Research Misconduct Policy

The Journal of Circular Economy Innovations is committed to protecting the integrity, reliability, transparency, and credibility of the scholarly record. Research submitted to or published by the journal must be conducted and reported in accordance with recognized standards of academic integrity, responsible research practice, and ethical scholarly communication.

Research misconduct undermines confidence in scientific literature and may cause harm to researchers, institutions, communities, research participants, policymakers, and the wider public. The journal therefore takes allegations of research misconduct seriously and evaluates credible concerns through fair, confidential, evidence-based, and proportionate editorial procedures.

This policy applies to manuscripts under consideration, accepted manuscripts, published articles, supplementary materials, research data, peer-review activities, and other scholarly materials associated with the journal.

1. Scope of Research Misconduct

For the purposes of this policy, research misconduct may include deliberate, reckless, or materially misleading conduct that compromises the authenticity, accuracy, transparency, or integrity of scholarly research.

Potential forms of misconduct include, but are not limited to:

  • fabrication of data, observations, participants, experiments, results, references, or research records;

  • falsification or inappropriate manipulation of data, images, analyses, methods, or research documentation;

  • plagiarism or substantial unattributed use of another person's intellectual work;

  • duplicate or redundant publication;

  • simultaneous submission of substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal;

  • inappropriate manipulation of research results;

  • selective reporting intended to create a misleading representation of findings;

  • inappropriate authorship or contributorship;

  • undisclosed conflicts of interest;

  • citation manipulation;

  • peer-review manipulation;

  • unethical treatment of research participants;

  • misuse of confidential or proprietary information;

  • misrepresentation of research approvals or informed consent;

  • inappropriate manipulation of images or graphical evidence;

  • false statements concerning data availability;

  • deliberate misrepresentation of funding or institutional affiliations;

  • undisclosed or inappropriate use of artificial intelligence where such use affects research integrity; and

  • other conduct that materially compromises the reliability of the scholarly record.

The journal distinguishes research misconduct from legitimate academic disagreement, methodological differences, reasonable interpretation of evidence, and honest error.

2. Fabrication

Fabrication refers to the creation of data, research participants, observations, experimental outcomes, references, survey responses, computational results, or other research information that did not actually exist or arise from the research described.

Authors must not invent or manufacture evidence to support a manuscript.

Examples may include:

  • reporting experiments that were not conducted;

  • creating fictional participant responses;

  • inventing statistical results;

  • presenting fabricated datasets as real observations;

  • constructing false references or citations;

  • reporting nonexistent institutional or ethical approvals; or

  • presenting hypothetical or simulated findings as actual empirical results without clear disclosure.

Synthetic, simulated, modeled, or illustrative data may be academically legitimate when their nature is clearly disclosed and appropriately justified. Such data must not be represented as real-world empirical evidence.

3. Falsification

Falsification refers to inappropriate manipulation, modification, omission, suppression, or distortion of research materials, processes, data, images, methods, or results in a manner that misrepresents the research.

Examples may include:

  • altering data values without legitimate methodological justification;

  • removing unfavorable observations to produce a desired result;

  • modifying images in ways that change their scientific meaning;

  • concealing material methodological limitations;

  • misreporting sample characteristics;

  • manipulating statistical analyses;

  • selectively presenting only favorable findings;

  • changing research records after analysis without transparent documentation; or

  • misrepresenting the performance of a computational or analytical model.

Legitimate data cleaning, preprocessing, statistical transformation, image adjustment, or analytical procedures should be disclosed sufficiently for readers and reviewers to understand their effect on the findings.

4. Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves presenting another person's words, ideas, methods, data, images, results, arguments, or intellectual contributions without appropriate acknowledgment.

Authors must cite sources accurately and distinguish their own scholarly contribution from previously published or externally derived material.

Plagiarism may include:

  • direct copying without citation;

  • close paraphrasing without appropriate acknowledgment;

  • unauthorized reuse of figures, tables, or images;

  • appropriation of ideas without attribution;

  • copying from unpublished manuscripts;

  • misuse of confidential peer-review material; or

  • presenting another researcher's work as one's own.

