1. Introduction

Scientific Innovation Research Group (SIRG) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, and accountability throughout the scholarly publishing process.

SIRG recognizes that maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record is a shared responsibility involving authors, editors, reviewers, editorial board members, publishers, institutions, and other participants in scholarly communication.

SIRG's policies are informed by internationally recognized principles of publication ethics, including the guidance and resources of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), together with applicable research ethics standards and accepted scholarly publishing practices.

SIRG does not tolerate plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, manipulation of the peer-review process, authorship misrepresentation, citation manipulation, or any other form of research or publication misconduct.

2. Scope of This Policy

This policy applies to all journals and scholarly publications published by SIRG and to all individuals involved in the publication process, including:

• Authors and contributors;
• Editors-in-Chief and handling editors;
• Editorial board members;
• Peer reviewers;
• Publisher and editorial staff;
• Research institutions and other parties involved in research integrity matters.

Each SIRG journal may publish additional journal-specific policies and procedures. Where such policies provide more specific requirements, the journal-specific policy applies to submissions to that journal.

3. Editorial Independence

SIRG respects the editorial independence of its journals. Editorial decisions must be based on the academic quality, originality, significance, relevance, methodological soundness, and ethical integrity of the submitted work.

Business, commercial, financial, personal, institutional, political, or other non-academic considerations must not improperly influence editorial decisions.

Editors are responsible for making publication decisions in accordance with the policies of their journal and the principles of research and publication integrity.

4. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are expected to:

• Evaluate manuscripts fairly and objectively.
• Maintain confidentiality of submitted manuscripts.
• Ensure that manuscripts are handled in a timely and professional manner.
• Select appropriate and independent reviewers.
• Identify and manage potential conflicts of interest.
• Protect the integrity of the peer-review process.
• Investigate credible allegations of research or publication misconduct.
• Publish corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions when appropriate.
• Ensure that editorial decisions are not influenced by the identity or characteristics of authors.
• Maintain an accurate and reliable scholarly record.

Editors should not participate in editorial decisions involving manuscripts in which they have a personal, professional, financial, or other conflict of interest.

5. Peer Review

SIRG supports rigorous, fair, independent, and transparent peer review. The specific peer-review model used by each journal is publicly stated on the respective journal website and in its author guidelines.

Research articles are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate subject expertise, although editors may seek additional reviews when necessary.

Peer reviewers are expected to:

• Provide objective, constructive, and evidence-based evaluations.
• Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts and associated information.
• Declare potential conflicts of interest before accepting a review.
• Decline reviews when they lack appropriate expertise or independence.
• Identify relevant published work that has not been appropriately cited when necessary.
• Notify the editor of suspected plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, or other misconduct.
• Complete reviews within the agreed timeframe whenever possible.

Reviewers must not use unpublished information obtained during peer review for personal advantage, research, or any other purpose without appropriate authorization.

6. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that:

• The submitted work is original and accurately represents the research conducted.
• The manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.
• All listed authors meet appropriate authorship requirements.
• All authors have approved the final manuscript and its submission.
• All sources and contributions from others are properly acknowledged and cited.
• Data, methods, results, and conclusions are reported accurately.
• Relevant ethical approvals and participant consents are obtained when required.
• All relevant conflicts of interest are disclosed.
• Funding sources and relevant funding roles are disclosed.
• Potential errors discovered after publication are promptly reported to the journal.

7. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should reflect substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data, or other substantive scholarly contributions, together with participation in drafting or critically revising the manuscript and approval of the final version.

Individuals who made substantial contributions but do not meet the journal's authorship requirements should be appropriately acknowledged.

Honorary, guest, gift, ghost, or otherwise inappropriate authorship is not acceptable.

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be justified and require the agreement of all affected authors and approval by the responsible editor. Post-publication authorship changes will be considered only in exceptional circumstances and may require a formal correction to the published record.

8. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, editors, reviewers, and publisher representatives must disclose relationships or circumstances that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgment.

Potential conflicts may include financial relationships, employment, consultancies, funding, personal relationships, institutional interests, intellectual competition, or other relevant circumstances.

