Publication Ethics and Malpractice

» Ethical norms are strongly advocated upon by all the stakeholders of JENT at every stage in the publication process.

» The publication of a research work in JENT, a peer-reviewed, international and open-access journal, establishes the fact that the authors concerned are of high academic calibre and their work has a high degree of original scientific merit.

» As a publisher of Journal of Environmental Nanotechnology, Institute for Environmental Nanotechnology is committed to seriously monitor all aspects of publications, upholding its ethical duty of zero tolerance towards any suspicious malpractice that hinders the quality of the journal.

Editorial decisions are made solely on the basis of scholarly merit, and the Editor-in-Chief holds final responsibility for them. Authors who believe a decision has been reached in error, or that the review process was not properly followed, may appeal in writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days of the decision, stating the grounds for the appeal. Appeals are considered by an editor who was not involved in the original decision, and additional reviewers may be consulted. The appellant is informed of the outcome in writing. The submission of an appeal does not entitle an author to publication, and a manuscript under appeal may not be submitted elsewhere until the appeal is concluded. The full procedure is set out in Section 5.

1. DUTIES OF AUTHORS

1.1 Reporting Standards

Authors shall ensure that the paper focuses upon the innovative research outcomes in the thematic topic with proper presentation of the methodologies, data, analysis, interpretations and justifications.

1.2 Data access and Retention

Authors should retain the raw data associated with their manuscript and must be prepared to provide it to the editors for review upon request. JENT strongly encourages, but does not require, authors to make their underlying data publicly available in a recognised repository; the applicable option should be stated in the manuscript's Data Availability Statement (see Author Guidelines 5.11). This policy is consistent with the journal's Data Availability requirements.

1.3 Originality and Plagiarism

Originality and uniqueness are to be ensured by the authors for the entirety of their work. Any prior work done by others should be properly cited/referenced and duly credited/acknowledged. Plagiarism may take many forms – from copying or paraphrasing major parts of others’ research works without proper attribution to falsely claiming the outcomes of others’ research work. Plagiarism in any form is strictly unethical and plagiarized submissions should be avoided by all means.

All submissions are screened with iThenticate on receipt. Manuscripts returning a similarity index above 15%, excluding references and correctly attributed quoted material, are returned to the authors before peer review. Cases of deliberate plagiarism are handled under Section 7.

1.4 Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Submitting the same information to many journals at the same time is deemed unethical. An author should not submit a work for consideration that has previously been published elsewhere. At a time, an author cannot have more than three papers under JENT’s review.

1.5 Acknowledgement of Sources

JENT considers giving due credit for the efforts/works of others as very important. The authors’ sources for the study should be clearly mentioned, as per JENT’s guidelines. In general, the information collected informally through conversations with third parties shall not be utilized or publicized.

1.6 Authorship of the Paper

Only those researchers who have made significant contributions to the conception, design, implementation or interpretation of the research work undertaken should be considered as the authors. It is the duty of the corresponding author to check and ensure that all the authors have viewed and approved the final version of the paper that is being published.

Any request to add, remove or reorder authors after submission must be made by the corresponding author in writing, must state the reason, and must be accompanied by the written agreement of every author, including the one being added or removed. Authorship changes requested after acceptance are granted only in exceptional circumstances and are recorded in the published article. Gift, guest and ghost authorship are treated as misconduct under Section 7.

1.7 Hazards and Human/Animal Subjects

If the research involves the use of materials, substances, procedures and/or equipment that pose risks to humans/animals, it is the duty of the authors to get prior permission from the authorities/institutions concerned and abide by the applicable local laws; in addition, the authors must explicitly state the details of such approvals in the manuscript.

1.8 Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Any financial or other conflicts of interest with the probability of affecting the outcome of the research work should be declared by the authors in their manuscript. All the funding sources for the study undertaken should be made public.

1.9 Fundamental Errors in Published Works

Any substantial error or inaccuracy in the published work, found by the authors or third party at any stage, should be communicated by the authors immediately to the Editor-in-Chief; the authors shall lend their fullest support and ensure that necessary corrective actions are taken.

2. DUTIES OF EDITORS

In addition to the well-known duties such as maintaining the integrity of the journal, striving for continuous improvement of quality and encouraging academic research, the editors shall apply their best will to take up the following responsibilities:

2.1 Editorial Board

Editorial Board consists of fully qualified and highly recognized experts in the pertinent fields. The full names and affiliations of the board members as well as their contact information shall be preserved in the editorial office. Manuscripts are subjected to peer reviews and the accept/reject decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), based on the recommendations of the editors and reviewers concerned. Where a member of the editorial team is an author of a submitted manuscript, the procedure in Section 2.8 applies in full. Editorial board members shall refrain from using any part of the submitted manuscript, even if it is rejected, in their own work.

