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Our editors' role at EPH is highly valued. As Editor you will be driving your journal forward: ensuring that it is publishing high quality research, meeting the needs of its readership, and ensuring that it is responding to developments within the discipline or field of study. As your publisher, our aim is to support you and your Editorial Board by providing information and advice on all publishing matters, and especially any issues that could affect the quality and ethical standing of the journal.
EPH Publishing is committed to being an inclusive organization where all individuals are treated equally with fairness and respect, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marriage and partnership status, pregnancy and parental responsibilities, race, religion and belief, sex, or sexual orientation.
Editors and publishers have a key role to play in protecting the integrity of scientific and academic research. Misconduct can seriously harm the research community:
- It can cause a general loss of trust in journals and research.
- It can damage people’s careers, including those of innocent parties, for example co-authors who may not have been aware of any unethical behavior of the submitting author and journal editors whose reputations may become tarnished by association.
- It can damage institutions' reputations.
- It can corrupt the evidence base by perpetuating false data and findings.
- It is a waste of time, effort and funds.
There are also wider considerations:
- Public policy and practice may be based on fraudulent research.
- Patients might be at risk if recommendations based on fraudulent research are followed.
- Funding fraudulent research is a waste of taxpayers’ money.
EPH requires authors to comply with all relevant ethical procedures set out by their institutions and funding bodies, and operate with complete transparency with regards to how the research was conducted, sources of funding, conflicts of interest, participant consent etc. These requirements are set out in full on the Editorial Policies page of the EPH Journal Gateway and should also be included in your journal’s submission guidelines. Breaches in these ethics should be investigated by the institutions involved, and the journal editor should work with EPH to take necessary actions at EPH to correct the academic record where necessary.
