Open access clarity
Readers should be able to understand immediately how articles are accessed, licensed, and reused.
Editorial accountability
Policies help authors, editors, and reviewers understand the journal’s standards and responsibilities.
Ethics and trust
Strong policy disclosure helps protect patient interests, author rights, and the scientific record.
Open Access Policy
Clinics Cardiology operates as an open-access journal so that published content is freely available to readers without subscription barriers. Open access is intended to improve visibility, access, educational use, and scholarly communication across the global cardiovascular community.
The journal should state clearly on its website that all final published articles are openly accessible, whether authors retain copyright, which license applies, and what forms of reuse are permitted.
What this policy should explain
- That articles are available online without paywall access restrictions
- Which license applies to published content
- Whether authors retain copyright or transfer it
- Whether APCs apply and where that fee policy is shown
- What readers may do with the content under the license terms
Good practice focus
Open-access policy language should be simple, visible, and consistent across the homepage, author guidance, article files, and copyright statements.
Editorial Policies
Editorial policies define how the journal manages manuscript assessment, reviewer selection, editorial independence, appeals, policy compliance, and post-publication issues.
Editorial decisions should be based on scholarly merit, clarity of reporting, scope fit, ethical compliance, and contribution to the field.
1
Initial screening
Editors assess scope fit, article completeness, declarations, and baseline reporting quality.
2
Reviewer assignment
Appropriate reviewers are selected based on subject relevance and conflict management.
3
Decision process
Editorial decisions are made from scholarly merit, policy compliance, and reviewer evidence.
4
Post-decision handling
Revisions, corrections, appeals, and post-publication issues are handled transparently.
Peer Review Policy
Peer review is a core quality control mechanism for Clinics Cardiology. It supports editorial decision-making by obtaining informed assessments from qualified experts regarding originality, methodological soundness, reporting quality, relevance, and interpretation.
The website should describe the peer review model clearly, including whether review is single-anonymous, double-anonymous, or another structured form.
Peer review principles
- Review should be timely, fair, and evidence-based
- Reviewer identity handling should match the journal’s stated model
- Reviewers should disclose conflicts of interest
- Confidential manuscripts should not be shared outside the process
- Editors should weigh reviews critically and independently
Reviewer expectations
- Assess originality, methods, and clarity
- Identify major ethical or reporting concerns
- Provide constructive and respectful recommendations
- Decline review when expertise or independence is insufficient
- Maintain confidentiality throughout review and revision
Ethical Considerations
Clinics Cardiology expects research and publication practices to meet accepted ethical standards in medical and scientific publishing. Ethical considerations apply across submission, review, editing, publication, correction, and post-publication conduct.
Authors should report research honestly, disclose relevant approvals, protect research participants, avoid misleading claims, and present results without fabrication, falsification, selective omission, or inappropriate manipulation.
Areas covered by ethical considerations
- Research integrity and honest reporting
- Respect for human participants and animal welfare
- Conflict and funding transparency
- Responsible image and data presentation
- Correction of major errors when identified
- Respectful and accountable editorial and peer-review conduct
Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. This includes direct copying, close paraphrasing without proper attribution, inappropriate reuse of published figures or tables, unattributed borrowing of ideas, and misleading presentation of another source as original work.
The journal may screen submitted material using similarity-checking tools and editorial judgment.
Unacceptable practices
- Verbatim copying without attribution
- Close paraphrasing without citation
- Unapproved reuse of images, figures, or tables
- Duplicate or overlapping publication presented as new
- Use of generated or borrowed content without transparent attribution
Possible journal actions
- Request clarification or revision
- Reject a submission before review or after review
- Seek author explanation and source comparison
- Issue correction, expression of concern, or retraction where necessary
Research Misconduct Policy
Research misconduct may include fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical study conduct, inappropriate image manipulation, undisclosed duplicate publication, serious authorship misrepresentation, or concealment of major conflicts or approvals.
When concerns arise, the journal should evaluate them fairly and document the process.