2.2 Publication decisions

The validation of the research work done and its significance and relevance to the scientific community and society shall be the driving factors for the decisions of acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. The editors shall derive guidance from the policies of the journal’s editorial board for forwarding their recommendations to EIC and be constrained by legal requirements such as copyright infringement and plagiarism.

2.3 Fair play

Editors shall evaluate the manuscripts for the intellectual content, with no inclination or bias to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors.

2.4 Confidentiality

Editors shall abstain from disclosing any information about the submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the reviewers concerned. Editors shall ensure the complete confidentiality of the manuscript under review.

2.5 Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished/rejected manuscripts shall not be used by an editor or reviewer without the written consent of the author(s) concerned. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors shall consult EIC while reviewing manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other connections with any of the authors or institutions affiliated. Editors shall insist all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication.

2.6 Procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour

Unethical behaviour identified shall be brought to the attention of EIC at any time, by anyone. Whoever informs such conduct shall provide sufficient information and evidence so that an investigation can be initiated. All allegations shall be taken seriously and treated in the same way; every reported act of unethical publishing shall be looked into, even in the aftermath of publication.

Measures taken shall include contacting the author of the manuscript for clarifications and if necessary, to further communicate the issue to the relevant institutions and research bodies, depending on the degree of proven misconduct. In any case, the author shall be given the opportunity to defend such allegations in the first place.

Major and serious misconduct might require the application of one or more of the following measures:

Publication of a formal notice, detailing the misconduct.
A formal letter to the head of the author’s department or funding agency.
Withdrawal of the publication, after a formal communication to the head of the author’s department.
Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from the individual, for a defined period.

2.7 Editorial Independence

The Editor-in-Chief and academic editors exercise independent authority over all editorial and publication decisions. Editorial decisions are based solely on the scientific quality, originality, relevance to the journal’s scope, methodological rigour and ethical compliance of the manuscript, together with the recommendations obtained through the peer-review process. The publisher, Institute for Environmental Nanotechnology, provides administrative, technical and publishing support but does not influence or interfere with decisions concerning the evaluation, peer review, acceptance, revision, rejection, retraction or publication of individual manuscripts. Editors shall not allow commercial interests, financial considerations, personal relationships, institutional affiliations, political considerations or other external pressures to influence editorial decisions. Editorial decisions are independent of the payment of Article Processing Charges; the ability or inability of an author to pay has no bearing whatsoever on the editorial decision. Where an editor has a conflict of interest with a submitted manuscript, the procedure in Section 2.8 applies, and the Editor-in-Chief retains final responsibility for maintaining the academic and scientific integrity of the journal.

2.8 Submissions by Editors and Editorial Board Members

Members of the editorial team may submit their own research to the journal. Such submissions receive no preferential treatment and are subject to the same double-anonymous peer review as any other manuscript.

Where the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, or an Editorial Board member is an author of a submitted manuscript, or has a competing interest in it, that person is excluded from all handling of the submission. Specifically, the conflicted person:

takes no part in the selection or invitation of reviewers for the manuscript;
has no access to reviewer identities or to the reviewers’ reports;
takes no part in the decision to accept, revise or reject it; and
is excluded from the journal’s editorial system for that submission for the duration of its handling.

The manuscript is assigned to an independent handling editor who has no competing interest with the author, and who exercises full and final authority over the decision. Where no suitable independent editor is available within the journal, an external editor is appointed for that submission.

The proportion of research articles authored by the journal’s own editors and Editorial Board members is monitored by the editorial office. Published articles authored by a member of the editorial team carry a statement naming the independent editor who handled the submission.

3. DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Reviewers are responsible for ensuring the journal's quality and integrity through their unbiased reviews; they shall not disclose their identity in any form. Peer reviewers play a dual role in assisting the Editorial Board in forwarding publication recommendations to the EIC on one hand, and supporting the authors in improving the technical merit and overall quality of the manuscript through their valuable comments on the other. Reviewers shall immediately decline the review request if the technical part is unfamiliar or out of their specialization. In addition, they shall decline if the article has a conflict of interest or in case of their inability to provide a timely review. All submissions shall be treated as highly confidential. Reviewers have no right to pass on the article to another reviewer.

Reviewers must declare any competing interest with the authors, their institutions or the subject matter before accepting an assignment. Reviewers must not recommend the citation of their own work, or the work of close associates, in order to increase citation counts; such requests are treated as citation manipulation under Section 7.