The journal may use similarity-detection tools as part of editorial assessment. Similarity percentages are not treated automatically as proof of misconduct. Editors consider the nature, extent, context, and location of overlapping material before reaching a conclusion.

5. Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Authors must not submit or publish substantially the same research in multiple publications in a manner that creates a misleading impression of originality.

Duplicate publication may include substantial republication of previously published findings without appropriate disclosure, citation, justification, or permission.

Where a manuscript develops material previously presented in a conference proceeding, thesis, preprint, report, working paper, or other scholarly source, authors should disclose the relationship where relevant and clearly identify the new contribution.

Redundant publication may also involve dividing a single study into multiple papers without sufficient scholarly justification solely to increase publication output.

6. Data Manipulation and Selective Reporting

Research data should be presented accurately and in a manner consistent with the methods described.

Authors must not deliberately manipulate data, omit material observations, conceal contradictory findings, or selectively report favorable outcomes in a manner that misleads readers.

Where exclusions, transformations, corrections, imputation procedures, or analytical decisions materially affect the results, they should be described transparently.

The journal may request supporting data, analytical records, or documentation when reasonable questions arise concerning the reliability of reported findings.

7. Image Manipulation

Images, photographs, microscopy outputs, graphical records, screenshots, maps, diagrams, or other visual research materials must not be altered in a way that creates a misleading representation of the underlying evidence.

Routine adjustments such as resizing, cropping, or reasonable contrast enhancement may be acceptable where they do not obscure, remove, add, or distort relevant information.

Authors should disclose material image-processing procedures where necessary for scholarly interpretation.

Suspected inappropriate image manipulation may be referred for further editorial or technical review.

8. Authorship Misconduct

Authorship must accurately represent genuine scholarly contribution.

Inappropriate practices may include:

  • honorary authorship;

  • guest authorship;

  • ghost authorship;

  • purchased authorship;

  • coercive authorship;

  • exclusion of legitimate contributors;

  • inclusion of individuals without their consent;

  • unauthorized changes to the author list; or

  • false representation of institutional affiliation.

All listed authors should approve the submitted manuscript and accept appropriate responsibility for their contributions.

Authorship disputes may require clarification from the authors or their institutions when they cannot be resolved through editorial communication alone.

9. Citation Manipulation

Citations should be selected because they are academically relevant to the manuscript.

The journal does not permit practices intended primarily to manipulate citation metrics.

Potential citation manipulation may include:

  • excessive self-citation without scholarly justification;

  • coordinated citation arrangements;

  • unnecessary citation of a particular journal;

  • reviewer requests for irrelevant citations;

  • editor requests intended to inflate journal citation counts; or

  • addition of citations solely to influence performance indicators.

Editors and reviewers may recommend additional references where they are genuinely relevant to the accuracy, context, or scholarly quality of the manuscript.

10. Peer Review Manipulation

Any attempt to compromise the independence or authenticity of peer review is considered a serious publication-integrity concern.

Potential misconduct may include:

  • creating false reviewer identities;

  • providing fabricated reviewer email addresses;

  • impersonating another researcher;

  • submitting reviews through unauthorized third parties;

  • undisclosed coordinated review arrangements;

  • influencing reviewers improperly;

  • manipulating reviewer recommendations; or

  • exploiting the peer-review process for competitive advantage.

Where peer-review manipulation is suspected, editorial processing may be suspended while the matter is assessed.

11. Misuse of Confidential Information

Manuscripts submitted for peer review are confidential scholarly materials.

Editors and reviewers must not use unpublished information obtained through the editorial process for personal research, commercial advantage, competitive benefit, or unauthorized publication.

Authors must also avoid publishing confidential, proprietary, sensitive, or restricted material without appropriate authorization.

Unauthorized disclosure or misuse of confidential research information may constitute misconduct.

12. Human Participant and Ethical Compliance Concerns

Research involving human participants, personal information, interviews, surveys, behavioral data, sensitive records, or other ethically regulated activities should comply with applicable institutional and legal requirements.

