Editorial policies

Table of contents

1.   Overview

Current Science Publishing employs the following editorial policies for its journal authors, who must prepare their manuscripts according to the guidelines listed below. Articles must be original and should not be under consideration by another publication at the same time, nor should they have been previously published in any form or medium. Manuscripts may be rejected or returned to the author for revision if the work is deemed unethical. All data, concepts, and information contained in the article must be the sole responsibility of the authors.

2.   Ethics & consent

2.1. Ethical approvals for animal experimentation

The authors are required to submit a formal declaration or ethics committee approval along with their reference number, which must appear in all manuscripts if they conduct experiments on humans or animals (All live animals considered experimental when used for the study). The authors must have conducted their research on humans or animals in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration.

The editor reserves the right to reject manuscripts if he/she believes that the research was not conducted within an appropriate ethical framework, the study has not been approved by the ethics committee, or if the research involved procedures that were not consistent with generally accepted animal research norms. In exceptional circumstances, the editor may contact the ethics committee for additional information.

The authors must have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for using any novel experimental procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent prior to treatment.

In the case of study involves by human participants, informed consent must be obtained from the participants or their parents or legal guardians (in the case of a minor (under the age of 16) patient) and a statement to this effect/results must be included in the manuscript.

In that study, the authors must obtain consent for all types of personally identifiable information (biometric, biomedical, clinical, etc.). Furthermore, authors must include a statement affirming that no organs/tissues were obtained from prisoners, as well as the institution(s)/clinic(s)/department(s) from which organs/tissues were obtained in the study involved in human transplantation. If requested, documentation of consent must be provided.

The authors must confirm that all experiments involving human embryos and gametes, clinical applications of stem cells or human embryonic stem cells, and related materials were carried out in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations of the Ethics and Consent statements. We recommend that authors follow the guidelines outlined in the 2016 ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation.

2.2. Ethics & consent on research involving plants

The authors must confirm that all experiments were carried out in accordance with national and international standards and guidelines, if the research was conducted on plants, live vertebrates or higher invertebrates.

In the manuscript, the authors should include a statement outlining the proper permits and/or licenses for the collection of plant or seed specimens. We recommend that authors follow the guidelines of  the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Voucher specimens for all wild plants mentioned in the manuscript must be deposited in a public herbarium or another public collection that allows access to deposited materials to support reproducibility. The manuscript must contain information about the voucher specimen and the person who identified it.

3.   Authorship

Authorship carries responsibility and gives researchers credit for their contributions to a study. All authors should play a visible role in improving and interpreting the manuscript, and must agree on its final approval. Authors are requested to meet the following requirements (Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publications. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115).

Those who contributed but didn't meet the requirements for authorship should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section. Please see the ‘’Guidelines for Authors” in the individual journals for more information about the formatting of author contributions.

In respect to data safety, the authors must keep their data safe because the editorial board may require it while reviewing the paper. This would only be done to ensure the authenticity of the work sent. It is guaranteed that the information sent would not be used improperly in any situation. The author must notify the journal immediately if they discover any inconsistent or inappropriate information in the paper so that it can be corrected.

3.1. Change in authorship

Any disagreements or conflicts of interest among the authors should be settled by themselves or the appropriate institutional authority. Before or after publication, the Current Science Publishing is not obligated to fix them. Any changes to the author list made after the manuscript is submitted, must be approved by all authors. Authors who wish to change their authorship must fill out our ‘’Change of Authorship Form’’ (request to: managing-editor@currentsci.com, current.science.pub@gmail.com).

We do not allow changes in authorship after preliminary acceptance. We cannot accept any additions, deletions, or changes to the sequence of author names. We have this policy to prevent fraud.

If there are any potential authorship disputes, the editors will handle them in accordance with COPE standards.

3.2.      Role and responsibilities of corresponding authors

Before submitting the manuscript, the corresponding author must confirm that all the listed authors have given their consent. The corresponding author is responsible for submitting the manuscript on behalf of all authors. The corresponding author ensures that the author names and order are correct. He or she also confirms that all authors received the submission receipt, as well as all substantive correspondence with editors and full review reports. The corresponding author is also responsible for verifying all information, materials (source of reagents), and codes, including those developed or provided in the manuscript by other authors, which comply with the requirements of the field and journal for transparency and reproducibility.

If any authors from earlier versions have been declined or new authors have been added, the corresponding authors should explain the reasons. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all authors have certified the author list and contribution description. The corresponding author should also ensure that all authors who should be credited on the manuscript are confirmed that no authors are listed who do not deserve authorship credit and that author contributions are accurately stated.