A disclosed conflict does not necessarily prevent publication or participation in peer review. Appropriate management measures may include reassignment of the editor or reviewer, additional review, disclosure to readers, or other safeguards.

9. Research and Publication Misconduct

SIRG considers the following, among other practices, to constitute potential research or publication misconduct:

• Plagiarism and unattributed use of others' work;
• Fabrication of data, results, images, or other research information;
• Falsification or inappropriate manipulation of research materials or results;
• Duplicate or redundant publication;
• Simultaneous submission to multiple journals;
• Improper or fraudulent authorship;
• Manipulation or falsification of peer review;
• Citation manipulation;
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
• Unethical research involving humans or animals;
• Misrepresentation of research methods, data, affiliations, or funding;
• Any other conduct that seriously compromises research or publication integrity.

Allegations may be raised before or after publication. SIRG and the relevant journal may investigate allegations and may seek information or assistance from authors, editors, reviewers, institutions, or other appropriate parties.

10. Plagiarism and Similarity Checking

Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. This includes direct copying, substantial unattributed paraphrasing, appropriation of ideas, text, figures, tables, code, or other intellectual material.

Submitted manuscripts may be screened using appropriate similarity-checking tools and may also be assessed by editors and reviewers.

Similarity reports are considered in context. A similarity percentage alone does not automatically establish plagiarism; editors may investigate the nature, location, source, and significance of overlapping material.

11. Duplicate, Redundant, and Concurrent Publication

Manuscripts must not be submitted simultaneously to more than one journal. Authors must disclose relevant previous publications, preprints, conference papers, theses, datasets, or other outputs that substantially overlap with the submitted work.

When legitimate extensions of previously published work are submitted, authors must clearly identify the earlier work and explain the additional contribution.

12. Data Availability and Research Reproducibility

Authors are encouraged to make underlying research data, code, software, protocols, and other supporting materials available where ethically, legally, and practically possible.

Authors should provide a clear Data Availability Statement when required by the journal or the nature of the research.

Where data cannot be publicly shared because of privacy, confidentiality, ethical, legal, security, intellectual property, or other legitimate restrictions, authors should explain the applicable limitations and, where possible, describe how qualified researchers may request access.

13. Ethical Oversight and Research Involving Humans or Animals

Research involving human participants, human data, identifiable information, clinical material, or animals must comply with applicable ethical standards and institutional or national requirements.

Where required, authors must provide information concerning approval by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board and must obtain informed consent when applicable.

Authors must protect participant privacy and confidentiality and must not publish identifiable information without appropriate consent or lawful justification.

Research involving animals should comply with relevant institutional, national, and international standards for humane treatment and ethical research practice.

14. Intellectual Property and Copyright

SIRG respects intellectual property rights and expects authors to obtain appropriate permissions for copyrighted material belonging to third parties.

Copyright and licensing arrangements are specified by each SIRG journal. Authors should consult the relevant journal's Copyright, Licensing, and Open Access policies before submission.

Where a journal publishes articles under a Creative Commons license, the applicable license will be clearly identified on the journal website and on the published article.

15. Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

SIRG recognizes that generative artificial intelligence and other AI-assisted technologies may be used in scholarly research and manuscript preparation. Their use must be transparent and must not compromise research integrity.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and accountability of their manuscripts, including material produced or assisted by AI tools.

AI tools must not be listed as authors or credited with authorship.

When required by the relevant journal policy, authors should disclose substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, including the nature and purpose of such use.

Authors must independently verify AI-assisted content, including references, quotations, data, calculations, claims, images, code, and other outputs.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, unpublished data, or other protected material to generative AI systems where doing so would breach confidentiality or applicable policies.

16. Funding and Financial Transparency

Authors must disclose financial support for the research and, where relevant, describe the role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decisions.

The absence of external funding should also be stated when required by the relevant journal.

17. Complaints and Appeals

SIRG is committed to handling complaints and appeals fairly, consistently, confidentially, and without retaliation.

Complaints may concern editorial decisions, editorial processes, reviewer conduct, publication ethics, authorship, conflicts of interest, or other matters related to the publication process.