Misconduct may include:

  • conducting regulated research without required ethics approval;

  • falsely claiming ethics approval;

  • misrepresenting consent procedures;

  • publishing identifiable participant information without appropriate authorization;

  • failing to protect confidential participant information; or

  • deliberately concealing material ethical concerns.

Authors should provide ethics approval and informed-consent information where applicable.

13. Misconduct Involving Research Data

Research data should be collected, managed, analyzed, retained, and reported responsibly.

Potential data-related misconduct may include:

  • fabrication of datasets;

  • falsification of records;

  • intentional destruction of evidence relevant to an integrity investigation;

  • false statements concerning data provenance;

  • deliberate misrepresentation of data availability;

  • inappropriate suppression of relevant data; or

  • unauthorized use of restricted datasets.

Authors may be asked to provide underlying data, documentation, code, analytical files, or other supporting records where legitimate concerns arise.

The journal recognizes that data may be unavailable for legitimate reasons, including privacy restrictions, institutional retention rules, technical loss, contractual limitations, or legal requirements. Data unavailability alone does not automatically establish misconduct.

14. Misconduct in AI-Assisted Research

Where artificial intelligence, machine learning, generative AI, automated systems, or computational tools are used in research, authors remain responsible for the integrity and accuracy of all reported content.

Potential concerns may include:

  • fabricated AI-generated references;

  • invented datasets;

  • undisclosed synthetic findings;

  • manipulated model-performance results;

  • inaccurate descriptions of AI systems;

  • misrepresentation of training or evaluation data;

  • false claims regarding fairness, transparency, explainability, or reliability;

  • undisclosed material use of generative AI;

  • inappropriate automated generation of research results; or

  • use of AI tools in ways that compromise confidentiality or research ethics.

AI tools cannot assume responsibility for scholarly work and must not be listed as authors.

15. Honest Error and Academic Disagreement

Not every error constitutes misconduct.

Research may contain mistakes arising from calculation errors, methodological limitations, incorrect assumptions, software problems, transcription errors, or other unintentional causes.

Similarly, differences in interpretation, theoretical perspective, methodological preference, or scientific judgment do not automatically constitute research misconduct.

The journal seeks to distinguish among:

  • honest error;

  • academic disagreement;

  • questionable research practice;

  • negligent reporting; and

  • deliberate or reckless misconduct.

Editorial action should be proportionate to the nature and impact of the identified problem.

16. Reporting Suspected Misconduct

Authors, reviewers, readers, editors, institutions, or other individuals may report credible concerns relating to a submitted or published article.

A report should, where possible, include:

  • identification of the manuscript or article;

  • a clear description of the concern;

  • supporting evidence;

  • relevant documents or references; and

  • contact information for follow-up where appropriate.

Concerns should be raised in good faith.

Knowingly false, malicious, or harassing allegations are inconsistent with responsible scholarly communication.

17. Anonymous Allegations

The journal may consider anonymous reports where they contain specific, credible, and verifiable information.

Anonymous allegations are assessed on the strength of the evidence rather than solely on the identity of the complainant.

However, unsupported anonymous claims that cannot reasonably be investigated may not justify further action.

Where confidentiality is requested, the journal will seek to protect the identity of the reporting individual to the extent reasonably possible.

18. Initial Editorial Assessment

When a misconduct concern is received, the journal first determines whether the matter falls within its editorial responsibility and whether sufficient information exists to justify further examination.

Initial assessment may consider:

  • the nature of the allegation;

  • the evidence supplied;

  • the status of the manuscript;

  • the potential effect on the scholarly record;

  • whether the concern involves an honest error or possible misconduct; and

  • whether institutional involvement may be necessary.

The journal may request additional information before initiating further action.

19. Notification of Authors

Where a concern is sufficiently credible to require formal consideration, the author or authors concerned will ordinarily be given an opportunity to respond.

The journal may request:

  • an explanation;

  • original data;

  • analytical records;

  • ethics documentation;

  • authorship records;

  • funding information;

  • source files;

  • correspondence;

  • laboratory records; or

  • other relevant materials.