4.   Submission of manuscript

Third-party submissions are strictly prohibited. All manuscripts must be submitted by the corresponding author or an author listed in the manuscript with the permission from the corresponding author.

5.   Plagiarism or similarity, data fabrication, image manipulation

5.1. Plagiarism or similarity

Plagiarism or similarity refers to the use of someone else's work without proper acknowledgement or citation. This is considered publishing misconduct because it comprises close imitation or complete copying of someone else's data, ideas, figures and tables, entire or partial paragraphs, language, and images, including those from your own publications.

5.2.      Data fabrication

Reused text copied from another source must be enclosed in quotation marks, and the original source must be cited. Previous research must be expressly cited if it inspired the design, structure, or language of a study or paper.

Reusing one's own work without giving due credit is known as self-plagiarism or text recycling. This leads to data duplication in the scholarly literature and is also considered misconduct.

Plagiarism is not acceptable in Current Science Publishing journals. All Current Science Publishingsubmissions are checked by the iThenticate software for plagiarism detection. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript will be rejected, and if it is identified after publication, the paper will be retracted. Please provide relevant citations and use words/sentences carefully. Current Science Publishing accepts <20% similarity to previously published content, with matching sections dispersed throughout the work.

Any supplied data must be original and not improperly selected, modified, enhanced, or faked. This includes:

When citing others' (or your own) previous work, please provide

The Editorial Office will stop the peer review process until the problems are successfully fixed if the data are not provided upon request. The publisher may reject the paper if irregular picture alterations are found and verified during the peer review process. If the issue is raised after publication, the article may be corrected or retracted. The authors' institutions may be notified of any problems by the Current Science Publishing.

Authors can save unprocessed data and metadata files by archiving for at least five years in suitable repositories after publication.

5.3. Image manipulation

For post-publication investigations, the Current Science Publishing retains the right to request unprocessed data files and original images/photographs at a high resolution, both at the time of submission and during the peer review process.

Image files cannot be altered or modified in any way that would cause the information contained in the original image to be misinterpreted. Which includes:

The original photos and unprocessed data will be provided by the authors. If plagiarism is detected, the editors and reviewers should inform the journal. However, any concerns regarding unreported image modifications during manuscript processing or after publication will be thoroughly investigated.

6.   Correction, withdrawal, removal and retraction

Peer review guarantees that articles are examined several times to remove any inaccuracies. If an author's work needs to be amended, corrected, or withdrawn, they should contact with the journal editorial office promptly. In such situations, the journal may replace or retract the article after consulting the authors.

6.1. Correction of published content

At the Editor's discretion, changes to published articles that impact the article's interpretation and conclusion but do not completely invalidate it will be updated by publishing a correction that is indexed and linked to the original article.

6.2. Withdrawal of unpublished content

For several reasons, Current Science Publishing acknowledges that authors may occasionally need to remove their articles from publication. We have a fair and transparent withdrawal policy in place to guarantee an easy and open procedure in such situations.

Before the review process is completed, authors have the option to withdraw their papers at any time. Nevertheless, an article cannot be withdrawn once the review process is completed and it has been accepted for publication or published.

Authors must submit an email to the official email address listed on the journal's website to withdraw. The email must contain the related author's full name, contact details, and reason for the withdrawal request. Each withdrawal request will be assessed individually by the editorial team, who will immediately inform the authors of their decisions. Please note that the Current Science Publishing reserves the right to reject withdrawal requests that are considered unreasonable or inappropriate.

6.3.      Removal of published content

We may be required to remove content from our website and archive sites if it is deemed to violate specific rights or is defamatory. Removal can be conducted permanently or temporarily. Bibliographic information (such as the title and authors) will be retained, along with an explanation of the removal of the item.

Such actions may be taken in the following situations:

6.4. Retraction of published content

Infrequently, published articles may need to be retracted if their interpretation or conclusion is seriously questionable. In such situations, the Current Science Publishing adheres to COPE regulations. Retraction notices have bidirectional links to the original articles and are indexed. The title is changed with the prefix "Retracted article" and the original article is watermarked as retracted.

When errors or ethical concerns are discovered in a published article, authors, readers, or organisations are advised to connect with the specific journal managing editor at a first instance the contact information of whom can be found on the journal's website. The Editors will review each report and when determining the best course of action, more professional help may be sought.

6.5. Editorial concerns

An editor may decide to make a statement informing readers when they discover significant issues with the interpretation or conclusion of a published article. Editorial expressions of concern may be published in situations involving lengthy investigations of particularly complicated cases and issues that have a major and direct impact on public health or public policy. A later correction or retraction may replace an Editorial Expression of Concern, but it will still be included in the permanent public record. 