Checklist for reviewing articles

The following points shall be considered by the reviewers while checking the assigned research articles:

Structure of the article submitted and its adherence to the prescribed author’s guidelines
Purpose and Objective of the article
Introduction given and the conclusion/ suggestions provided
Adequacy of references cited to substantiate the content
Structure, grammar, punctuation and spelling
Plagiarism issues, if any
Suitability of the article to the social need or technological advancement
Conflict of interest, if any
Knowledge addition to the scientific community
Authors’ involvement in preparing the article and their interest towards scientific development

4. POLICY REGARDING CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS

4.1 Addendum

If crucial results (e.g., additional affiliations, clarifications over the methodologies/analyses, etc.) were unintentionally omitted in the original publication, the original article can be amended through an Addendum. The Addendum shall be published with due reference to the article concerned, in the current issue of the journal. A hyperlink to the Addendum shall be added to the original publication, but the original paper does not need to be updated.

4.2 Erratum

Errata should be published for scientifically relevant formatting changes, or changes to authorship if the author list is incorrect (with errors such as omitting a deserving author or including an inappropriate author). Erratum for scientifically relevant formatting issues requires the inclusion of missing or unclear figures or addressing the errors related to proofreading such as a missing text. Minor spelling or grammatical errors that do not affect readability or meaning do not qualify for an Erratum. All authors shall proofread the final version carefully.

4.3 Corrections

Corrections shall be submitted for any scientifically relevant errors in published articles. Any changes may be evaluated by the academic editors. Any changes after publication that affect the scientific interpretation (e.g., changes to a misleading portion of an otherwise reliable publication, an error in a figure, an error in data that does not affect conclusions, or the addition of missing details about a method) are announced using a Correction. This is a separate publication that links to the original paper, which is updated. A note shall be added to the Abstract page, notifying the readers that an updated version was uploaded.

4.4 Retractions

Sometimes an article needs to be completely removed from the body of research literature. This could be due to inadvertent errors made during the research process, gross ethical breaches, fabrication of data, large amounts of plagiarism or other reasons. Such articles threaten the integrity of scientific records and need to be retracted. Journal of Environmental Nanotechnology follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction. Potential Retractions shall be thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Board and finally approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field. If a Retraction is published, the original publication is amended with a “RETRACTED” watermark, but will still be available on the journal’s website for future reference. However, retracted articles shall not be cited and used for further research, as they cannot be relied upon. A paper shall be completely removed in very exceptional circumstances, where leaving it online would constitute an illegal act or be likely to lead to significant harm.

4.5 Expression of Concern

For complex, inconclusive, or prolonged situations, an Expression of Concern may be published. If investigations into alleged or suspected research misconduct have not yet been completed or prove to be inconclusive, an editor or journal may wish to publish an Expression of Concern, detailing the points of concern and what actions, if any, are in progress. Usually, a reader will approach the Editorial Office or the Editor-in-Chief of a journal, if he/she finds an article intriguing. In such circumstances, the Editorial Office may invite the reader to write a short and logical comment on the article. After consideration and review by the Editor-in-Chief, the comment shall be published, in which case the Editorial Office will invite the authors of the article to prepare an appropriate reply. Editors shall invite previous reviewers to review both the comment and the reply (if available). If the reader’s complaints are substantiated, the Editorial office shall publish a correction or if the situation necessitates, retract the paper entirely.

4.6 Fabrication or Falsification

If the submitted manuscripts are found fabricated or falsified, such articles shall be rejected at any stage of the publication process.

4.7 Duplicate Manuscript Submission

If the content of the manuscript submitted for review overlaps or is substantially related to any published article, it shall be deemed as duplicate content and is not considered for publication.

4.8 CrossMark Policy

CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the CrossMark logo, Journal of Environmental Nanotechnology is committing to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the CrossMark logo will tell you the current status of a document and may also give you additional publication record information about the document.

CrossMark is applied to articles published in Journal of Environmental Nanotechnology. Where an Addendum, Erratum, Correction, Expression of Concern or Retraction is issued under this Section, the Crossref record for the original article is updated so that the CrossMark dialog displays the change. The journal’s update policy is registered at https://doi.org/10.13074/jent.crossmark.policy.

4.9 Handling of Correction and Retraction Requests

An allegation or request may be raised by any person at any time, and is sent to the Editorial Office. The procedure is as follows:

The Editorial Office acknowledges the allegation within 14 days and opens a numbered case record.
The Editor-in-Chief appoints an investigating editor with no competing interest in the matter. Where the allegation concerns an editor, Section 2.8 applies.
The corresponding author is informed of the substance of the allegation and invited to respond, normally within 30 days.
Where the matter is not resolved within 60 days, an Expression of Concern may be published under Section 4.5 while the investigation continues.
The outcome – no action, Correction, Erratum, Expression of Concern or Retraction – is decided by the Editor-in-Chief, communicated in writing to the parties, and where applicable published and linked to the original article.
Where misconduct is established, the author’s institution and, where relevant, the funding body are informed.