Responses should be evaluated fairly and without presuming guilt before the available evidence has been considered.

20. Confidentiality During Investigation

Research-misconduct concerns are handled with appropriate confidentiality.

Information should generally be shared only with individuals whose involvement is necessary for proper assessment or investigation.

Confidentiality protects:

  • complainants;

  • authors;

  • reviewers;

  • editors;

  • research participants;

  • institutions; and

  • the integrity of the investigative process.

Absolute confidentiality cannot be guaranteed where disclosure is required by law, institutional investigation, ethical obligation, or protection of the scholarly record.

21. Institutional Investigation

Journals do not ordinarily have the authority or resources to conduct comprehensive investigations into all forms of research misconduct.

Where concerns require access to laboratory records, employment information, participant records, internal research documentation, or other evidence beyond the journal's authority, the matter may be referred to the relevant institution, research organization, ethics committee, funder, or other responsible body.

The journal may request information regarding the outcome of an institutional investigation where that outcome affects the publication record.

Editorial action may proceed independently where sufficient evidence is available to protect readers and the scholarly record.

22. Misconduct Identified Before Publication

Where serious concerns are identified during submission or peer review, the journal may:

  • suspend editorial processing;

  • request clarification;

  • seek additional peer review;

  • request underlying data;

  • reject the manuscript;

  • withdraw an acceptance decision where justified;

  • notify relevant institutions where appropriate; or

  • take other proportionate editorial action.

A manuscript may be rejected for substantial integrity concerns even where a formal finding of institutional misconduct has not yet been made, provided that the editorial decision is supported by sufficient evidence concerning the reliability or suitability of the submission.

23. Misconduct Identified After Publication

Concerns raised after publication require careful evaluation because they may affect the reliability of the scholarly record.

Depending on the nature and severity of the problem, the journal may consider:

  • correction;

  • clarification;

  • expression of concern;

  • retraction;

  • linked editorial notice; or

  • other appropriate post-publication action.

The original publication record should not ordinarily be altered or removed silently.

Post-publication actions should be transparent and appropriately linked to the affected article.

24. Corrections

A correction may be appropriate where a significant error affects part of a published article but does not invalidate the work as a whole.

The correction should clearly identify:

  • the affected article;

  • the nature of the error;

  • the corrected information; and

  • the relationship of the correction to the original publication.

Corrections should preserve transparency of the scholarly record.

25. Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be considered where serious questions have been raised about a published article but sufficient evidence for a final determination is not yet available.

This may occur where:

  • an institutional investigation is pending;

  • evidence is inconclusive;

  • authors cannot be contacted;

  • serious data concerns remain unresolved; or

  • investigation is expected to take substantial time.

An expression of concern does not constitute a final determination of misconduct.

26. Retraction

Retraction may be appropriate where reliable evidence indicates that a published article is fundamentally unreliable or seriously compromised.

Possible grounds may include:

  • fabrication;

  • falsification;

  • substantial plagiarism;

  • serious data manipulation;

  • unethical research;

  • duplicate publication;

  • fraudulent peer review;

  • major authorship misconduct affecting the publication;

  • serious undisclosed conflicts of interest; or

  • other problems that materially invalidate the scholarly record.

Retraction notices should identify the article and explain the reason for retraction sufficiently clearly while avoiding unnecessary speculative or defamatory language.

27. Removal of Published Content

Complete removal of a published article should be exceptional.

Removal may be considered only where continued availability would create a serious legal, privacy, security, or other compelling risk.

Where removal is necessary, a bibliographic record or explanatory notice should remain where legally and technically possible so that the scholarly record is not altered without explanation.

28. Cooperation With Investigations

Authors are expected to cooperate with reasonable editorial or institutional inquiries concerning the integrity of submitted or published research.

Failure to respond does not automatically establish misconduct, but persistent non-cooperation may limit the journal's ability to verify the reliability of the work and may influence editorial action.

