Publication Ethics Statement

PUBLICATION ETHICS STATEMENT

All parties involved in the publication process (authors, editors, reviewers) are required to adhere to the following ethical standards which are developed in compliance with the Code of Conduct and the Best Practice Guidelines of COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics). The present Publication Ethics govern the regulation of the standards for ethical conduct to which all parties involved in the publication process for the Études balkaniques journal issued by the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) shall conform. The Publication Ethics also play an important role in the policy of the Editorial Board and aim to guarantee the exclusive publication of papers of the highest possible quality.

DUTIES OF THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for every text published in Études balkaniques. His/ her duty is to strive to meet the needs of readers and authors, to continuously improve the journal, to guarantee the quality of the published material and to maintain the integrity of academic records.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible to ensure that the research material published in the journal complies with the internationally accepted ethical guidelines recommended by COPE.

The Editor-in-Chief and the members of the Editorial Board evaluate the manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their qualities.

Being the final decision-makers about the publication of each submission, the members of Editorial board are the guarantors of the integrity of Études balkaniques’ publication record.

The Editorial board guarantees the peer review process is carried out so that all the identities are protected according to the requirements of the double-blind review procedure.

The Editorial board should select the articles to be published based on quality and suitability for the journal and without interference from the journal owner/publisher.

Editorial board shall handle submissions of papers, based entirely on the manuscript’s relevance to the Études balkaniques’ scope and the article’s academic quality. Commercial considerations shall not affect editorial decisions and articles are accepted solely on their academic merit and without commercial influence.

The editorial decision shall be taken with no regard to the author’s gender, nationality, citizenship, academic or institutional position, religious affiliation, political or sexual orientation.

Avoiding conflicts of interest shall be a guiding principle for the Editorial board, including any such of their staff, authors, reviewers.

Editorial board shall publish and keep regularly updated guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them and what refers to their essential role in the attestation.

DUTIES OF THE REVIEWERS

The reviewers are expected to evaluate the papers they have agreed to review in accordance with the highest academic standards in their field of expertise, to declare any possible conflict of interest which could bias their review, to decline to review manuscripts that they are not competent to review, and to report in their reviews any kind of noticed academic misconduct, including errors, inaccuracies, lack of important references, plagiarism, or other. The reviewers may not use any part of the reviewed text in their own research before the text’s publication.

All received manuscripts which fall under the scope of Études balkaniques’ are sent for a blind review to two independent reviewers. Exceptions are made for invited papers and for book reviews which are only subject to non-blind editorial assessment.

If the assessments of the two reviewers differ significantly, the paper is sent to a third reviewer. The final decision about the publication of a submitted text is taken by the editorial team. Once taken, the final decision may not change unless, in the case of a positive decision, a serious fraudulence has been discovered in the accepted paper.

Reviewers shall not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest. Any ideas obtained through the review process shall be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Both the Editorial board and the reviewers are obliged to treat submitted manuscripts as anonymous and confidential during the whole review process.

The Editorial board may not disclose the reviewers’ identities.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

By submitting their manuscript for publication, the authors declares that the submitted text is entirely their own work and that it has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere, that all used sources of data and knowledge are acknowledged and appropriately referred to and cited, and that the manuscript does not contain inaccurate, deliberately falsified or fabricated data.

Authors bear the responsibility of the copyrights of the opinions, thoughts, materials used in their articles or any intellectual and artistic products.

The authors should inform the editors about any significant inaccuracies or errors which they notice subsequent to submission or upon the publication of the material.

PLAGIARISM

The Editors of Études balkaniques keep the electronic versions of the received and published texts, also the hard copies.

In case that any published or submitted content is similar to the manuscript under review, or any suspected plagiarism, reviewers should inform the Editor-in-Chief.

The Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal’s Editorial Board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

In case of academic disputation following/regarding the publication of an article or a review, or concerning technical errors in the journal, the editors reserve the right to publish further details in a following issue within a Discussions rubric.