Публикационная этика и политика в отношении недобросовестной практики
Ethical requirements for preparing, evaluating and publishing scholarly material, the responsibilities of participants, and the principles for responding to possible misconduct.
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01. Purpose and scope
This policy establishes the ethical framework for Irrigation and Melioration. It applies to authors, editors, editorial board members, reviewers and publisher staff, and covers submitted manuscripts, accompanying material and published work, including special issue content where special issues are organised.
The journal’s founder and publisher is the National Research University “Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers” (the Institute). The Institute provides organisational support for the journal while preserving independent decisions on individual manuscripts.
In addressing ethical matters, the editorial office uses applicable guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), including its Core Practices, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME.
02. Core principles
- Research integrity. Methods, observations, calculations and conclusions must be reported accurately, acknowledging the limitations of the research and the contributions of others.
- Impartial assessment. Scholarly validity, significance, relevance to the journal’s scope and ethical acceptability determine editorial decisions. Nationality, gender, origin, beliefs, position or affiliation with the Institute confer no advantage and are not grounds for discrimination. Negative or statistically non-significant findings are not, in themselves, grounds for rejection.
- Accountability and transparency. Participants disclose relevant interests and sources of support, respond to substantiated questions and help correct the scholarly record.
- Confidentiality and respect. Unpublished material is protected against misuse, and communication must remain professional and free from threats, humiliation and pressure.
- No guarantee of acceptance. Payment, a fee waiver, financial support, an issue’s production schedule or an administrative instruction cannot replace scholarly assessment or justify lower ethical standards.
Inclusive and respectful scientific language. Authors must use accurate and respectful scientific language, avoiding stereotypes and discriminatory or demeaning expressions. Personal and group characteristics should be reported only when scientifically relevant to the research. This requirement does not restrict substantiated scientific criticism or objective reporting of results.
03. Responsibilities of participants
Authors
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their work, proper acknowledgement of sources and legitimate use of data, images, software code and other material. All co-authors must know about the submission, approve its final version and agree to their responsibility for the work. Contributions must be reported accurately; manuscript preparation services do not justify concealing actual authors or selling authorship.
At submission, authors disclose related prior work, financial and non-financial interests, funding and other substantial support, and the role of supporting organisations. The absence of funding or competing interests must also be stated. Authors provide information on data availability and, upon a justified request, assist verification of their findings while respecting lawful and ethical access restrictions.
Where the nature of the research requires ethics approval, permissions or informed consent, authors must obtain them and report them in the manuscript; any applicable exemption from ethics review must be explained and supported by documentation. Authors who discover a significant error must promptly notify the editorial office and cooperate with its assessment, including after publication.
Editors and the editorial board
Editors ensure substantive manuscript assessment, independent peer review, management of competing interests and reasoned decisions. They must not exploit unpublished information, require unjustified citations or disregard substantiated reports of errors. The authorised editor is accountable for the decision, rather than a reviewer, administrative employee or automated system. Work handled by guest editors remains subject to the journal’s editorial oversight.
Reviewers
Reviewers accept assignments within their expertise, disclose interests that could affect their assessment before starting, and meet agreed deadlines or report delays. Comments must be evidence-based and respectful. Reviewers report possible misconduct to the editor, do not independently make public accusations against authors and do not use reviewing to promote their own publications. Delegating a review requires the editor’s prior permission and protection of confidentiality.
The Institute as founder and publisher
The Institute supports the editorial office, ethical procedures and independent consideration of disputed cases. Financial and administrative functions are separated from article acceptance decisions. Individuals making manuscript decisions must not decide on article payments or waivers; their remuneration and that of staff must not depend on the number of articles accepted. The Institute must not require publication of a particular work or obstruct justified corrections to protect reputational or financial interests.
04. Independence where interests conflict
Authors disclose interests relevant to the work at submission; editors and reviewers do so before assessment begins. A significant interest discovered later must be reported without delay. A disclosed interest does not itself establish misconduct; its nature, influence and the safeguards needed are assessed.
An editor who is an author of a manuscript or has a significant competing interest must recuse themselves from handling it. They must not select reviewers, participate in deliberations or decisions, or use editorial privileges to access confidential assessment records. In their capacity as an author, they receive only the information normally provided to authors under the journal’s review model.
