Ethics. Publishing ethics is of critical importance. We expect authors to follow ethics rules when publishing with the Journal of Food Bioactives (JFB). It is the author’s obligation to strictly follow the ethical rules and policies of the journal, as specified below.

Authorship. An ‘author’ is somebody who has made intellectual contributions to conception, design, execution, data analysis, and/or interpretation of the study intended for publication. Journal of Food Bioactives prohibits listing an author who has made no contribution to a submitted article or not including those who have legitimately contributed to it.

Originality. Authors are obligated to ensure the originality of their work, i.e. they have written entirely original works. Authors’ original research must present accurate accounts of the work performed and objective discussions of the significance. Should authors have used the work, images and/or phrases/words of others, they must ensure that others’ work have been appropriately cited or quoted. The work of others must be properly acknowledged. Permission from the publisher is also required if a figure or a table is duplicated in a review article.

Plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of scientific misconduct. Journal of Food Bioactives prohibits intentional copying and unintentional lack of references to use someone else’s ideas, phrases, sentences, wording or images. Authors are obligated to seek permission from other parties for copyright and state clearly in a published article. Failure to address the copyright issue will result in denying or withdrawing and retracting the publication from the Journal of Food Bioactives. Authors are solely responsible for any legal issue incurred by not following the rules.

Duplicate publication. Authors should not submit a manuscript that describes the same research to more than one journal. The following form of publication is not considered as prior publication by the Journal of Food Bioactives: an abstract; an academic thesis; an electronic preprint, if appropriate permissions are provided, but the wording must still be appropriately amended. Translation of a manuscript from another language and its submission is also considered plagiarism.

Error correction in published works. It is the author’s sole obligation to notify the journal editor or publisher promptly to retract or correct the paper, submitting and errata, if an authors find an error or inaccuracy that is of great significance in their own publication.

Copyright. Being open access, authors retain copyright ownership and retain the right to use and share their published articles. Journal of Food Bioactives supports authors to share, disseminate and maximize the impact of their research study.

Authors retain the rights of patent, trademark and other intellectual property, such as research data. Journal of Food Bioactives takes allegations of infringement, plagiarism, ethic disputes and fraud very seriously. Journal of Food Bioactives has committed to its authors to protect and defend their work and reputation. Should an author become aware of a possible plagiarism, fraud or infringement, we strongly suggest contacting the office of the Journal of Food Bioactives.

Rights of Journal of Food Bioactives. Journal of Food Bioactives is granted exclusive rights (i) to publish and distribute an article including for commercial purposes, (ii) rights to provide articles in requested forms and media and (iii) on behalf of authors to enforce the rights in the article against third parties, such as in the case of plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Disclosure of the conflict of interest. All manuscript submissions must be accompanied by the disclosure of no conflict of interest.

Disclosure of patient consent for clinical studies. Use of personal information of patients or other individuals must be approved by patients/ individuals involved. A form of Patient Consent or Consent must be submitted in the manuscript submission. All such studies must also be accompanied by an institutional clearance number.  The same applies for animal studies and sensory work (see the relevant guidelines provided).

Article Withdrawal: Article removal or retractions

The integrity and completeness of the scholarly record to researchers and librarians is well recognized and we attach the highest importance to maintaining trust in the authority of its electronic archive with respect to articles of withdrawal, retraction, removal and replacement.

Policy of Journal of Food Bioactives: The editor of Journal of Food Bioactives is primarily responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In doing so, the editor is guided by policies of the journal's editorial board. The manuscripts that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered. However, circumstances may rarely arise where a published article may later be retracted or even removed. Such actions can only occur under exceptional circumstances, but we will retain all article versions, including retracted or otherwise removed articles.

However, if the article has not been published but may represent infringements of professional ethics, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or alike, it will be permanently withdrawn.  In case of proven manipulation of data and other similar ethical issues, a published article may be retracted and this will be done by having the word RETRACTED placed in the article pages in red.

In very rare cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes on the legal rights of others, or might pose a serious health risk. In these cases, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons. However, where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In such cases, the retraction process will be followed but the database retraction notice will provide a link to the corrected re-published article.

Guidelines for dealing with ethics issues

The editor will consider ethical issues that may emerge either during the vetting and reviewing process or after publication when a complaint is made. The ethical problems may relate to plagiarism, multiple submissions, authorship contribution issues and reporting of results that are not original. These are considered as professional misconduct and to those specializing in publishing laws may require involvement of experts in publishing laws.

It is most desirable to address such issues after submission and prior to publication. In doing so, it is necessary that the editor in collaboration with the publisher investigate any suspicion or allegations made and to reach a conclusion on the basis of findings about those investigations.

When there is suspicion that an ethics violation may exist in relation to a submitted article or receiving complaints or allegations concerning a submitted article, several steps may be followed. These include raising the issue with the corresponding author and in some cases with a specific co-author/all co-authors whose actions are questionable. It is the policy of the Journal of Food Bioactives to request explanation and, where necessary, the provision of evidence supporting that explanation. In cases of complaints, the complainer should provide evidence to support the claim.
Otherwise, the investigation may be concluded that there has been no ethical violation. If not, however, investigation of the matter will continue by means such as involving the other parties or institution(s) where the research work was carried out or relevant professional bodies.

Studies in humans and animals

Ethics in animal study

Reporting on animal experiments and animal studies should strictly comply with the ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments). Animal experiments should be performed in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals from the National Institutes of Health of the United States (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978), EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, and or U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, In the manuscript, authors must write clearly for which guideline(s) has been followed. As stated in ARRIVE 2.0, the items in ARRIVE Essential 10 are the minimum to be included in the manuscript, which are study design, sample size, inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomization, blinding, outcome measures, statistical methods, experimental animals, experimental procedures and results. For instance, the sex of animals used and if applicable, the influence or association of the animal sex on the study results, must be indicated.

All materials for animal experiments must follow the highest ethical and animal welfare standards. Any animal use must be based on ethological knowledge and respect for health and well-being. A statement in the submitted manuscript must indicate that the protocol and procedures used were ethically reviewed and approved. The name(s) of the institution or body that give the approval must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Ethics in human study

When studies involve human participants, human data or human tissue, a manuscript must provide ethics approval and consent to participate. The manuscript must include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived) and the name(s) of the ethics committee(s) that approved the study and also the reference number of committee when appropriate. The author must ensure that the work has been carried out in accordance with  the International Code of Medical Ethics developed by the World Medical Association (WMA, the Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. Manuscript containing human subjects should be in line with the ICMJE Recommendations (International Committee Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals) and represent human populations such as sex, age and ethnicity.

Consent for publication:
Research or manuscript containing any individuals’ data of any form, including any individual details, images or videos, authors must provide a consent of informed statement obtained from that person(s), or the parent or legal guardian in the case of children. All case reports for publication must obtain consent prior to and for publication.

In the manuscript, the rights of human privacy must be observed all the time.