Research and Publication Ethics
Ethical Guidelines for Authors
Authorship and Contributorship
Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers
Ethical Guidelines for Editors
Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Technology
Data Availability and Reproducibility
All submitted manuscripts must conform to FFSP GROUP LIMITED’s policies as described. FFSP closely follows the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) . Editorial independence is a core tenet of FFSP‘s publishing philosophy, and the publisher will not interfere with editorial decision-making. As a publisher of academic works, our editors and publishing partners subscribe to the principles of academic freedom, editorial independence, and the highest levels of research integrity.
Ethical Guidelines for Authors
Authors who submit their manuscripts to FFSP journals must comply with the following:
- The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical andresponsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
- Authors should present their results clearly, honestly, and withoutfabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
- Authors should strive to describe their methods clearly andunambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
- Authors should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere.
- Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and publishedwork.
- The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
- Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed
Authorship and Contributorship
FFSP follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guide, it recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
- Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
- Final approval of the version to be published;
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author.
Author Contributions
FFSP requires that all contributors describe their roles using CRediT, the corresponding author is required to assign CRediT roles across the author and contributor list.
The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor's specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing.
Authors who contribute equally to the work should be identified at the time of submission. The number of first co-authors is generally not more than two.
Corresponding Authors
The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer-review, and publication process. The corresponding author typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and disclosures of relationships and activities are properly completed and reported.
Group Authorship
If authorship is retained by a group or consortium, journals will require one author to act as a guarantor of the entire paper. If a named consortium is the agreed author, there should be one named individual in the consortium to act as the corresponding author. If all members of a named consortium are not authors on the paper, this should be clarified with a listing of author and non-author contributions in an end-note or acknowledgement section.
All individual consortium/group author members listed in the author byline must qualify for authorship according to the ICMJE guidelines.
Changes to Authorship
Authors are expected to carefully consider the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript. If authors request removal or addition of an author after manuscript submission, authors should provide an explanation and signed statement of agreement and ensure they get the approval of all authors, including any that are to be removed.
Changes to authorship are not normally allowed after paper is published. In exceptional circumstances, the Editor-in-Chief and editorial office may consider a request with full documentation and agreement from all authors.
Authorship Disputes
FFSP follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for resolving authorship disputes that may occur either during processing or after publication. When authorship disputes arise, submissions will be halted in the review or publication process until the dispute is resolved. According to the COPE guidelines, editors are not in a position to fairly adjudicate disputes, nor should they capitulate to threats and bullying by the authors involved in those disputes . The journal office will contact the correspondence and cc all co-authors when resolving authorship disputes. When disputes arise over any of these requirements during the submission or review process , the editor will refer to the COPE Flowcharts to make a decision. When a paper has already been published and an authorship dispute emerges, we will correct the scientific record through a corrigendum.
Journals shall contact an appropriate institution or governing authority for final decision-making when disagreements cannot be resolved by the affected parties. FFSP retains the authority to modify authorship lists in accordance with institutional or governing body recommendations.
Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers
Reviewers should follow the FFSP Peer Review Guidelines to complete their review. Reviewers must comply with the following during the processing:
- Reviewers are expected to provide an unbiased, constructive critique of the manuscript. Reviews should be objective and constructive, ensuring feedback is clear and helpful to authors.
- Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the manuscripts they evaluate. They should not disclose any information about the work or use it for personal advantage, ensuring the integrity of the review process.
- Reviewers are encouraged to complete their evaluations promptly to facilitate timely publication processes.
- The ethical obligations of reviewers, include avoiding bias, respecting intellectual property rights, and recognising the contributions of others. Reviewers must uphold the highest ethical standards in their evaluations. No prejudice or discrimination shall be made against the authors' scientific research institutions, regions, qualifications, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. Reviewers should not compel authors to quote their publications, patents, and inventions, but may point out relevant information.
- Reviewers should declare competing interests arising from dealing with and reviewing the assigned submission. For the double-blind peer review in most of our journals and assume that the author identity has been completely masked to the best of our effort. For the single-blind peer review journal, the reviewer should immediately inform the handling editor if they have the Conflict of Interest with the manuscript.
Ethical Guidelines for Editors
Academic Editors should follow the FFSP Peer Review Guidelines to check the manuscript. Academic Editors have the autonomy to make independent decisions on manuscript selection, peer review, and publication, free from undue influence by publishers, funders, institutions, or other external parties.
When making a recommendation or final acceptance decision for a manuscript, Academic Editors (Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, and Guest Editors) should consider the following:
- Academic Editors are expected to provide an unbiased decision of the manuscript, and decide on accepting or rejecting the manuscript based on the paper's importance, originality, and clarity, and the study's validity and its relevance to the journal's scope. Additional peer reviews may be sought when there are significant differences in opinions of the peer reviewers.
- Academic Editors should respect the confidentiality of the manuscripts they evaluate. They should not disclose any information about the work or use it for personal advantage, ensuring the integrity of the review process.
- Academic Editors are encouraged to complete their evaluations promptly to facilitate timely publication processes.