Handling is assigned to a qualified editor without the relevant conflict. Holding the position of deputy editor-in-chief does not itself establish independence. Where reporting relationships, collaboration or the Institute’s interests could exert influence, an editor from another organisation is appointed. Independent handling also applies to concerns about the editor-in-chief, board members or publisher; conflicted individuals must not consider complaints about their own actions.
05. Unacceptable practices
The journal does not permit conduct that misrepresents authorship, provenance, reliability or the independent assessment of scholarly work. This includes:
- Fabrication and falsification: invented observations, measurements or sources; substitution of data; unjustified removal of results; manipulation of images, graphs or calculations that misrepresents the research.
- Plagiarism and undisclosed reuse: appropriating another person’s text, ideas, data, translations or code; presenting a substantial part of one’s own published work as new without disclosure and citation.
- Duplication: simultaneous consideration of the same or substantially overlapping manuscripts by multiple journals; undisclosed republication, including translation; artificial fragmentation of findings accompanied by misleading claims of novelty.
- Authorship and identity manipulation: buying or selling authorship positions, fictitious or concealed authorship, false affiliations, consents or documents, and the use of services that fabricate scholarly work.
- Review and citation manipulation: fictitious reviewers, forged reports, coordinated attempts to bypass independent assessment, pressure on the editorial office, and demands for irrelevant references to inflate metrics.
- Concealment of material circumstances: intentionally withholding relevant interests, funding, required permissions or use of AI tools where journal policy requires disclosure; violations of research participants’ rights or confidentiality.
A disclosed preprint, thesis or conference abstract does not itself establish misconduct. Authors must report such material and overlap; eligibility is assessed under the journal’s originality and repository policies. Honest error, reasoned scholarly disagreement or failure to confirm a hypothesis is not automatically treated as misconduct, although a significant error may require correction or retraction.
06. Confidentiality and digital tools
Access to manuscripts, reviews, personal data and correspondence is limited to those who need it for editorial work or the proper consideration of an ethical concern. Material must not be disclosed to unauthorised persons or used for personal, academic or commercial advantage.
Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, excerpts, reviews or unpublished data to external generative AI services, including services described as private. Approval from an editor does not override this prohibition. An AI tool cannot be an author, a reviewer or the accountable editorial decision-maker. A similarity score or AI-detector output alone is not evidence of misconduct: substantive human assessment is required.
07. Reporting possible misconduct
Authors, reviewers, readers and organisations may raise concerns before or after publication. A report should identify the work through its title, DOI, link or manuscript number, describe the specific concern and include available supporting material. The reporting person need not prove misconduct in advance; sufficient information to assess the concern is required.
Substantive anonymous reports are considered on their merits; the absence of contact details may limit clarification and feedback. A good-faith report must not lead to retaliation, pressure or an adverse editorial decision against the reporting person.
The reporting person’s identity and information about the assessment are protected to the extent compatible with fair consideration and applicable disclosure obligations. Complete anonymity cannot be guaranteed where disclosure is necessary and justified. Concerns about the editor-in-chief or publisher may also be submitted through the Institute’s official contacts with a request for independent consideration.
08. Fair assessment and protection of the scholarly record
A report is recorded and initially assessed by an authorised person without a competing interest. The relevance and sufficiency of the material are examined; affected parties have an opportunity to explain the circumstances and provide documents. An allegation is not treated as an established finding. Where necessary, the editorial office requests underlying data, assessment records or independent expert advice.
An independent panel may be formed for complex cases; external specialists participate where there is an institutional conflict. The editorial office addresses publication reliability and the editorial process but does not replace an investigation by a research institution. Where justified, it contacts the relevant institution or another competent body, sharing only necessary information.
Before publication, handling may be paused, revisions requested or the manuscript rejected on established grounds. After publication, a proportionate response is selected: a correction, expression of concern or retraction. The purpose is to maintain a reliable scholarly record and inform readers. Retraction may also be necessary after a serious honest error; it does not automatically establish culpability on the part of all authors.
Substantive changes must not be made silently. A public notice must explain the basis for the decision and link to the relevant article; the evidence, correspondence and decisions are documented. Reporting persons and affected parties receive information on progress and outcomes within confidentiality limits. A complaint about procedure or an appeal against a decision is considered by someone who did not participate in the original decision. Detailed stages, timeframes, grounds and notice formats are governed by the dedicated policies identified below.
International guidance
COPE Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency provide guidance. The journal’s own rules and accountability for their implementation are established by this policy and the related policies.