General rules
In order to strengthen the academic integrity of Chinese Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CCPT), standardize the process of writing, editing, and publication of papers, and resist academic misconduct, CCPT formulated the ethical norms for authors, reviewers and editors based on the copyright law, domestic and foreign publishing ethics and other relevant provisions.
1. “Publishing ethics” in this specification refers to the ethical norms and codes of conduct that each subject should follow in the publication process.
2. Academic misconduct hereby refers to behavior that violates academic norms and academic ethics, including but not limited to fabricating data (fabrication), falsification data (falsification) and plagiarism (plagiarism). Misconducts indicate but not limited to plagiarism, forgery, tampering, improper signature, multiple submissions of one manuscript, repeated publication, split publication, violation of related research ethics issues, etc.
3. CCPT rejects manuscripts with a copy ratio of more than 20%. Manuscripts are also rejected with a reproduction ratio of less than 20% but whose repetitive parts are the main results and opinions.
4. Conflict of interest refers to the main interests represented by the secondary interests (such as economic interests, friendship, family affection, etc.) and their duties (such as ensuring the results of research) between different individuals or groups in scientific activities, or between individuals and groups.
Ethics policy for author
1. Authors are responsible for the authenticity of the paper, and have the responsibility to cooperate with the editorial department to provide original pictures, original data, fund project specification and project name and other supporting materials.
2. Authors are required to submit the “Authorization for Exclusive Use of the Paper” signed by all authors at submission. In addition to certifying the authenticity of the manuscript content (data, author information), it should also prove that the manuscript has not been submitted for more than one time, and does not involve confidentiality issues, signatures are not disputed, etc.
3. Third parties are not allowed to—write papers; submit papers; modify the content of papers. It is not allowed to violate the signature rules of papers and false peer reviewer information, and CCPT resolutely resist no substantive academic contributors to sign papers.
4. Signed authors are substantive contributors to the paper, including those who: (1) have made important contributions to the idea or design of the research work; or acquire, analyze or interpret data for research; (2) draft research papers or revise the paper on important intellectual content; (3) finalize the version to be published; (4) agree to take responsibility for all aspects of the research work to ensure the accuracy or integrity of any part of the paper. Those who do not meet all 4 criteria (such as those who only provide technical assistance to the paper, or provide financial and material funding) should not be listed as authors, but can be thanked instead.
5. Authors’ signatures are sorted by contribution, which shall be agreed upon by the authors of the paper and determined at the time of submission. Authors and unit signatures are not allowed to be changed. If necessary, all person in charge of the paper (first author and corresponding author) must submit a written application for change to the editorial department, stating the reasons, and signing and approving by all signed authors. Modifications without authorization are not accepted.
6. The corresponding author normally indicates one person. If it is a standardized multi-center or multi-disciplinary collaborative research, more than one corresponding author can be considered as appropriate. The additional corresponding author(s) should be academic leader(s) of different research institutions or different research groups in the collaborative research.
7. Authors with equal contributions should be indicated at submission. There are generally no more than 2 equal contributors. If it is a standardized multi-center or multi-disciplinary collaborative research, more than 2 contributors can be considered as appropriate. The added equivalent contributors should come from different research institutions or different research groups in the collaborative research.
8. Authors should state the name and organization of the author at submission. The author unit should be related to the research content of the paper. If not, the author should state his (her) contribution in the research, or the author unit should issue a certificate to prove that the author is indeed engaged in the research.
9. If the institution to which the author belongs is inconsistent with the institution that completes the topic selection, research plan design, conducts research work, and provides research conditions (such as graduate students leaving the training unit, advanced students, visiting scholars, cooperative research, etc.), the institution that provides research conditions and completes the research work is the first to sign the unit.
10. Papers on clinical trial should follow the “favorable principle” and “no-harm principle” of bioethics. For clinical trials involving humans and animal experimental papers, authors should provide proof of ethical review of the research plan, and informed consent of those involving patients (subjects).
11. Authors should declare whether there is a conflict of interest at submission. If there is, all economic interests that may affect the results of the research (whether there is a commercial interest relationship between the research and the pharmaceutical company; whether the pharmaceutical company has provided any funds for experimental design and implementation, data processing, article writing and publication, etc.) should be declared. 12. Any objections to the review comments and review results claim a written statement (detailed explanation and explanation for each review comment) to the editorial department.
Ethics policy for peer reviewer
1. Reviewers should adhere to the principles of fairness, impartiality, confidentiality, and timeliness to make responsible review opinions on manuscripts. No prejudice or discrimination against the author’s scientific research institution, region, qualifications, ethnicity, etc., and must not disclose the author’s research content.
2. When there is a conflict of interest between the reviewer and the author (such as family relationship, teacher-student relationship, alumni relationship, colleague relationship, competitive relationship), to ensure the fairness of review, the reviewer should promptly declare the conflict of interest to the editorial department. It is up to the editorial department to decide whether to evade.
3. When the reviewer finds that the author’s research is similar to his own, he shall not use the review facility to suppress or belittle the author’s paper.
4. Review the manuscripts in time according to the agreement. If they cannot review and return on time, they should inform the editorial department and reject the review in time. Without the approval of the editorial department, review experts shall not entrust their own students, colleagues, etc. to review on their behalf.
5. When reviewers encounter a manuscript that has been reviewed, they are obliged to report the situation to the editorial department and fill in review comments according to the journal’s inclusion standards.
Ethics policy for editor
1. Editors shall process each manuscript in a fair, just and timely manner, and accept or reject the manuscript based on the importance, originality, scientificity, readability, authenticity of the research and its relevance to the journal decision.
2. Editors should abide by the principle of confidentiality, on the one hand, they must strictly protect the reviewer information; on the other hand, they must keep the author’s research confidential.
3. Editors must not interfere in peer review, and strive to ensure the independent review of peer experts to ensure the fairness of peer review.
4. For peer reviewers recommended by the author, editors should verify whether the reviewer information is true, and decide whether to adopt the recommended reviewer based on the research field and expertise of the recommended reviewer and whether there is a conflict of interest with the author. If the author asks to avoid an expert from reviewing his manuscript, and this request is reasonable, the editor should respect it.
5. When selecting reviewer, editors should try to avoid being the same unit as the author, and must not choose signed authors as reviewers.
6. When there is a conflict of interest between the editor and the author (such as family relationship, teacher-student relationship, alumni relationship, colleague relationship, competitive relationship), they should avoid handling the manuscript.
7. Editors should treat the complaints of authors carefully and organize collective discussions or ask review experts to review them.
8. Editors should consider publishing negative results obtained from scientific rigorous research to avoid unnecessary research repeated by other scholars.
9. Editors are responsible for avoiding academic misconducts such as multiple submissions and repeated publications, and should double check and review the first submitted papers and the papers to be published.
10. Editors are obliged to remind authors of copyright and intellectual property issues that may arise after changing the signature, unit and their order.
11. Editors should provide the author with detailed comments or reasons for rejection.
12. Editors must respect the author’s views and writing style, and all major revisions to the paper involving academic views should approved by the author.
For more detailed information, please refer to the official website of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://www.publicationethics.org/), the European Society of Scientific Editors (EASE) and other institutions of publication ethics standards and the book Science and Technology Journal Publishing Ethics Code compiled by the China Association for Science and Technology.
Responsible Institution: China Association for Science and Technology
Sponsored by: The Chinese Pharmacological Society
Editor-in-Chief HUANG Zhili
ISSN 1009-2501
CN 34-1206/R