Publications Ethics and Malpractice Statement (PEMS)

Journal information, ownership, and management
“Pathways to Peace and Security” [“Puti k miru i bezopasnosti”] is an academic journal published, owned, and managed by National Research Institute of the World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, under the current name since 2012. The journal is published twice a year both in print (ISSN: 2307-1494) and online (ISSN: 2311-5238). The journal accepts articles in Russian and English. For more detail, see General information.
 
Editorial Board
The journal is edited by IMEMO's Group on Peace and Conflict Studies, with the help of the international Editorial Council and a network of reviewers. The Editorial Board consists of editors and members of the Editorial Council.
The editors responsible for processing submissions, editorial work, recruiting reviewers, investigating ethical issues, and responding queries, are Dr Ekaterina Stepanova (editor-in-chief/research editor); Dr Serghei Golunov (research editor); Dr Leili Rustamova (assistant editor).
The Editorial Council is comprised by lead scholars from Russia, Algeria, France, India, New Zealand, UK, USA, and Switzerland (see Editorial Board). It advises the editors on editorial policy issues and, in consultation with the editors, helps to determine the direction of journal’s strategic development and to ensure thematic rigor, global focus and broad regional representation of authors. It also oversees the academic standards employed, partakes in the journal’s decision-making on disputes and malpractice issues, and assists with such aspects of editorial process as review of manuscripts.
 
Contacts
“Pathways to Peace and Security”
National Research Institute of World Economy & International Relations (IMEMO)
Russian Academy of Science
23 Profsoyuznaya Str., Moscow 117997 Russia
Tel.:  +7 (499) 128-9389
 
Copyright, Open Access Policy and License
The authors hold and retain copyright for articles published in “Pathways to Peace and Security”. This includes the author’s right to place the article in journal databases, including on the basis of separate agreements, to publish it in collective volumes and other editions, provided that the reference to the original publication in the journal is made. 
 
The “Pathways to Peace and Security” is an open-access journal. The journal’s online version in English can be accessed directly at https://www.imemo.ru/en/publications/periodical/pmb or from Publications section of the IMEMO web-site.
 
The journal and IMEMO as the publisher hold the right of the first publication under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (CC BY-NC 4.0). This open license allows any subsequent use of article in ways that do not violate the author’s copyright. It requires mandatory reference to the original publication in the journal and to the license, but does not allow the use of the article for commercial purposes.  
 
Archiving
See the journal’s full electronic archive and a list of articles in English.
In the event the journal is no longer published, free access to the web archive via the IMEMO’s website will be preserved. 
The journal’s web archive will also be available via the website of the Russian Sciences Citation Index.
 
APC
The journal does not charge any article processing (publication) fees.
 
Authorship
To qualify for an author of an article published in “Pathways to Peace and Security”, a person should make significant contribution to the research represented in a submitted article, by having drafted, written, or substantially revised the manuscript. The author(s) should have full authority to submit an article; manuscripts, for which a third party holds the copyright, are not accepted. It is the collective responsibility of the individuals who have conducted the work to determine who should be listed as authors, and the order in which authors should be listed. The affiliation provided in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If there are several co-authors, corresponding author should be clearly indicated.
By submitting the paper, the authors agree to share responsibility for its content and for resolving any issues raised about the accuracy and integrity of the published article. The authors guarantee that the paper is original, does not contain intentionally false information, was not published or is not concurrently considered for publishing anywhere else, and does not contain any other evident violations of the journal’s ethical standards. For more detail, see Authorship guidelines developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and this journal’s Author guidelines.
 
Manuscript evaluation process
The manuscript evaluation process has two main stages. First, the manuscript is evaluated for its relevance to key formal requirements and the editors make a consensual decision on whether to proceed to the review process. Manuscript may be rejected on the following grounds:
  • Irrelevance to the journal’s research focus;
  • Out-of-date analysis, in relation to the journal’s thematic priorities;
  • Lack of originality of the author’s research, plagiarism or self-plagiarism, largely descriptive character of the article, and low quality of independent analysis;
  • Clear signs of incompetence, lack of knowledge about key facts, sources, and scholarly works;
  • Major biases in favour of a certain side or viewpoint, with a lack of attention to, and of source-based analysis of, alternative viewpoints;
  • Non-compliance with essential style guide requirements.
 
Second, in case of positive decision by the editors about manuscript’s compliance with the journal’s requirements, the article is sent for review to an expert in the respective field. The review process is double blind: manuscripts sent for review should not contain information that allows identification of the author, while authors are not provided with information about reviewers. Reviewers for “Pathways to Peace and Security” include external experts from Russian and foreign academic institutions, as well as Editorial Council members and dozens of IMEMO’s over 300 researchers. Reviewers should have no conflict of interest and should be guided by provisions and principles of the PEMS.
Reviews should be detailed, well-argued, and unbiased. If these criteria are not met, the editors may replace a reviewer with another one. A review includes assessment of compliance to formal and substantive criteria (topical relevance, innovativeness, independence of analysis, familiarity with key sources and research literature, validity of conclusions, impartiality etc.) аnd, if appropriate, recommendations for the author. Upon completion of a review, a reviewer makes one of four verdicts: “recommended for publication”, “recommended for publication with minor revisions”, “major revisions required”, and “rejected” (for more detail, see Evaluation and review of manuscripts). If a reviewer gives a positive verdict, the editors reserve the right to make additional comments on a manuscript. These comments should be duly taken into account by the author as a condition for the manuscript’s acceptance for publication. If a review suggests to reject a manuscript, an author may also provide a detailed, reasoned disagreement in form of a letter to the Editor-in-Chief. In that case, the final decision on whether to send the article for consideration by another reviewer or to reject it is made consensually by the Editorial Board.
 
