Principles of Transparency Checklist

Peer review process
All journal content is clearly marked as whether peer reviewed or not. Final article PDFs contain a description of the peer review process (internal or external) and provenance (commissioned or non commissioned) for that article. Peer review is double blind within our journal. Every original article is peer reviewed by a minimum of two external experts and one member of the editorial board. In all cases the manuscript is also reviewed by at one Editor-in-Chief. Letters to the Editor and Editorials are peer reviewed internally. All journal content is clearly marked as whether peer reviewed or not (internally vs. externally peer reviewed). All articles have a specific provenance and peer review tab (commissioned vs. non commissioned).

Authors may suggest external reviewers that are qualified to peer review the manuscript, provided that they have not collaborated closely in the near past and that they are not from the same institution. Authors may also note peer reviewers who they would not prefer to review this paper. While the authors suggestions are taken into account, the Editorial Office reserves the right to handle double blind peer review at its discretion. Any manuscripts received for review will be treated as confidential documents.

External peer reviewers are requested to report on the ethical aspects of the manuscript they are allocated to review and are requested to report also on the novelty, the impact, the statistical analysis, references and potential conflicts of interest. A specific peer review form is provided with closed and open based questions so as to rate the manuscript and provide comments.

Governing Body
Our journal has an editorial board whose members are recognized leading experts in the area of midwifery at a regional and international level. The full names and affiliations of the journal's editors are provided from the Editorial Board page. The editorial board is the final governing body of the journal.

Editorial team/contact information
We provide the full names and affiliations of the journal's editors as well as full address and contact information for the editorial office and the publisher.

Author fees
From 2022 onwards an Article Processing Charge is being levied for all research and review articles published in the journal, with the exception of those submitted from LIC. Detailed information on the amount of the APC and potential waivers can be found at the Instructions to Authors - How to submit page.

Copyright
Copyright is clearly described on the journal's web site, and licensing terms are indicated on all published PDFs. Authors submitting their work to European Journal of Midwifery retain the copyright of their work without restrictions.
The default license for articles accepted since January 2022 is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0), but authors who wish to publish their work under a more strict license are also able to choose the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-ND 4.0).
Each article abstract and summary, as available on the website, has a dedicated “license” tab with a direct link to the licensing requirements of that article.

Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct
Both the publishers and the Editors of the journal take affirmative action to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. All authors are requested to complete and upload ICMJE conflict of interest forms. All manuscripts undergo iThenticate plagiarism detection after each round of peer review. In the event that the journal's publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal - COPE's guidelines will be followed when dealing with allegations.

Ownership and management
The journal is operated and managed by European Publishing. All content is published under the Creative Commons licenses, which means that the authors retain ownership of the content of their manuscript.

Web site
Our journal's web site has been developed with care so as to ensure high ethical and professional standards. Constant updating is performed to enhance website utility, ease navigation and maintain the information available as the most recent.

The Name of journal
The Journal name, European Journal of Midwifery, is unique and can not be confused with any of the other journals in the field.

Conflicts of interest
We have clear policies on handling potential conflicts of interest of editors, authors, and reviewers - all are requested to either complete ICMJE forms or declare no conflict of interest. The Authorship & COI tab provides further detailed information.

Access
The European Journal of Midwifery is freely available to readers with no subscription or pay per view fees. The number of direct downloads for each article are noted next to the article's abstract.

Revenue sources
Revenue is obtained through the application of Article Processing Charges, paper reprints and e-reprints. Development of the journal during the 2017-2021 period was partially funded through the Smart Specialization Strategy of Crete (S3), an innovation policy concept to support regional prioritization in innovative sectors, fields or technologies. The European Commission introduced the S3 concept in the EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 as an ‘ex-ante conditionality’ for European regions to obtain funding for research and innovation from the European Regional Development Fund.

Advertising
Our journal does not accept advertisements.

Publishing schedule
The publishing schedule for our journal is continuous, and articles are grouped into monthly issues.

Archiving
To ensure digital preservation for the future, our electronic publications are archived with Portico (a third-party preservation service supported by both libraries and publishers, to ensure that scholarly content published in electronic form will remain accessible for the long term) and PMC.

Direct marketing
We do not engage in email solicitation of articles and will never email potential authors to attract submissions. We believe that this "spamming" practice is unethical and unprofessional. To us, the best promotion of a journal is through the maintenance of high standards, quality manuscripts and vigorous double blind peer review.

Repository policy
The journal's open access policy is registered under Sherpa Romeo, an online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world.