Ethics Policies
- Conflict of Interest
- Ethical Approval of Human Studies and Informed Consent
- Ethical Approval of Animal Studies
- Clinical Trials
- Authorship
- Plagiarism
- Data Foul Play
- Previous Publication or Duplicate Submission
- Corrections and Retractions
- there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error)
- the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication)
- it constitutes plagiarism
- it reports unethical research
- a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be incorrect (especially because of honest error)
- the author list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included)
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual's objectivity is potentially compromised by a desire for financial gain, prominence, professional advancement or a successful outcome. Nano LIFE Editors strive to ensure that what is published in the Journal is as balanced, objective and evidence-based as possible. Since it can be difficult to distinguish between an actual conflict of interest and a perceived conflict of interest, the Journal requires authors to disclose all and any potential conflicts of interest.
Conflicts of interest may be financial or non-financial. Financial conflicts include, but are not limited to, financial relationships such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus; membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements. Non-financial conflicts include, but are not limited to, personal or professional relationships, affiliations, academic competition, intellectual passion, knowledge or beliefs that might affect objectivity.
Authors must declare any and all conflicts of interest (except when nil) at the end of their manuscript, before the References section. Nano LIFE will follow guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics to manage any issues related to conflict of interest.
For studies involving human subjects, state explicitly in the Methods Section of the manuscript that approval from an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee was obtained. Evidence to support the ethics committee approval should be made available to the Editor upon request.
For investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, state explicitly in the Methods Section of the manuscript that the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki were followed (World Medical Association. Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Available at: www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf). Evidence to support the adherence should be made available to the Editor upon request.
For investigation of human subjects, state explicitly in the Methods Section of the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from all participating adult subjects and from parents or legal guardians for minors or incapacitated adults, together with the manner in which informed consent was obtained (i.e., oral or written). Evidence to support the informed consent should be made available to the Editor upon request.
For studies involving animal subjects, state explicitly in the Methods Section of the manuscript that approval from an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee was obtained. Evidence to support the ethics committee approval should be made available to the Editor upon request.
For investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, state explicitly in the Methods Section of the manuscript that the principles outlined in the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments (available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm), or the U.S. National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) were followed. Evidence to support the adherence should be made available to the Editor upon request.
Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this Journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations (www.icmje.org). Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.
Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines (www.consort-statement.org). At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure.
In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (e.g., investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardize consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.
All those who have made a significant contribution should be cited as authors. Other individuals who have minor contributions to the work should be acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate. Information on financial support should be acknowledged by the authors.
Before the accepted manuscript is published online, requests to add, remove, or rearrange author names must be sent to nl@wspc.com from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (i) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged; and (ii) a letter with signatures from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. Online publication of the accepted manuscript is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published online, any requests to add, remove, or rearrange author names in an article will follow the same policies as detailed above and result in a corrigendum.
Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. Authors must acknowledge the work of others used in their research and cite publications that have influenced the direction and course of their study.
World Scientific is a member of CrossCheck/iThenticate. All manuscripts submitted will be checked for plagiarism and self-plagiarism using the CrossCheck database. Plagiarism is not tolerated. For more information about CrossCheck/iThenticate, please visit http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck.html.
Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. The results of research should be recorded and maintained to allow for analysis and review. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period and made available upon request. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.
Submitted manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format (except in abstract or poster form) and are not under consideration in totality or in part by another publication or electronic medium.
Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals will not be tolerated. The submitted article will be removed without consideration.
All authors have an obligation to inform the Journal to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works.
The Journal will issue retractions if:
The Journal will issue errata if: