Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is based on adherence to:

The COPE Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors

The ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals

The US NIH Standards on scholarly publishing as per the US NIH notice NOT-OD-18-011

We are also a contributor to the THINK-CHECK-SUBMIT initiative, and responsible for its adaptation into Greek and Albanian. Please refer to our Principals of Transparency Checklist for further details.

Ethics
All research submitted for publication in European Journal of Midwifery, must have been carried out within an appropriate ethics framework. Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in 2013), and as per Good Clinical Practice.

For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants or their guardian in the case of children. Identifying information of any form will not be published unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or guardian) gives written informed consent on its publication. Should a manuscript report on research that provides any material that should need informed consent then an ad hoc "Statement of Informed consent" will be published in the pdf of the article alongside the ICMJE Conflict of Interest statement in the final published manuscript.

When reporting on experiments on animals the authors should indicate which institutional and national standards for care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Should a manuscript report on research that has been performed with animal subjects then an ad hoc "Statement of Animal Rights" will be published in the pdf of the article alongside the ICMJE Conflict of Interest statement.

All research must have been approved by an appropriate research ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB). The Editors will seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and ethics approval numbers will be requested.

Plagiarism
European Publishing investigates into all cases of publication misconduct and as a member of CrossCheck’s plagiarism detection initiative it uses plagiarism detection software. The software checks submissions against millions of published research papers, documents on the web, and other relevant sources. All articles submitted to European Journal of Midwifery are assessed through iThenticate, before peer review and before acceptance. If plagiarism or misconduct is found at the time of submission the manuscript is rejected immediately. Should for some reason plagiarism or misconduct be identified after publication then immediate actions will be taken, including but not limited to the retraction of the article, publication of a retraction notice, etc.

Corrections & Retractions
Should authors or reviewers identify an error in a manuscript, a correction letter will be published indicating where the mistakes were made, while the original source will be immediately corrected. In general, the COPE Guidelines for Retracting Articles are followed in this case. When faced with suspected misconduct the editors are advised to follow the relevant COPE Flowcharts. Readers may also comment on published manuscripts through the submission of a letter to the editor.

Appeals
If any authors are unhappy with the decision on their article they may appeal to the Editorial Office giving a reason why they feel the decision was incorrect. Any appeal will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and one more editor with expertise on the topic and a final decision will be made. Please note that authors may only appeal once.

Editorial Freedom
The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal. The Editor-in-Chief is supported by expert international editorial boards comprising individuals with relevant research, academic and or policy expertise. Together they make decisions on the validity and integrity of the submitted manuscripts in light of the journal's aim and scope.
The Editorial board's composition is regularly reviewed, while clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected functions and duties is provided. The editorial board is also engaged twice a year with updates on publication ethics and journal strategic development. The publisher is not involved in the manuscript decision making process.

Provenance and peer review
All articles submitted undergo double blind peer review. 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 the 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 peer 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 peer review at its discretion. Any manuscripts received for review will and must be treated as confidential documents by the reviewers and members of the editorial board.

Double blind 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 that either the author or reviewer may have.

All published manuscripts have a specific provenance and peer review tab (commissioned vs non-commissioned; internally vs externally peer reviewed) next to the manuscript's acknowledgements.