7. Publication of preprints and conference papers

Preprints are academic or scientific articles distributed before the peer-review process. It is a draft of an article made available online prior to submission to a journal. The Current Science Publishing encourages authors to publish their articles' preprints on institutional, personal, and preprint servers.

The publisher allows preprint article submissions directly to the respective journals.  Please note that the preprint has no bearing on the peer review procedure. For more details, see the Preprints guidelines for authors.

When submitting their articles, authors must notify the journal of their preprints and provide information about their postings, such as the DOI and licensing terms.

It is the author's responsibility to confirm that an article reference (DOI and URL link) is included in the preprint record of the published version of the article on the journal website. The Current Science Publishing copyright policy is not violated by posting preprints.

Outstanding and expanded conference papers that meet the following criteria may be regarded as articles:

Authors must obtain the required permission from the copyright holder if they do not own the copyright to the published conference paper.

Authors are discouraged from submitting unpublished conference papers that do not meet the above requirements. 

8.        Supplementary materials, data availability, and data deposit policies

The Current Science Publishing dedicated to facilitating the sharing and archiving of research data by our authors.  We adhered to the TOP Guidelines-informed data policies.

All authors of Current Science Publishing journals are encouraged to contribute their research data, including study materials, procedures, analytical techniques, raw and processed data, codes, software, and algorithms. This allows the data to be discovered and exploited by other scholars as reusable, interoperable, findable and accessible.

To maximize reuse, we advise depositing the data and code in a reliable repository. Data should not be shared in situations where ethical, legal, or privacy issues arise. If this is not feasible, the authors are urged to explain why in the Data Availability Statement and make the information accessible to interested researchers upon request.

Authors must ensure that publishing such data does not violate local data protection regulations or risk participant confidentiality. When access is restricted to maintain proprietary or confidential information, authors will be requested to provide a clear explanation of the dataset's limitations and permission to access the data upon request for peer review. Therefore, we advise the authors to either provide us with the minimum datasets in the Supplementary Material or archive their research data through suitable data repositories.

Additional information and files may be attached as "Supplementary Files" during manuscript submission. As part of the peer review procedure, the referees will be provided with supplemental files. Although any file format is acceptable, we advise using popular, non-proprietary formats whenever possible. Citations and references are allowed in the supplemental files as long as they are included in the main text's reference list.

All articles published by Current Science Publishing must include data availability statements. Authors can be requested to provide previous datasets or raw data that have been analysed in the article, as well as whether they will be made available to other researchers after publication, in the peer review and editorial decision-making process. The particulars of any existing datasets that have been examined in the study will also be requested from the authors.

The recommended data availability statement is as follows.

The original data of the current study can be found at [repository name, such as https://figshare.com/] at [doi/URL] or [reference/accession number].

Or

The data stated in this article are only available upon request from the corresponding author due to (specifying the reason for the limitation, such as privacy, legal, or ethical concerns).

Or

Data were obtained from [third party] and are made accessible [from the authors/at URL] with the permission of [third party] due to the restriction of data availability by the third party.

Or

The data justifying the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL/doi link] after an embargo period from the date of publication to enable for commercialization of research outcomes.

Or

The datasets described in this article are not easily accessible for [specifying the reason, such as the fact that the data are part of an ongoing project or because of time or technological constraints]. Please send requests to [text input] to access the datasets.

Or

The data employed in this study can be found in [repository name] at [URL/doi], [reference number]. These data were collected from the public domain resources listed below: [list the resources and URLs].

Or

This study did not generate or analyzed any new data. Owing to the theoretical nature of this study, data sharing is not necessary.

Or

If the data are included in the article or supplemental material, the original contributions provided in this study are included. You can contact the respective author or authors with any further questions.

Or

The authors will provide the raw data used to support the findings of this study upon request.

Data availability restrictions should be mentioned in the manuscript and at the time of submission. Authors are urged to publish all observations pertaining to the submitted article as Supplementary Material; "Data not shown" should be avoided.

A reference should be included in the References section and "unpublished data" intended for publishing in a planned, "in preparation," or "submitted" but unaccepted manuscript should be cited in the text. Additionally, "Personal Communication" must be referenced in the References section and noted in the text. Please refer to the Current Science Publishing reference list and style guide for citations.

The relevant research articles and datasets should be cited by the authors of the previously released datasets. Before publication, the journal editorial team verifies and enforces proper data citation.