Editors and reviewers are also expected to cooperate with legitimate investigations concerning their role in the publication process.

29. Protection Against Retaliation

Individuals who raise research-integrity concerns in good faith should not be subjected to retaliation through the journal's processes.

The journal seeks to evaluate allegations based on evidence rather than professional status, institutional influence, seniority, nationality, or personal relationships.

At the same time, this protection does not extend to knowingly false, malicious, or harassing allegations.

30. Conflict of Interest in Misconduct Cases

Editors involved in assessing a misconduct allegation should disclose any relationship or interest that could compromise impartiality.

Where an editor has a material conflict of interest, responsibility should be transferred to another suitably qualified individual.

The same principle applies when the article concerned was authored by a member of the journal's editorial team or someone with a close institutional relationship to the editor handling the case.

31. Record Keeping

The journal may retain relevant documentation concerning research-integrity cases for an appropriate period, subject to privacy, legal, and data-protection requirements.

Such documentation may include:

  • correspondence;

  • supporting evidence;

  • editorial assessments;

  • author responses;

  • reviewer comments;

  • institutional communications; and

  • final editorial decisions.

Records should be handled confidentially and used only for legitimate editorial, ethical, or legal purposes.

32. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are expected to:

  • report research honestly and accurately;

  • preserve relevant supporting records;

  • disclose limitations;

  • acknowledge sources appropriately;

  • identify genuine contributors;

  • disclose conflicts of interest;

  • report funding transparently;

  • comply with ethical requirements;

  • provide accurate data-availability information;

  • correct significant errors when identified; and

  • cooperate with legitimate integrity inquiries.

Authors remain responsible for the reliability of their published work.

33. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should alert the editor confidentially if they identify concerns regarding:

  • plagiarism;

  • duplicate publication;

  • fabricated or manipulated data;

  • unethical research;

  • inappropriate authorship;

  • citation manipulation;

  • undisclosed conflicts;

  • unusual similarities with other manuscripts; or

  • other potential integrity problems.

Reviewers should not conduct independent public investigations or contact authors directly about suspected misconduct.

34. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for evaluating research-integrity concerns fairly and proportionately.

Editors should:

  • protect confidentiality;

  • avoid premature conclusions;

  • provide authors with a reasonable opportunity to respond;

  • consider evidence objectively;

  • seek expert advice where necessary;

  • manage conflicts of interest;

  • coordinate with institutions where appropriate; and

  • protect the reliability of the scholarly record.

Commercial, institutional, personal, or reputational considerations should not prevent appropriate editorial action.

35. Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher supports the journal in maintaining appropriate procedures for addressing publication-integrity concerns.

The publisher should not interfere with legitimate editorial investigations for commercial or reputational reasons.

Where legal, technical, administrative, or institutional assistance is required, the publisher may support the editorial team while respecting editorial independence and confidentiality.

36. Relationship With Other Journal Policies

This Research Misconduct Policy should be read together with other applicable policies of the Journal of Circular Economy Innovations, including:

  • Publication Ethics Policy;

  • Plagiarism Policy;

  • Peer Review Policy;

  • AI Usage Policy;

  • Authorship Criteria;

  • Conflict of Interest Policy;

  • Research Data Sharing Policy;

  • Data Availability Policy;

  • Article Withdrawal Policy;

  • Corrections and Retractions Policy;

  • Retraction Policy; and

  • Complaints and Appeals Policy.

Where a matter is addressed by a more specific policy, the relevant specialized procedure may apply.

Commitment to Research Integrity

The Journal of Circular Economy Innovations seeks to maintain a scholarly environment in which research is reported accurately, ethical concerns are addressed responsibly, allegations are evaluated fairly, and the published record is corrected when reliable evidence demonstrates that intervention is necessary.

The journal's response to suspected research misconduct is guided by the seriousness of the concern, the strength of available evidence, the effect on the reliability of the research, and the responsibility to preserve confidence in scholarly communication. Editorial actions are intended to protect the integrity of the literature rather than to impose punitive judgments beyond the journal's legitimate editorial authority.