Ethics and Security
Journal of Health Research & Innovation (RIIS) may ask for advice on all submitted articles, particularly in situations that raise concerns, such as ethical issues or issues of access to data or materials. It is important to agree on the standards of ethical behavior expected of all parties involved in the act of publication: the author, the journal editor, the reviewer, etc. All research must have been carried out in accordance with appropriate ethical conduct.
Authorship and Author Responsibility
The corresponding author assumes responsibility for communicating with RIIS during the manuscript submission, peer review and publication process, and normally ensures that all administrative requirements, namely authorship details, ethics committee approval, registration documentation of clinical trial and the declarations of conflict of interest duly completed. The corresponding author must respond to editorial requests throughout the submission and peer review process in a timely manner and must cooperate with any requests from the journal after publication.
RIIS does not allow adding authors, changing their order or the corresponding author after final acceptance of the article. Prior to final acceptance, if any author wishes to be removed, they must submit a letter signed by the author, as well as by all other authors, indicating their wish to be excluded from the list of authors. Any change in the order of names in the signature requires a letter signed by all authors indicating their agreement to the same.
Interest conflicts
Authors are required to disclose all relationships or interests in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must include a ‘Conflict of Interest’ section at the end of the manuscript listing all financial and non-financial conflicts of interest. When the authors have no conflict of interest, the statement should be “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest”. Conflicting interest exists when authors' interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationships with other people or organizations.
Authors must disclose any competing financial interests, but also any competing non-financial interests that may embarrass them if they become public after the article is published. Competing financial interests include (but are not limited to):
- Research grants from funding agencies (research funder and grant number are required);
- Financial support for educational programs;
- Employment or consultation;
- Position on the advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationship;
- Financial relationships, for example: receiving reimbursements, fees, funding or salary from an organization that may somehow gain or lose financially from the publication of the article, now or in the future;
- Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights);
- Participations of the spouse and/or children who may have a financial interest in the work.
In addition, non-financial interests that may be important to readers must be disclosed. These may include, but are not limited to, competing political, personal, religious, ideological, academic and intellectual interests.
Human and animal rights
Research’s involving human subjects, human material or human data must include a statement that the studies were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by an ethics committee. If a study has received an ethical approval requirement waiver, this must also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the waiver). Authors are expected to have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a new procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent prior to treatment.
The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting animal experimentation, authors should indicate whether international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed and whether the studies were approved by an ethics committee.
RIIS encourages authors submitting clinical trial manuscripts to submit the clinical trial registration number and name. Randomized clinical trial reports must present information on all key elements of the study, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (randomization methods, allocation concealment to treatment groups), and the blinding method (blind), based on the statement. CONSORT.
Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the investigation was not carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare cases, Editors may contact the ethics committee for more information.
Informed consent
In all researches involving humans, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from the participants. For all manuscripts that include details, images or videos relating to individual participants, written informed consent for publication of these must be obtained from the participants. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, ID numbers and other information) of participants who were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (parents or guardian if participant is incapacitated) has given written informed consent for publication. The final decision as to whether consent to publish is required rests with the Publisher.
Originality and Duplicate Publication
Manuscripts under review or published by other journals will not be accepted for publication, and articles published in this journal may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any type of publication without authorization from the Editorial Board. Figures and tables may be used freely if the original source is verified under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues by citing a figure or table from a different non-Open Access journal.
Research and publication misconduct management process
The editorial board will work tirelessly to watch for publication misconduct, such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical issue with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who misappropriated the idea of an author or data, complaints against publishers, etc. When the journal encounters suspected cases of research and publication misconduct, the resolution process will be accompanied by guidance provided by the "Publication Ethics Committee (COPE)". Full guidelines appear on the COPE website: http://www.publicationethics.org
Plagiarism
All authors are strongly recommended to verify the content of their manuscripts before submitting them to the journal for publication. Authors can use valid and reliable "plagiarism checking software" to ensure that their manuscripts are free from plagiarism. In any case, all articles submitted to the journal will be checked for plagiarism and also before final publication using iThenticate. If Reviewers, Editors-in-Chief, Readers or Editorial Teams suspect or perceive any type of plagiarism at any stage of the publication process, the manuscript will be rejected and all authors, including the corresponding author, will be notified. Self-plagiarism is also considered and managed accordingly.
The COPE code of conduct and flowcharts will be used if any plagiarism is detected in a submitted manuscript or if it is found in a published article.