Procedure for the retraction of published articles
The grounds for retracting an article are breaches of legal, publication or ethical standards.
Publications are subject to retraction if they:
- have not undergone proper peer review or contain fabricated reviews;
- have been published without the authors’ knowledge or consent;
- involve a conflict of interest;
- have an incorrectly identified list of authors;
- contain significant errors, fabrications or falsification of data;
- duplicate material published in other publications;
- involve plagiarism or unauthorised borrowing.
The retraction procedure may be initiated by the author(s), the editorial board, reviewers, readers, academic institutions or other interested parties.
Requests, provided there is substantiated evidence, must be sent to the journal’s official email address.
The editorial board registers the request and, within five working days, conducts a preliminary assessment, which includes verifying the journal’s competence to handle the case and the availability of the materials provided; if necessary, additional documents may be requested.
Editors and/or independent experts with no conflict of interest are appointed to investigate; authors are given the opportunity to provide explanations, and the entire process lasts up to 30 calendar days, with the possibility of extension in complex cases and notifications on all pages.
Following the review, the editorial board may reject the complaint as unfounded, make corrections after publication, or decide to retract the article – all decisions are approved by the editor-in-chief in accordance with the journal’s policy on complaints and appeals.
The retraction procedure comprises the following stages:
- submission of a statement setting out the facts to the editorial board;
- formation of a committee to conduct an investigation;
- adoption of a decision with the drafting of a corresponding report, which sets out the reasons and details of the retraction, and in the case of plagiarism – a reference to the original source;
- posting a retraction notice on the article’s page on the journal’s website.
In the event of retraction, the article is not removed but remains in the archive with a clear ‘Retracted’ label in the text and metadata. At the same time, the editorial board publishes an official retraction notice, signed by the editor-in-chief, which contains the title of the article, bibliographic details, the date of the decision, a brief summary of the reasons for retraction and, where appropriate, information about the initiator, and is linked to the article at the metadata level.
The author has the right to withdraw the manuscript prior to publication by sending a reasoned request to the editorial board. Such requests are considered by the editorial board and decided in accordance with the current editorial policy.
All parties have the right to appeal within 14 calendar days.