- If the academic editor has ethical concerns about a manuscript sent for review or decision or receives information about a possible ethical breach after publication, they must contact the Editorial Office as soon as possible. The Editorial Office will then conduct an investigation according to COPE guidelines.
- Academic Editors must uphold the highest ethical standards in their evaluations. No prejudice or discrimination shall be made against the authors' scientific research institutions, regions, qualifications, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. Academic Editors should not compel authors to quote their publications, patents, and inventions, but may point out relevant information.
- If an editor and an author have a conflict of interest (personal relationship, kinship, teacher-student, alumni, colleague, or competition relationship), the editor should avoid handling the manuscript.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Technology
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced rapidly. In particular, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) services such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) are profoundly reshaping the landscape of scholarly publishing. FFSP has developed corresponding policy frameworks based on the general guidance provided by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in their position statement.
For Authors
At submission, the authors are require to disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work. Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work in the appropriate section if applicable, how they used it. Authors are responsible for any submitted material that included the use of AI-assisted technologies. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI. Authors must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.
For Reviewers
Reviewers must not use GenAI tools or other large language models (LLMs) to write, generate, or substantively prepare peer review reports. Reviewers are solely responsible for the entire content of their reports and cannot delegate that responsibility to an AI tool. Uploading manuscripts, whether in whole or in part, or any images, figures, tables, or communications relating to manuscripts under review to any GenAI tool is strictly prohibited, as it violates confidentiality obligations, authors’ proprietary and intellectual property rights, and data privacy. If inappropriate use of AI tools in the preparation of a review report is determined, the report will be discarded, and the reviewer may be disqualified from future review assignments.
For Editors
Academic Editors (Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, and Guest Editors) must not use GenAI tools or other large language models (LLMs) to conduct substantive editorial evaluation, generate editorial decision letters, or replace their own scholarly judgment in any aspect of manuscript assessment. Editors are solely responsible for all editorial decisions and cannot delegate that responsibility to an AI tool. Uploading manuscripts, whether in whole or in part, or any images, figures, tables, peer review reports, or communications relating to manuscripts under review to any GenAI tool is strictly prohibited, as it violates confidentiality obligations, authors’ proprietary and intellectual property rights, and data privacy.
Research Ethics and Consent
Human Research
If human subjects were used in the experiments, authors must identify the committee or organization (e.g., author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. Our journal requires that authors provide a proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as confidential supplementary file.
For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated clearly as well. The authors should inform the study participants of the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits as a result of the experiment, and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent.
In the manuscript, include a statement in the Materials and Methods section confirming that the experiments were carried out in adherence to the ethical principles set out in the WMA Declaration of Helsinki or other relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations, and that informed consent was obtained from all human subjects.
For research involving minors, persons with cognitive impairment, prisoners, economically disadvantaged individuals, or other vulnerable populations who may be unable to make an autonomous informed consent decision, authors must describe the additional safeguards applied.
Clinical Trial Registration
For studies involving clinical trials, authors must register the trial prospectively in a primary registry recognized by the WHO or ICMJE (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO ICTRP, Chinese Clinical Trial Registry) before the first participant is enrolled. The clinical trial registration number must be stated at the end of the abstract. If registration was delayed, authors must explain the reason for the delay in the manuscript, and the editorial office will assess the reasonableness of the delay in accordance with ICMJE guidelines. Clinical trials that have not been appropriately registered will not normally be considered for publication, and the editorial office reserves the right to require additional explanation from the authors in exceptional circumstances.
Patient Anonymity and Privacy
Human subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information or patient identifiers, including patient names, initials, date of birth, contacts, medical record numbers, hospital numbers, and geographical location, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Efforts must be made by the authors to at least mask or conceal any identifying information of the patients that appear in writing or within photograph.
Authors are obliged to explain to the patient if revealing the patient’s identity cannot be fully avoided, e.g., an image of an identifiable body part like the face has to be published in the report. The relevant identifying information to be published, e.g., the image, must be shown to the patient, and consent for publication taken for the use of that information in the publication. If the patient dies, then consent must be obtained from next of kin or legal representative. We shall consider author version of consent form for publication if all the essential items as shown in our sample consent form were included.
All submissions will be checked for documentation of patient consent for publication and for any potentially identifying information. Submissions that include identifying patient information without documented consent for publication will not be considered for publication.
Human Biospecimens, Cell Lines, Embryos, Stem Cells, and Organoids
In addition to the Ethics approval, informed consent, and confidentiality requirements, research involving human biospecimens, cell lines, embryos, stem cells, or organoids must comply with the specific requirements in this section.
Cell Lines
To ensure research reproducibility, authors must declare what cell lines were used in their experiment and the source or origin of all cell lines utilized. It is advisable to provide information regarding the authentication of cell lines and testing for mycoplasma contamination in Materials and Methods section. If the cell lines were obtained from a repository, the repository name and catalog number should be provided.
Biobanking, Secondary Use, and Genomic/Omics Data
If the research involves the collection, storage, or secondary use of human biospecimens, or the generation and sharing of large-scale genetic data (e.g., genomic, exome, transcriptome, or other omics data), informed consent must cover future research use, broad data sharing, and the right to withdraw. International data sharing must comply with the laws of the country of origin. If a biobank or repository is used, authors must ensure that any shared data are de-identified in accordance with applicable standards and should provide the name of the biobank, the access approval number, and the terms of access. If data cannot be shared, the reason and access conditions must be stated.
