Editorial governance
Editorial Policies
The standards under which the Journal of Current Scientific Research evaluates, corrects and retracts work, and the safeguards that keep an editorial decision independent of anything except the manuscript.
A journal that publishes across several fields carries one further obligation that a subject journal does not: it has to be able to show, for any one manuscript, that it reached someone competent to judge it. That obligation runs through every policy below.
- ISSN (electronic)
- 2766-8681
- Crossref DOI prefix
- 10.14302
- License
- CC BY 4.0
Editorial independence
01Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Decisions are taken by the handling editor on the reviewers' assessments. Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role. An author's ability to pay the article processing charge plays no part in screening, review or the decision, and no fee, discount or service purchased from the publisher alters how a manuscript is handled. The publisher does not intervene in the assessment of individual manuscripts.
An editor who has an interest in a submission is replaced for that manuscript. An independent editor handles the manuscript. The author-editor has no editorial-role access to reviewer identities, confidential deliberations or handling decisions, and takes no part in the assessment. Normal author-side decision letters and author-visible reviewer reports are provided through the usual correspondence channel.
Who the editors are
The board that handles this work, the subject each member holds and the governance they work under are on Editorial Board.
The charge
The article processing charge is raised only after a manuscript has been accepted. The rate and its terms are on Article Processing Charges.
Subject competence
02Breadth of scope is not a license to review outside competence, and this policy is what stops it becoming one.
JCSR considers all scientific disciplines. Both competent editorial handling and appropriate independent review must be arranged for each submission; reviewer expertise does not substitute for competent editorial handling.
Where competent editorial handling and appropriate independent review cannot be arranged for a submission, it does not proceed to external review and the editorial office says so. Scope alone does not make a manuscript reviewable.
Where a submission draws on more than one field, review covers each of the relevant literatures. A study evaluated only from one side of its subject produces a review that misses the other half of the manuscript.
Specialist assessment is arranged where a manuscript requires additional methodological, ethical or disciplinary expertise. This follows from the particular study and its claims, not from whether its field is described as emerging.
The discipline-open scope and the scientific standards a manuscript must meet are on Aims and Scope.
Peer review
03Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
A manuscript under review is confidential. Editors and reviewers must not share manuscript content, discuss it outside the review, or use unpublished data or ideas for personal benefit before publication.
Reviewers advise; the handling editor decides. Where reviews conflict, the editor weighs them against the evidence in the manuscript rather than counting recommendations, and may seek an additional opinion.
Double-blind handling
A request for double-blind review is made at submission. When it is granted, editors ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers, and reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors. What this requires of authors in preparing the manuscript is set out in the Instructions for Authors.
The operational detail for each side of this is on For Editors and For Reviewers.
Authorship and contribution
04Authorship is limited to those who made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, data acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the work; who drafted or critically revised it; who approved the version submitted; and who accept accountability for its accuracy and integrity. Everyone meeting these conditions is listed, and no one who does not meet them is.
Contributions that do not meet the criteria — funding acquisition alone, general supervision, technical assistance, language editing, data collection without interpretation — are recognized in an acknowledgments section, with the named person's permission.
Any change to the author list after submission requires written agreement from every author, including the person being added or removed, together with the reason for the change. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining it.
Generative AI tools are not authors. They cannot take accountability for the work, and any use of them is disclosed as described in AI use.
Research integrity
0505.1
Originality and prior publication
Submitted work must be original and must not be under consideration elsewhere. Deposit of a preprint is not prior publication and does not preclude submission; the preprint and its identifier should be declared. Substantial overlap with the authors' own earlier work is declared at submission, with the earlier work cited, so the editor can judge what is new.
05.2
Similarity screening
Submissions are screened with Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate. A similarity report is evidence for an editor to interpret, not an automatic threshold: matched text is assessed for what it is — a methods sentence reused from the authors' own published protocol is not the same finding as an undisclosed reproduction of another group's discussion.
05.3
Data and image integrity
Fabrication and falsification of data are grounds for rejection and, after publication, for retraction. Figures must represent the underlying data: adjustments to brightness, contrast or color are applied to the whole image and must not obscure, move, introduce or remove any feature. Where an image is assembled from separate acquisitions, the composition is stated in the legend. Editors may request original, unprocessed files at any stage.
05.4
Claims and mechanism
A conclusion is held to the evidence that supports it. An observed effect does not establish its proposed mechanism, and a mechanistic claim requires evidence that distinguishes it from plausible alternatives. Empirical claims that cannot be evaluated through the specified procedures and evidence, or that attribute results to an intervention or proposed agency without adequate support, are declined.
05.5
Concerns about published work
Concerns raised about a published article are investigated following COPE guidance, with the authors and, where appropriate, their institution given the opportunity to respond before any action is taken.
Human participants, animals and consent
06Studies involving human participants, their identifiable data or their samples must document ethics-committee approval and its reference, or an applicable exemption with its basis and responsible authority. Informed consent is documented, or an approved waiver and the body that granted it are reported. A waiver of participation consent does not remove the requirement for written consent to publish identifiable information.
Studies involving animals must report approval from an institutional animal care committee or equivalent body, with its reference, or an applicable exemption and its basis. Report the measures taken to reduce the number of animals used and any suffering caused, where applicable.