9.        Acknowledgements

In the ‘Acknowledgements’ section, all contributors who do not meet the eligibility or satisfy the authorship criteria should be acknowledged. In the case of relatively insignificant participation, the acknowledgement should be required in order to address any future complaints. In this issue, department chair (who provided only general or logistic support), writing assistant or technical personnel (for any instrumental or technical help) might be acknowledged as well as the funding body (institute, foundation, person or any other sources). Additionally, any person who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript's content, including hired scientific writers, should be acknowledged along with their source of funding.

10.        Conflict of interest

The Current Science Publishing demands that authors must disclose any ‘’conflict of interest’’ or ‘’competing interests’’ they may have with respect to their work, either personal, financial or non-financial, academic competition or intellectual approaches. A "conflict of interest" section listing all competing interests (financial and non-financial) must be included at the end of every submitted manuscript before the references. If the authors do not have any conflict of interest, the statement should be read as “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no conflict of interest” The editor may request additional information regarding the conflict of interest if necessary.  If there is any suspicion of a conflict of interest, it should be reported to the Editor-in-Chief or the Editorial Office.

Editors and reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest, and if any, they may be barred from participating in the peer review or evaluation process. It might have interpersonal or professional ties, conflicting scientific findings, or financial interests.

Our publication team devotes all of its efforts to ensuring that the evaluation procedure is carried out impartially while considering all of these circumstances. Please contact with managing-editor@currentsci.com, current.science.pub@gmail.com, if you are unsure whether you have a competing interest.

11.        Confidentiality

Editors, reviewers, and authors must uphold confidentiality and refrain from disclosing details of the editorial or peer review process. All manuscripts submitted to all Current Science Publishing journals will be treated as confidential by the editors. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality and not disclose any information of the manuscript and review report during or after the peer-review process, except for the information provided by the editorial office. Reviewers should first ask the journal for permission before involving a co-worker or colleague in the review process. Reviewers should follow the guidelines of  the COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. When the report is released, the editorial office must inform the editor of the detailed information. Publishers have the right to contact the authors, editors, or specific funding sources if they suspect malpractice.

Current Science Publishing will not share manuscripts with third parties (required by law), outside of Publisher, unless there is a suspicion of misconduct (prohibits plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, image manipulation, and undisclosed conflicts of interest). For details, please see our ‘’Research Misconduct Policies’’ section.

Manuscripts may be shared with other editors/journals of Current Science Publishing, unless the authors specify that they do not want their manuscript to be passed/distributed/shared/transfer outside of the journal to which they submitted it. The Editorial Office will maintain the confidentiality of manuscript information before publishing the articles, in any situation.

12.   Transfer of articles

Authors have the sole right or freedom to choose where to submit their manuscripts. We can give authors the option to transfer their article along with the reviewer reports to another Current Science Publishing journal if their work is appropriate with the aims and scope of the proposed journal but does not meet the interest requirements of the submitted journal. Authors should specify in their cover letter upon submission if they do not want their manuscript to be shared/transfer with other Current Science Publishing journals.

Transferring a manuscript does not guarantee acceptance by the receiving journal. If the manuscript is not suitable, the receiving journal's editor may reject it after receiving the peer reviewer/academic editor opinion. Before contacting the authors, the editors may consult with editors of other Current Science Publishing journals to check the suitability of the article for transfer.

Reviewers who are not interested in disclosing their report to the transfer journal must mention this in the confidential section of the review report. In a closed peer review process, all the Current Science Publishing Journals maintain the confidentiality and anonymity of the reviewers as well as their reports. As a part of the publication policy, the review report will not be published along with the article of previous and transfer journal.  The authors may resubmit their previous article to the transfer journal without using the automated transfer link. As a result, your article will be evaluated as a newly submitted article with no prior history or reference to the previous decision.

13.   Archiving or deposit policy

This policy permits authors to self-archive versions of their work in any repositories, on institutional and on their own websites. Authors can also use digital preservation or distribution systems, as well as cooperating libraries, to permanently archive their published content in any journal of the Current Science Publishing.

14.   Resubmissions, appeals & complaints

Resubmissions to Current Science Publishing journals may be acceptable upon appeal request if the referees/editors decided to ‘Reject and Resubmit’ or the authors believe that their manuscripts were not accepted/evaluated due to misinterpretation/misunderstanding, or any other valid reasons with evidence. The Current Science Publishingmay consider appeals from the authors for rejected articles. Please submit your appeal and complaints to the Editor-in-Chief of the respective journal at managing-editor@currentsci.com, current.science.pub@gmail.com

15.   Disclaimer

The opinions of the editors and editorial staff are not reflected in the published works. The thoughts presented in the articles are the authors' moral and legal responsibility. If any claims for damages are made, the publisher will not be held accountable for them. The publisher shall not be held legally responsible for any compensation claims.