records where necessary;
- seek advice from independent experts;
- contact relevant institutions or organizations where appropriate; and
- take appropriate editorial action in light of the findings.
Allegations will be handled as confidentially, fairly, and impartially as reasonably possible, and relevant parties will be given an opportunity to respond where appropriate.
Where a credible allegation of misconduct is raised, the journal may take further steps necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record rather than treating rejection of the manuscript as the sole resolution.
10. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern
The journal is committed to maintaining the accuracy and reliability of the published scholarly record.
Where a significant error is identified in a published article but does not invalidate its principal findings, the journal may issue a correction.
An article may be retracted where there is sufficient evidence that its findings are unreliable as a result of serious error, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical research, duplicate publication, or other serious breaches of research or publication ethics.
Where serious concerns have been raised but an investigation has not yet been completed or a definitive conclusion cannot be reached, the journal may issue an expression of concern.
Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern will be clearly identified and, where technically possible, linked bidirectionally to the original article. The scholarly record will not be silently altered or removed.
11. Post-Publication Discussion
The journal supports responsible scholarly discussion concerning work published in Novus Orbis.
Readers, researchers, and authors may contact the editorial office regarding significant errors, methodological concerns, ethical issues, or other matters that may affect the reliability or interpretation of a published work.
Editors may request a response from the authors, seek independent expert advice, or contact relevant institutions where appropriate.
Where post-publication discussion identifies an issue requiring amendment of the scholarly record, the journal may publish a response, correction, expression of concern, or retraction, as appropriate.
12. Complaints and Appeals
Authors and other relevant parties may submit complaints concerning editorial procedures, ethical matters, or editorial decisions to the journal's editorial office.
An appeal against an editorial decision should identify specific scholarly or procedural grounds that warrant reconsideration. Mere disagreement with an editorial decision does not in itself constitute sufficient grounds for reconsideration.
Complaints and appeals will be handled fairly, confidentially, and impartially. Where practicable, an appeal may be considered by an editor or appropriate academic authority who was not directly responsible for the original decision.
An appeal does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript.
13. Confidentiality
Submitted manuscripts, peer-review reports, editorial correspondence, and other unpublished materials obtained during the editorial process are confidential.
Editors and reviewers may use such information only for editorial evaluation and must not disclose, reproduce, distribute, or use it for personal, professional, or academic advantage without authorization.
The obligation of confidentiality continues after the completion of the review and editorial process.
14. Use of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools
Authors
Authors must transparently disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence or AI-assisted technologies where such tools have made a material contribution to the preparation of a manuscript. Tools used solely for basic spelling, grammar, language correction, or formatting may be treated differently where they do not materially generate or alter scholarly content.
Artificial intelligence systems and automated tools cannot qualify as authors or co-authors.
Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy of all statements, data, references, citations, and other content generated or modified with the assistance of AI. AI-generated output must not be relied upon as scholarly evidence or a source without appropriate verification.
Generative AI tools must not be cited as substitutes for scholarly sources.
Reviewers and Editors
Reviewers and editors must not upload unpublished manuscripts, peer-review reports, author correspondence, or other confidential editorial materials to publicly accessible generative AI systems or external services where confidentiality, data protection, and intellectual-property safeguards cannot be assured.
Reviewers and editors must not delegate their responsibility for scholarly assessment or editorial decision-making to generative AI systems and must not use such systems to generate peer-review reports or editorial decisions.
Where automated tools are used by the journal for similarity screening or other research-integrity checks, final assessment and decision-making remain the responsibility of human editors.
15. Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Licensing
Authors retain copyright in their articles published in Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics and International Relations.
Detailed provisions concerning copyright, publishing rights, and open-access licensing are set out in the journal's Copyright and Licensing Policy and Author Declaration and Publishing Agreement.
Information concerning the journal's open-access licence, authors' rights, and conditions governing reuse by third parties must remain transparent and publicly accessible.
16. Implementation of this Policy
This policy constitutes the principal framework governing research and publication ethics at Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics and International Relations.
For ethical matters not explicitly addressed in this policy, or cases requiring specific assessment, the editors may consult internationally recognized publication-ethics principles and relevant guidance and flowcharts issued by COPE.
The journal periodically reviews and, where necessary, updates its ethical policies and editorial practices in order to protect the integrity and reliability of the scholarly record.