Individual participants must not be identifiable in text, tables, figures or supplementary files. Where an identifiable image or case description is essential, written consent for publication is obtained and stated.
Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
Sampling that requires a permit, a landowner's consent or a protected-species approval states the permit and the authority that issued it. Work involving genetic resources reports compliance with the access and benefit-sharing framework that applies.
Work involving hazardous materials, pathogens or procedures reports the containment level and the safety approvals under which it was carried out. Where a result carries a foreseeable risk of misuse, editors may seek additional advice before a decision.
Data, code and materials
07Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.
The statement says where the data are, on what terms, and what a reader must do to obtain them. Data that cannot be shared openly are described honestly: the governance that restricts them, the access process, and the contact point for a request. "Available on request", with no named contact and no described process, is not a data-availability statement.
Custom code and models should be deposited in a public repository, documented well enough to reproduce the computational results, with the version or commit used for the reported results identified. Where code cannot be released, the manuscript states why and describes the method in enough detail for independent reimplementation.
Reagents, materials, strains and instruments described in a manuscript should be obtainable by other groups, and the manuscript says how. Data provenance is part of the method: the source, the collection period, the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the handling of missing values, and any transformation applied before analysis.
Preservation
How the published record is identified, made discoverable and preserved is described on Indexing and Discoverability.
What authors submit
The form each of these statements takes at submission is set out in the Instructions for Authors.
Competing interests and funding
08Authors disclose financial relationships with any company whose product, material, instrument or software is evaluated or discussed — employment, consultancy, equity, patents, paid advisory roles and speaking fees. Non-financial interests that a reader could reasonably regard as competing are disclosed on the same terms. All funding sources are named, with grant numbers, together with a statement of what role the funder had in design, analysis, interpretation or the decision to publish.
Research on proprietary or branded products may be published where it meets the same scientific standards as any other submission and discloses funding and competing interests. A manuscript whose purpose is advertising rather than scientific reporting is declined.
Editors and reviewers declare competing interests and recuse themselves where one exists. An editor with an interest in a submission is replaced for that manuscript.
Use of AI tools
09Authors disclose any use of generative AI tools in preparing the manuscript or in conducting the analysis, naming the tool and describing what it was used for. Authors remain fully responsible for the content, including anything an AI tool produced, and references produced with such a tool are checked against the source before submission.
Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
Editors must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with editorial assessment. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
AI tools are not authors. They cannot take accountability for the work.
Where an AI or machine-learning method is the object of study rather than a writing aid, it is reported as a method — with its data, its comparator and its validation — under the requirements in the Instructions for Authors.
Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern
10The published record is permanent. An article is not removed, replaced or silently edited after publication; where something is wrong, the correction becomes part of the record and stays linked to the article it concerns.
| Notice | When it is issued |
|---|---|
| Correction | An error affects part of the article but not its findings or conclusions. |
| Retraction | The findings are unreliable, whether through error or misconduct, or a serious ethical or integrity breach is established. |
| Expression of concern | A well-founded concern exists but the investigation is unresolved, or its outcome cannot be reported. |
Notices follow COPE guidance, state what is being corrected and on whose initiative, and are published open access with their own identifier. A retracted article remains available and remains listed in the Archive, marked so that it cannot be mistaken for ordinary research.
Appeals and complaints
11An author who believes a decision rests on a misunderstanding of the work may appeal in writing to the editorial office, addressing the specific points in the reviews and reports. Appeals are considered by an editor who was not responsible for the original decision, who may seek further review. A single appeal is considered per manuscript, and the outcome of that appeal is final.
Complaints about editorial process, conduct or publication ethics are made to [email protected] and are investigated by someone not involved in the matter complained of. Where a complaint concerns a member of the editorial board, the publisher appoints an independent reviewer.
Charges, license and copyright
12An article processing charge applies after acceptance. It has no bearing on the editorial decision, and the published rate and the terms attached to it are on the Article Processing Charges page.
Authors should contact the editorial office promptly and wait for written confirmation before submitting the work elsewhere.
Manuscripts withdrawn within 3 days of submission are not subject to a withdrawal charge.
Manuscripts withdrawn more than 3 days after submission incur a withdrawal charge equal to 30% of the journal's APC.
Authors must receive official withdrawal confirmation before submitting the manuscript to another journal.
The same terms are published in the withdrawal section of the charges page.
Articles are published open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright in their work. Anyone may read, download, copy, distribute, adapt and build on a published article, in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Material reused from another source — a figure, a table, an instrument, an extended quotation — requires written permission compatible with that license, obtained by the authors before submission and acknowledged in the caption.
Copyright and License
The license terms in full, and what they mean for reuse, are on Copyright and License.
The published record
Every article the journal has published, by volume and issue, is listed in the Archive.
Raising a concern
Editorial officeConcerns about a published article, an editorial process or the conduct of anyone acting for the journal are taken seriously and are investigated by someone not involved in the matter. Write with the article or manuscript reference and what you have observed.
Published by Open Access Pub. ISSN 2766-8681 (electronic). Crossref DOI prefix 10.14302. Articles are published open access under CC BY 4.0; authors retain copyright. Peer review: Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role. Editorial office: [email protected].
Digital preservation
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish. Read our preservation policy.