The editorial board of the "Baltic Region" complies with the ethical standards adopted by the international scientific community. In our work, we rely on the recommendations of the Committee of Publication Ethics, the AIRP (Alliance of Independent Regional Publishers) Declaration "Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications", as well as the valuable experience of authoritative international journals and publishing houses. All parties engaged in the editorial and publishing process - authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher of the "Baltic Region" - should observe the principles of publication ethics.
1. Duties of the authors
1.1 Authors submitting a manuscript to the "Baltic Region" should ensure that they have written entirely original works, i.e. the text has not been published earlier and is not under review by another journal. If the article is based on the material previously published such as a blueprint, a preprint, or a working paper, the editorial board should be notified about it.
1.2 All co-authors are required to make a substantial contribution to the manuscript. Co-authors should agree on the final text of the manuscript and give their consent to submit the manuscript to the journal. A corresponding author collaborates with the editorial board on the preparation of the manuscript for publication and notifies all co-authors about possible changes in the manuscript provided they are required.
1.3 The journal has zero tolerance for plagiarism. Authors should cite publications that have influenced their work. All quotations must have proper references to their original texts. Plagiarism in any form, including copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another paper, claiming results of research conducted by others, is unacceptable.
1.4 The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works. They should also ensure proper citation and if they quote other works, all quotations should be appropriately cited, or quoted and permission obtained where necessary.
1.5 Authors are required to disclose any financial or other conflict of interest that could affect the evaluation of their manuscript. Examples of possible conflicts of interest are employment, consultancy services, shared ownership, honoraria, paid expertise, patents, grants, and other forms of funding. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
1.6 If the author finds errors or inaccuracies in the manuscript when the manuscript is being reviewed or after its publication, he/she should notify the editorial board as soon as possible. If the editorial board learns from a third party that the published work contains an error, the author has to promptly refute or correct the text, or provide the editorial board with evidence of the correctness of the published work.
2. Duties of the reviewers
2.1 Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two peer reviewers who are free to offer reasoned criticism regarding the level and clarity of the manuscript submitted, its relevance to the profile of the journal, and the novelty and credibility of the results.
2.2 A reviewer who is aware of his/her lack of qualifications to review a manuscript or who does not have sufficient time to complete the work within the deadline should notify the editor in good time.
2.3 Any work accepted for review is considered confidential. Manuscripts are not to be shown or discussed with others, except those authorized by the editorial board.
2.4 Reviews must be objective. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Reviewers should clearly express their opinion and support it with relevant arguments.
2.5 It is the responsibility of the reviewer to identify fragments of published works cited without proper reference. Any assertion that an observation, conclusion, or argument has been previously made must be accompanied by an appropriate reference. The reviewer is obliged to draw the editor's attention to the similarity of the submitted manuscript with any other published work known to the reviewer.
2.6 Unpublished materials contained in the submitted work cannot be used in the reviewer's research without the written consent of the author. Confidential information obtained in the reviewing process must not be disclosed or used for personal benefit.
2.7 The reviewer is obliged to refuse consideration of the submitted work if there is a conflict of interest arising from competition, cooperation, or any other kind of relationship with the authors and organisations related to the work.
3. Duties of the editors
3.1 The editor is solely responsible for the decision on the publication of the manuscript, relying on the cooperation of the reviewers and the editorial board of the journal. This decision should always be made based on the credibility of the work and its importance for researchers and readers.
3.2 The editor evaluates submitted papers, and their intellectual content, regardless of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political views of the author.
3.3 The editor is obliged to refuse consideration of submitted work if there is a conflict of interest arising from competition, cooperation, or any other kind of relationship with authors and organisations related to the work (the editor's functions can be delegated to a member of the editorial board).
3.4 The editor should resolve conflicts that may arise and use all available means to resolve them.
3.5 The editor who has received convincing evidence that there has been a breach of ethics, or erroneous statements or conclusions in the published article shall respond as soon as possible by notification of changes, withdrawal (retraction) of publication, and other appropriate actions. All complaints of an ethical nature are subject to consideration, even if made several years after the publication.
3.6 The editor should not publish the article without an agreement with the authors.
3.7 The editorial board has no right to force authors to cite previously published articles in the "Baltic Region" to artificially improve scientometric indicators.
3.8 The editor plans the contents of the issues based on the order of manuscript submission, taking into account priorities for thematic sections and issues of the journal. The editorial board has the right to change the order of publication in accordance with the contents of forthcoming issues.
3.9 The editor has the right not to correspond with the authors concerning the final review results.
4. Duties of the publisher
4.1 The publisher should not influence the editorial policy of the journal.
4.2 The publisher should provide organisational, financial, intellectual, and legal support to the editorial board of the journal.
4.3 The publisher should ensure the timely publication of the issues of the journal.
5. Retraction of articles
5.1 In situations related to the withdrawal of articles, the editorial board and the publisher of the "Baltic Region" are guided by the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE Retraction Guidelines) and AIRP Council of Ethics (Rule of Retraction of an article from publication).