Research Integrity
“Pathways to Peace and Security” is committed to fundamental principles of publication ethics, including control over research honesty, preventing evident conflicts of interests, equal treatment of all submitted manuscripts and non-discrimination of their authors, and transparency of the consideration process. The Editorial Board makes every effort to prevent publishing manuscripts prepared with evident violations of academic integrity norms. These violations are addressed according to the Core Practices developed by COPE. The Editorial Board takes all necessary action to ensure compliance with these principles and is committed to meet high publication standards and to preserve the reputation of the journal as of Russia’s lead specialized periodical on peace, conflicts, and human security issues.
 
While dealing with violations of academic integrity principles, the Editorial Board distinguishes between intentional violations and violations by negligence, as well as between serious and less serious misconduct.
Cases of serious misconduct include:
  • Plagiarism, i.e. inappropriate borrowing of texts, datasets, or images produced by other people without due recognition of authorship, including both verbatim and paraphrased borrowing (provided that the logic of a borrowed text is preserved and/or original ideas belonging to other authors are reproduced);
  • Misappropriation of unpublished research results produced by another researcher;
  • Data falsification;
  • Evidently libelous or defamatory statements towards individuals, groups, and organizations.
Cases of less serious misconduct include:
  • Self-plagiarism, i. e. large-scale borrowing of one’s own previously published texts and ideas without properly citing the previous publication;
  • Intellectual property rights violation (excessive quotations from a single source longer than 500 words without permission, unauthorized use of copyrighted images that does not involve plagiarism etc.). Authors are fully responsible for obtaining written permissions from a copyright holder for excessive quotations and images. If intellectual property right violation is discovered after an article is published, this article can be retracted;
  • Multiple submissions of a manuscript sent for consideration to “Pathways to Peace and Security”;
  • Listing people, who actually did not contribute to a submitted manuscript, as co-authors;
  • Unauthorized disclosure of information about an author or a reviewer involved in double blind review process;
  • Unauthorized use of results from submitted manuscript by anyone with an access to the manuscript at the pre-evaluation, review, or editing stage that does not involve plagiarism or misappropriation;
  • Non-disclosure of any conflicts of interest that have a significant distorting impact on research findings, the review process/results, and decision on a manuscript’s publication. Such conflicts can be personal, political, academic, financial, and others. Authors should disclose potential conflicts of interests to the Editorial Board to decide whether an article can be published. If an article is to be published, the Editorial Board should disclose potential conflicts of interests to the journal’s readers.
  • Abusive behavior towards any participant of manuscript consideration process (author, journal staff, reviewers).
 
Every instance of grounded suspicion should result in a thorough and impartial investigation, with proper consideration of arguments presented by all interested parties, including the party accused of violating academic integrity norms. Normally, cases of suspected violation of academic integrity are investigated by the editors who act on behalf of the Editorial Board. As a result of an investigation, one of the following measures can be taken depending on the seriousness of violation:
  • A letter of warning that informs the author about an academic integrity issue and asks the author to resolve it.
  • Rejection of a submitted manuscript;
  • Retraction of a published article in line with the COPE’s Retraction Guidelines.
  • Issuing a letter for an author’s employer informing about serious violation of academic integrity principles.
Authors who do not agree with the Editorial Board’s verdict are eligible to submit a formal appeal. Appeals are to be considered by editors with participation of other members of the Editorial Board. An appellant is informed about the result by a letter explaining the reasons for the decision made.
 
The journal welcomes post-publication feedback, including correction of mistakes, letters of concern, and complaints about violations of academic integrity. If an error made by the author is detected, a corrigendum is issued. If an error is made by the journal, an erratum is issued.
 
The Editorial Board is open to cooperation with researchers and other individuals and organizations on identifying cases of academic integrity violations, provided that such claims are substantiated with convincing and valid evidence. If a complaint or a concern raises a serious academic integrity issue, it is investigated by the editors on behalf of the Editorial Board. If a serious violation is confirmed, the article will be retracted and the editors will take all necessary action to remove it from the journal’s website and databases that provide access to it.
 
For all enquiries regarding academic integrity issues related to the contents of the “Pathways to Peace and Security” journal, please contact putikmiru@imemo.ru. All queries are considered carefully and confidentially.
 
 

Comments (0)

No comments

Add comment







Indexes and Databases

  

 

  

Current Issue
2023, No. 2 (65)
  • - INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AT THE CROSSROADS
  • - CONFLICT AND SECURITY ISSUES IN AFRICA
  • - MARITIME SECURITY
  • - WEAPONS AND ARMS CONTROL
  • - PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
Submit an Article
Years
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 |