All notices issued under this section are listed on the journal’s Corrections and Retractions index.

5. APPEAL AND COMPLAINT PROCESS

Before submitting manuscripts, authors are requested to read all the guidelines and policies regarding manuscript processing and publication.

5.1 Appeals against editorial decisions

Authors who believe an editorial decision was reached in error, or that the review process was not properly followed, may appeal in writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days of receiving the decision. The appeal must set out a detailed scientific justification for reconsideration and identify the specific error alleged.

The Editor-in-Chief assigns the appeal to an editor or Editorial Board member who was not involved in the original decision. Additional reviewers may be consulted. A decision on the appeal is communicated in writing, normally within 30 days of receipt. The decision on an appeal is taken by the independent editor and is final within the journal; authors who remain dissatisfied may escalate under Section 5.2.

The submission of an appeal does not entitle an author to publication, and a manuscript under appeal may not be submitted elsewhere until the appeal is concluded.

5.2 Complaints

The journal accepts complaints regarding plagiarism, copyright violations, inaccurate research results, breaches of established research standards, unfairness in the review process, delay in manuscript processing, unsatisfactory peer-review comments, authorship disputes, reviewer conduct and editorial misconduct.

Complaints are acknowledged within 14 days and a named person is assigned to each case. If a complaint is not resolved within 60 days, the complainant may escalate the matter to the publisher, Institute for Environmental Nanotechnology, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India. The journal applies COPE’s guidelines and flowcharts in resolving such cases.

5.3 How to submit an appeal or complaint

Appeals and complaints should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at editorjent@nanoient.org or through the online contact form.

6. USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI tools (including large language models such as ChatGPT) in preparing their manuscript, beyond routine language correction or formatting. This disclosure must appear in the Methods section or the Acknowledgements section. AI tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot be cited as sources. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy and integrity of all content, including any generated by AI tools.

Reviewers and editors must not use generative AI tools to write peer-review reports or editorial assessments, as this constitutes a confidentiality breach and produces unreliable feedback. Minor use of grammar-checking or spell-checking tools is permitted, provided that manuscript content is not submitted to external services.

Editorial decisions are never delegated to an automated system. Where the journal uses software to assist with integrity checks, including similarity screening and image analysis, the output is advisory only and every resulting decision is made by a named human editor.

7. SPECIFIC FORMS OF RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION MISCONDUCT

In addition to plagiarism, fabrication and falsification, the journal treats the following as misconduct and investigates them under the procedure in Section 4.9.

7.1 Paper mills and organised fraud

The journal does not accept manuscripts produced or brokered by paper mills or any other third party offering authorship, data or publication for sale. Indicators include the sale or transfer of authorship, manuscripts submitted from brokered accounts, templated text or figures recurring across unrelated submissions, and fabricated or unverifiable author and reviewer identities. Suspected cases are rejected or retracted, and the authors’ institutions are informed.

7.2 Image integrity and manipulation

Images must accurately reflect the original data. Adjustments to brightness, contrast or colour balance must be applied to the whole image and must not obscure, eliminate or misrepresent any feature. Splicing, duplication, selective enhancement and the reuse of images to represent different experiments are prohibited. Authors must retain original, unprocessed image files and supply them on request. The journal screens figures for duplication and manipulation and may request the originals at any stage.

7.3 Citation manipulation

Citations must be included only where they are scientifically justified. Authors must not add citations for the purpose of increasing the citation counts of themselves, their associates or any journal. Editors and reviewers must not require or suggest the citation of their own work, or of this journal, as a condition of acceptance. Coercive citation by an editor or reviewer is treated as misconduct.

7.4 Gift, guest and ghost authorship

Listing a person who does not meet the authorship criteria in Section 1.6, whether as a courtesy, in exchange for a favour, or to lend standing to a manuscript, is misconduct. So is the omission of a person who does meet those criteria, including a professional writer whose contribution is not disclosed. All contributions that do not meet the authorship criteria must be recorded in the Acknowledgements.

7.5 Reviewer and editor misconduct

Allegations concerning a reviewer – including breach of confidentiality, appropriation of material from a manuscript under review, undisclosed competing interests, coercive citation, or deliberately delaying or disparaging a competitor’s work – are investigated by the Editor-in-Chief under Section 4.9, and may result in removal from the reviewer pool.

Allegations concerning an editor or Editorial Board member are investigated by an editor with no competing interest in the matter, appointed by the Editor-in-Chief. Where the allegation concerns the Editor-in-Chief, the investigation is conducted by the publisher, Institute for Environmental Nanotechnology, which may appoint an external adviser. The outcome is reported to the Editorial Board.