Human Embryos, Stem Cells, and Organoids
Research on human embryos, embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs), or organoids must follow relevant guidelines and the ISSCR Guidelines. Donor consent for gametes, embryos, or somatic cells must be confirmed and the donation conditions described.
Animal Research
For studies describing testing on regulated animals (i.e., all live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates), authors must identify the committee or organization (e.g., author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. For research conducted on non-regulated animals, a statement should be made as to why ethical approval was not required. Our journal requires that authors provide a proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as confidential supplemental file.
Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines while reporting animal research. In the manuscripts, any additional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals that were used in the experiment should be indicated. Briefly, the authors should also include animal details (e.g., species, gender, age, weight), animal housing conditions and husbandry information, and relevant steps taken to ameliorate pain and suffering of the animals in the Materials and Methods section.
Specifically, experiments on non-human primates must be performed in accordance with the recommendations set out in the Weatherall report (The Use of Non-Human Primates in Research).
Research involving Plants
Experimental research and field studies on plants (either cultivated or wild), including the collection of plant material, must comply with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines and legislation.
Manuscripts should include a statement specifying the appropriate permissions and/or licences for collection of plant or seed specimens. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.
Duplicate Publication
Redundant/duplicate publication means: ‘The publication, or attempted publication, of whole or substantial parts of work/data/analysis that have already been published (or have been submitted elsewhere), without transparency or appropriate declaration/referencing’.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is not acceptable in FFSP journals. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from your own publications and others, without giving credit to the original source.
Some fields require reporting that is formulaic in structure or that is likely to produce plots and figures that are similar in format, without presenting an plagiarism. It is acceptable for a student to duplicate work from their thesis or dissertation, if it has not been peer-reviewed and publish online.
All FFSP submissions are checked for plagiarism using the industry-standard software iThenticate. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation will take place and action will be taken in accordance with our policies.
Preprint
Authors can submit articles that have been published on preprint platforms such as rXiv.org and TechRxiv to journals, as long as the papers are not under peer-review elsewhere and are formatted and styled according to journal’s requirements. We suggest authors disclose in cover letter if the submitted works have already been uploaded onto a pre-print server. If the authorship is changed, the authors must provide an explanation. After the paper is published, we suggest the authors replace the posted preprint article with the publicated version with our journal information with the DOI.
Conference Extension Paper
Any extended conference paper submitted to FFSP journal, whether for a regular or a special issue, must contain at least 50% of new material to be considered suitable for peer review. This is to ensure that the new submission is of improved quality to meet the journal's requirements. The new material may include new text, figures, and data to ensure that there is some additional information of value to the research community.
Complaints and Appeals
If readers have any concerns or complaints about the paper published in the journal, please contact the journal office. All complaints are investigated, including anonymous complaints. The journal office will conduct an investigation in accordance with COPE guidelines with the support of the editor-in-chief and editorial board. All allegations of plagiarism or publication misconduct, we hope the readers could provide specific, detailed evidence to support the claim. If we finds no substantial evidence of the allegations, we will inform the complainant and consider the matter closed, without further discussion. For published papers with evidence of plagiarism or figure manipulation, editors will determine if a correction or retraction is needed, following COPE procedures.
Updating Published Papers
FFSP acknowledges its responsibility to correct scientifically relevant errors or ethical issues that have been brought to our attention. The published papers with errors that may impact their scientific interpretation.
Corrections
Once approved by the Editorial Office and Editors-in-Chief (EiCs), there will be a mark indicating that the paper has a correction. The new corection will linked to the original paper. Notification will be sent to all relevant indexing databases to ensure that they update their records as well.
Retractions
Retraction is a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to articles that have such seriously flawed or erroneous content or data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon. Unreliable content or data can result from honest error, naive mistakes, or research or publication misconduct. The purpose of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity, not to punish the authors.
Retraction might be warranted if:
unethical research practices, compromised peer review, or undisclosed conflicts of interest are identified that could bias interpretation of the work or recommendations by peer reviewers;
there is clear evidence of major errors, irregularities in the data or images, or any form of misrepresentation (eg, fraud, identity theft, or fictitious authorship) that compromise the reliability of the findings;
findings have been published elsewhere without proper attribution, permission, or justification, or material or data have been used without proper authorisation.
Expression of Concern
When an investigation is ongoing or the evidence is inconclusive, an Expression of Concern may be published. The purpose of an Expression of Concern is to notify readers of concerns in situations where investigations have not yet been completed or prove to be inconclusive.
Data Availability and Reproducibility
All original research articles must include a Data Availability Statement at the end of the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to follow the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Data, code, and other materials supporting the findings should be deposited in appropriate trusted repositories, with accession numbers or links provided.
Where data cannot be publicly shared due to legal, ethical, privacy, or confidentiality restrictions, authors must state the reason and describe the conditions under which the data may be accessed. The editorial office reserves the right to request raw data, code, or additional materials during peer review or after publication to verify research integrity.
