Publication Ethics

All parties involved in the publication process — authors, editors, reviewers, editorial board members, and the publisher — are expected to uphold the highest standards of research integrity, publication ethics, and responsible scholarly communication. Allegations of misconduct, ethical breaches, or deviations from the policies described on this page are investigated and addressed in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and guidance.

Research submitted for publication must be conducted and reported honestly, accurately, transparently, and completely, regardless of whether the results are favorable or unfavorable to the hypothesis under investigation. Authors are expected to preserve the integrity of the research record by ensuring that all data, methods, analyses, and conclusions are presented truthfully and without fabrication, falsification, or misleading omission.

All submitted manuscripts are screened for textual similarity prior to peer review. Plagiarism, including the unattributed use of another person’s words, ideas, data, figures, tables, or other intellectual content, constitutes a serious breach of publication ethics and may result in rejection of the manuscript or, if identified after publication, retraction of the article. The journal also evaluates cases of self-plagiarism and inappropriate text recycling in accordance with COPE and ORI guidance.

Submitting substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously, or republishing previously published material without clear disclosure, appropriate citation, and any required permission, is not permitted. Duplicate publication, redundant publication, and inappropriate fragmentation of research findings (“salami publication”) are considered breaches of publication ethics and may result in rejection, correction, or retraction, depending on the circumstances and the stage of publication.

Data fabrication (inventing data, observations, or results) and data falsification (manipulating research materials, data, analyses, images, or results so that the research record is misrepresented) are regarded as serious forms of research misconduct. Confirmed cases will result in rejection of the manuscript or, if identified after publication, retraction of the article, and may be reported to the authors’ institutions, funding agencies, or other appropriate authorities in accordance with applicable ethical and legal requirements.

Authors, editors, and reviewers must not request, encourage, or add citations for the primary purpose of artificially increasing citation counts, journal metrics, or individual citation records. All citations included in a manuscript should be based on genuine scholarly relevance and should contribute meaningfully to the understanding, context, or interpretation of the research. Practices such as coercive citation, excessive self-citation, or the addition of irrelevant references solely to influence citation metrics are considered unethical.

The use of generative AI tools in manuscript preparation must be fully disclosed in the Methods, Acknowledgments, or another appropriate section of the manuscript. Such disclosure should identify the tool used and describe the nature of the assistance provided. AI tools may not be listed as authors, and generative AI output must not be cited as an authoritative or primary source. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and appropriate citation of all content, including any AI-assisted text, data, images, code, analyses, or other materials. Authors are expected to verify and critically review all AI-generated or AI-assisted content before submission.

Editors, reviewers, and editorial staff must not upload confidential manuscripts, peer-review reports, unpublished data, images, supplementary files, or editorial correspondence to external generative AI tools or other third-party systems unless the tool has been formally approved for confidential editorial use and appropriate data protection safeguards are in place. Editors and reviewers must not use generative AI to draft editorial assessments, recommendations, or peer-review reports on their behalf.

AI-assisted tools may support disclosed technical screening or administrative checks, but their outputs must be verified by qualified personnel and they do not replace human editorial judgment. Final decisions regarding manuscript suitability, peer-review outcomes, ethical concerns, corrections, retractions, or other editorial actions remain the responsibility of qualified editors and editorial leadership.

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception or design of the work, the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, or the drafting or critical revision of the manuscript. All listed authors must approve the final submitted version, agree to be accountable for the integrity of the work, and accept responsibility for addressing questions related to the accuracy or validity of any part of the publication.

Author contributions should be described using the CRediT contributor roles, or an equivalent clear contribution statement, so that each contributor's role is transparent. Contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged with their permission rather than listed as authors.

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be made in writing, explain the reason for the change, and include the agreement of all affected authors. Changes after acceptance are permitted only in exceptional, documented circumstances and require editorial approval. Authorship disputes that cannot be resolved by the authors are referred to the relevant institutions and handled with reference to applicable COPE authorship guidance; the journal does not adjudicate institutional authorship disputes.

All authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any financial, personal, professional, institutional, or commercial relationship that could reasonably be perceived to influence the objectivity, integrity, or interpretation of the work or its evaluation. Disclosures should be made at the time of submission or review and should include funding sources, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, patents, paid expert testimony, or other relevant competing interests.

Studies involving human participants or animal subjects must include a statement confirming approval by an appropriate institutional review board (IRB), ethics committee, or animal care and use committee, where applicable. Authors must identify the approving body and, when available, provide the approval or protocol number. All research must comply with relevant national and international ethical, legal, and regulatory requirements. For studies involving human participants, authors must also confirm that informed consent was obtained when required.

Research involving human participants must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and all applicable national and institutional regulations. Authors must confirm that documented informed consent was obtained from all participants or, where appropriate, from their legal guardians or authorized representatives. When personal, clinical, or identifiable information is reported, authors must ensure that participant privacy and confidentiality are adequately protected.

Research involving animal subjects must comply with institutional, national, and international guidelines governing the care and use of laboratory animals. Authors must provide a statement confirming approval by the appropriate animal ethics committee or institutional animal care and use committee, including the approval or protocol number when available. Studies should be designed to minimize animal suffering and should follow the principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement (the 3Rs) whenever applicable.

European Journal of Chemistry operates a single-blind peer review model in which reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors, while reviewers are informed of the authors’ identities. Manuscripts are evaluated by independent subject-matter reviewers, and an outline of the peer-review process is available on the journal’s official submission platform.

A manuscript submitted to the journal must not have been previously published in whole or in substantial part, nor be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. Authors must disclose any related prior dissemination of the work, including preprints, conference proceedings, theses, or overlapping publications where applicable. For the purposes of editorial assessment and verification, authors may be asked to provide the underlying raw data, supporting datasets, analytical files, images, or other research records. Authors are encouraged to make supporting data publicly available in an appropriate repository whenever feasible and consistent with ethical, legal, confidentiality, and intellectual property requirements.

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for the reported work, including grants, institutional funding, commercial sponsorship, charitable support, or governmental funding. Authors must also disclose any financial, professional, personal, institutional, or commercial relationship that could reasonably be perceived to influence the design, conduct, interpretation, or reporting of the research. Such disclosures should include, where relevant, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, patents, paid expert testimony, or other competing interests. If no relevant funding or conflicts of interest exist, authors should explicitly state this in the manuscript.

Reviewers are expected to adhere to the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, decline review invitations when they cannot provide an objective and competent assessment, and treat all manuscripts and associated review materials as strictly confidential. Review reports should provide a detailed, constructive, fair, and unbiased evaluation addressing the relevance, clarity, originality, methodological soundness, and scientific accuracy of the work. Reviewers must also disclose to the editor any financial, personal, professional, institutional, or commercial conflict of interest that could compromise an impartial review.