The Ethics code of scientific publications combines and reveals general principles and rules that should govern the relations of participants of scientific publishing: authors, reviewers, editors, publishers, distributors and readers.

Key terms:

Ethics of scientific publications is a system of standards of professional behavior in relations between authors, reviewers, editors, publishers and readers in creation, distribution and use of scientific publications.

Editor is a representative of a scientific journal or a publishing house, who provides material adaptation for publication and keeps on communication with authors and readers of scientific publications.

Author is a person or a group of persons (group of authors) involved in publishing research findings.

Reviewer is an expert acting on behalf of a scientific journal or a publishing house and carrying out a scientific expertise of author materials to determine feasibility of their publication.

Publisher is a legal or natural person publishing a scientific publication.

Reader is any person familiarized with published materials.

Plagiarism is an intentional appropriation of authorship of somebody’s science or art works, ideas or inventions. Plagiarism may be a violation of copyright law and patent law and may entail legal liability.

Principles of professional ethics in editor and publisher work

An editor is responsible for publication of author works and must follow the basic principles:

- When deciding on publishing a paper a scientific journal editor is guided by provided data reliability and scientific significance of the research.

- The editor should evaluate intellectual content of manuscript regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, origin, nationality, social status or political affiliation of authors.

- Unpublished data from submitted manuscripts must not be used for personal purposes or passed to third parties without written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained while editing and related to possible benefits must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

- An editor must not publish the information if there is a reasonable cause to believe that it is plagiarism.

- An editor and a publisher must respond to complaints regarding the accepted manuscripts or published materials and must take all necessary measures to redress for violated rights.

Ethical principles in reviewer work

Reviewer provides scientific expertise of author materials whereupon his/her action must be impartial in nature and follow the basic principles:

- A manuscript received for review should be treated as a confidential document, which cannot be transmitted for review or discussion to third parties who do not have full powers from a publishing house.

- A reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasoned assessment to study results. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.

- Unpublished data from submitted manuscripts must not be used for reviewer personal purposes.

- The reviewer who, in his/her opinion, is not qualified to assess the manuscript, or cannot be objective, for example, in the case of a conflict of interest with the author or the organization, must inform the editor with a request to exclude him/her from reviewing this manuscript.

The ethics code of scientific publications was developed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Scientific Publications.
The current text of the Code is available on www.publicet.org/code
Non-profit partnership "The Ethics Committee of Scientific Publications"
Russia, Moscow, mail@publicet.org