1. Authorship criteria
Every author must make a substantial scholarly contribution; participate in drafting or critically revising the work; approve the submitted and final versions; and accept accountability for the integrity of the publication.
- guest, gift, honorary, and ghost authorship are prohibited;
- administrative position, funding acquisition, supervision, data access, or language editing alone does not automatically justify authorship;
- contributors who do not meet all authorship criteria should be acknowledged with permission;
- AI tools cannot be authors because they cannot approve a manuscript, accept accountability, or manage conflicts.
2. Contributorship and CRediT
Authors should report contributions using relevant CRediT roles: conceptualisation, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualisation, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.
The corresponding author ensures that contributor roles are accurate, all authors approve the order and submission, disclosures are complete, and all authors receive journal correspondence.
3. Authorship changes and disputes
- addition, removal, or reordering requires a reason and written agreement from all affected authors;
- the editor may request institutional clarification and may refuse inadequately justified changes;
- changes after acceptance are exceptional and may delay publication;
- the journal does not adjudicate employment or ownership disputes; institutions may be asked to investigate.
4. Research involving human participants
- state the approving ethics body, approval/reference number, and date when formal review is required;
- when approval is not required, state the reason and applicable institutional or legal basis;
- obtain informed consent appropriate to the study, risk, culture, and participant capacity;
- protect confidentiality and minimise collection or publication of identifying information;
- report how participant risks, benefits, compensation, recruitment, and withdrawal were managed where relevant;
- retain supporting ethics and consent documentation and provide it confidentially if requested.
5. Children, vulnerable groups, and sensitive contexts
- obtain parent/guardian consent and, where appropriate, the child's assent;
- use additional safeguards for people with constrained autonomy, trauma exposure, health vulnerability, legal risk, dependency, or unequal power relationships;
- avoid coercive recruitment through teachers, employers, religious leaders, authorities, or service providers;
- ensure incentives are proportionate and do not create undue influence;
- do not publish details that could expose participants or communities to stigma, retaliation, discrimination, or legal harm.
6. Consent for publication and online research
Separate consent for publication is required when photographs, recordings, case details, quotations, usernames, locations, or combinations of information may identify a person.
For social-media and online research, authors must consider reasonable expectations of privacy, platform terms, traceability of quotations, private-group access, consent, copyright, and re-identification risk. Public availability alone does not automatically remove ethical obligations.
7. Community, cultural, environmental, and non-human research
Research involving Indigenous or local knowledge, sacred material, cultural heritage, community records, environmental sites, or animals must comply with applicable permissions, community protocols, legal requirements, and discipline-specific ethical standards. Researchers should report benefit-sharing, access restrictions, and culturally appropriate attribution where relevant.
8. Failure to meet requirements
The journal may pause review, request documentation, reject a manuscript, notify relevant institutions, publish a correction or expression of concern, or retract an article when authorship, approval, consent, or participant-protection requirements are materially deficient.