5.2 An article can be retracted for the following reasons:
- publication of the same manuscript in several journals;
- plagiarism;
- errors in the manuscript or falsification of the data that cast doubt on its scientific value.
5.3 An article may be retracted following an official request of the authors with a reasoned explanation of the decision or on the initiative of the editorial board or the publisher based on their expertise. In the latter case, an official letter explaining the reasons for retracting the article is sent to the author (or to the lead author in the team of authors).
5.4 After the retraction, the article remains on the website of the journal as part of the issue and retains the DOI, but is marked as ‘retracted’. The same notice is made in the table of contents of the issue. The PDF version of the article is replaced by an identical version with a watermark indicating on each page that the article has been retracted.
5.5 The editorial board publishes a statement of retraction indicating the reasons and the date of retraction on the official website of the journal. The editorial board sends the notification of the retraction to the Scientific Electronic Library (elibrary.ru) and other bibliographic databases in which the journal is enlisted. Notification will be sent to the AIRP Scientific Publications Ethics Council for its inclusion in the Unified Database of retracted articles.
All authors are required to disclose financial and personal relationships that have influenced or could have influenced their work when submitting a manuscript to the journal, specifying:
· the presence or absence of conflicts of interest among the authors;
· the work’s sources of funding, including sponsors, if any;
· an explanation of the role of sources of funding in developing the research plan, collecting, analysing, and interpreting data, drafting the report, deciding to submit the report for publication, or alternatively, a statement that the source of funding did not participate in such activities.
Reviewers should not participate in the evaluation of manuscripts if they have conflicts of interest due to competitive, collaborative or other relationships with any of the authors or companies and other organisations connected to the submitted work.
Editors and editorial staff must withdraw from editorial decisions if they have a conflict of interest related to the articles under review. Unpublished data obtained from manuscripts submitted for review cannot be used in personal research without the author’s written consent. Information or ideas arising from the review process that could offer potential advantages must remain confidential and not be used for personal gain.
The editorial office of the Baltic Region treats complaints regarding the conduct of editors and reviewers with utmost seriousness. These complaints may relate to issues such as breaches of confidentiality, undisclosed conflicts of interest or the improper use of confidential information obtained during the peer review process. Authors may also disagree with decisions related to the treatment of concerns about specific articles or file complaints regarding violations of editorial procedures.
All complaints can be sent to the email address tikuznetsova@kantiana.ru to be processed according to standard procedure. The review process for complaints is completed within 7 days. The complainant will receive information about the decision made, the measures that will be taken to address the issue and the timelines for their implementation.
When reviewing complaints, the editorial office follows COPE guidelines in each of the cases outlined below:
working with post-publication criticism
post-publication discussions and amendments
suspicion of manipulation in post-publication reviews
manipulation of images in published articles
fabrication of data in published articles
In some cases, it may be necessary to introduce changes to an already published article. The editorial office of the Baltic Region journal supports the practice of amending published materials and, in such cases, acts in accordance with the COPE guidelines.
Any necessary changes are accompanied by a post-publication notice that will always be linked to the original version of the article, allowing readers to be informed of all necessary changes.
Authors may discover a technical or factual error after the article has been published. In such cases, the editorial office of the Baltic Region should be notified as soon as possible, especially in instances where errors may affect the interpretation of results or raise doubts about the validity of the information. The corresponding author is responsible for achieving consensus within the authorship group regarding further interactions with the editorial office.
If you believe changes need to be made to the published article, please contact us via email at tikuznetsova@kantiana.ru
Article amendment policy
Making changes to an article accepted for publication that has undergone all stages of peer review and pre-print preparation falls into one of the following categories:
· addition (addendum),
· publisher’s correction (erratum)
· author’s correction (corrigendum)
The decision to publish corrections is made by the journal’s editors based on recommendations from reviewers, editorial board members or written requests from the authors of the article. Although the publication of corrections involves consultations with the authors, the final decision rests with the editors or editorial board of the journal.
Additions (addendum). Adding new material that supplements the original content of the article requires peer review. The additional material is uploaded to the journal’s website as a new manuscript with a reference to the original article.
Replacing part of the original text in the published article can be implemented as a publisher's correction (misprints/erratum) or an author’s correction (corrigendum).
A publisher's correction (erratum) is issued when an error (misprint or overlooked correction) made by the journal during the article's preparation significantly affects the reader's understanding of the content. Corrections are not published for simple, obvious typographical errors.
Author’s correction (corrigendum). If the authors deem it necessary to make corrections after the article has been published, they should submit a written request, providing justification, to the email address tikuznetsova@kantiana.ru. The final decision to publish the correction (corrigendum) is made by the editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board after evaluating the impact of the proposed change on the scientific accuracy and significance of the published article. In certain cases, detecting significant errors or inconsistencies in the published article may necessitate its retraction.