Complaints should normally be directed first to the Editor-in-Chief or the relevant journal editorial office. Matters involving the Editor-in-Chief, publisher, or potential conflicts of interest may be escalated to the publisher or an appropriate independent person or committee.

Appeals against editorial decisions must provide clear and substantive grounds, such as significant factual errors, misunderstanding of the manuscript, or evidence that relevant information was not properly considered. Disagreement with an editorial decision alone does not necessarily constitute grounds for an appeal.

18. Handling Allegations of Misconduct

Allegations of misconduct will be assessed seriously whether they are received from authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, readers, whistleblowers, or other credible sources.

Depending on the circumstances, SIRG or the relevant journal may:

• Request explanations or supporting documentation from authors;
• Consult editors, reviewers, or independent experts;
• Contact the relevant research institution;
• Request clarification or investigation by the authors' institution;
• Publish an Expression of Concern where appropriate;
• Issue a correction, retraction, or other post-publication notice;
• Take other proportionate actions necessary to protect the scholarly record.

Investigations will be conducted in accordance with applicable policies, procedural fairness, confidentiality requirements, and relevant publication ethics guidance.

19. Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

SIRG is committed to preserving the integrity and reliability of the published scholarly record.

When an error is identified after publication, the journal will assess whether a correction, erratum, corrigendum, Expression of Concern, or retraction is appropriate.

Corrections will normally be linked to the original article and will clearly identify the nature of the correction.

An Expression of Concern may be published when serious questions exist about the integrity or reliability of a publication but an investigation has not yet reached a definitive conclusion.

Retraction may be considered when findings are unreliable, when serious research or publication misconduct has occurred, when there has been substantial plagiarism or duplicate publication, or in other circumstances where the integrity of the scholarly record requires retraction.

Retracted articles will normally remain part of the scholarly record with clear retraction labeling and an explanatory retraction notice, except where removal is legally or ethically necessary.

20. Article Removal

Published articles are part of the permanent scholarly record and should not ordinarily be removed.

Exceptional removal may be considered where continued availability of the article creates a serious legal, privacy, ethical, or public-safety risk. Where removal is necessary, bibliographic information and an appropriate explanatory record will be retained whenever possible.

21. Confidentiality and Data Protection

SIRG respects the confidentiality of manuscripts, reviewer identities where applicable, editorial correspondence, personal information, and other sensitive information obtained during the publication process.

Personal information will be handled in accordance with applicable privacy and data-protection requirements and SIRG's privacy practices.

22. Citation Ethics

Authors, reviewers, and editors must not manipulate citations to artificially increase citation counts, journal metrics, author metrics, or perceived scholarly impact.

Citations should be relevant, accurate, and justified by the scholarly context of the work.

23. Advertising and Commercial Influence

Where advertising or promotional activities are used on SIRG platforms, they must remain separate from editorial decision-making and scholarly content.

Commercial considerations must not determine whether a manuscript is accepted, rejected, or published.

24. Digital Preservation and Archiving

SIRG recognizes the importance of preserving published scholarly content beyond the operational life of the journal website.

SIRG journals may participate in recognized digital preservation and archiving services. The specific preservation services used by each journal are identified on the respective journal website where applicable.

The journal website and preservation systems are intended to support the long-term accessibility and integrity of the scholarly record.

25. Editorial and Publisher Changes

Changes to journal ownership, editorial leadership, ISSN information, publishing arrangements, or other material aspects of a journal will be handled transparently and documented appropriately.

Such changes will not be used to obscure the publication history or scholarly record of the journal.

26. Reporting Ethical Concerns

Concerns regarding research integrity, publication ethics, authorship, peer review, conflicts of interest, plagiarism, or other publication practices may be reported to the relevant journal editorial office or to the SIRG Publisher.

SIRG will assess credible concerns in accordance with applicable journal policies and recognized publication-ethics principles.

27. Policy Review and Updates

SIRG periodically reviews its publication ethics and research integrity policies to ensure that they remain appropriate, transparent, and aligned with developments in scholarly publishing and research integrity.

Where necessary, this policy may be updated to reflect changes in ethical standards, publishing practices, technology, legislation, or the needs of the scholarly community.