How concerns may be handled
- Initial editorial review of the concern
- Request for explanation or supporting records from authors
- Assessment of source material, data presentation, or publication history
- Institutional or third-party contact where necessary and justified
- Decision on rejection, correction, expression of concern, or retraction
Authorship Policy
Authorship should reflect meaningful scholarly contribution and shared accountability. All authors should have contributed substantially to the work, reviewed the submitted version, approved publication, and accepted responsibility for the integrity of the article.
Contributors whose roles are limited to language editing, technical formatting, funding acquisition alone, supervision alone, or administrative support should not automatically be listed as authors unless they also satisfy the journal’s authorship criteria.
Substantial contribution
Authors should meaningfully contribute to conception, design, analysis, interpretation, drafting, or critical revision.
Approval of final version
All authors should approve the version submitted and the version accepted for publication.
Accountability
Authors should accept responsibility for the integrity, accuracy, and transparency of the work.
Retraction Policy
Retraction may be appropriate when an article is shown to be seriously unreliable, ethically unacceptable, plagiarized, duplicated inappropriately, or otherwise incompatible with the integrity of the scientific record.
Retraction decisions should be made carefully, transparently, and consistently.
Possible grounds for retraction
- Major unreliability of data or findings
- Confirmed plagiarism or deceptive duplication
- Severe ethical breach
- Fabrication or falsification
- Serious authorship or rights dispute affecting legitimacy
Related post-publication actions
- Correction for limited but important errors
- Expression of concern while investigation is ongoing
- Clarification notice or editorial note where appropriate
- Retraction when integrity cannot be preserved otherwise
Conflicts of Interest Policy
Conflicts of interest may be financial, institutional, academic, personal, or non-financial. Such interests do not automatically disqualify authors, reviewers, or editors, but they should be disclosed openly so that they can be evaluated properly.
Disclosure helps readers understand possible influences on study design, interpretation, review, or decision-making.
Examples of conflicts that may need disclosure
- Research funding or consultancy fees
- Employment, advisory, or board relationships
- Stock ownership or other financial interests
- Close academic competition or collaboration
- Personal relationships relevant to editorial or review decisions
Human and Animal Rights Policy
Research involving human participants should be conducted with respect for participant rights, privacy, welfare, and legal or institutional approval requirements. Research involving animals should comply with applicable welfare standards and ethical oversight.
Authors should state whether the study received ethics review or institutional approval.
Human participant research
- Provide ethics approval details where required
- Protect participant confidentiality
- Report consent handling where applicable
- Avoid identifiable disclosure unless policy conditions are met
Animal research
- Confirm institutional or ethical approval where required
- Describe humane care and oversight
- Use scientifically justified methods
- Report welfare-related protections clearly
Informed Consent Policy
Informed consent should be obtained when required for research participation, case reporting, identifiable patient details, clinical images, or publication of information that could reasonably reveal an individual’s identity.
Authors should confirm in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained where necessary.
Consent policy should address
- Case reports and patient-specific clinical material
- Identifiable photographs or imaging
- Sensitive clinical descriptions
- Publication of participant-derived information that could reveal identity
Copyright Policy
The copyright policy should state clearly whether authors retain copyright or transfer it to the journal or publisher. It should also explain how the publication license operates, what rights are granted to readers, and how attribution should be provided.
Copyright language should be consistent across author guidance, article pages, downloadable PDFs, and licensing notices.
Copyright policy should clarify
- Who owns the copyright after publication
- What license applies to the article
- What rights are granted to readers and reusers
- Whether author self-archiving is permitted and under what conditions
- How third-party content permissions are handled
Availability of Data and Materials
The journal encourages transparent reporting on the availability of supporting data, code, protocols, or materials where relevant to the article.
Not all datasets can be fully open due to privacy, legal, ethical, proprietary, or institutional restrictions.
Good data statements may indicate
- Data available in a repository
- Data available from the authors on reasonable request
- Restrictions due to confidentiality, consent, or law
- No new datasets generated, where appropriate
Materials transparency
- Availability of code, protocols, or analytic materials
- Repository links where relevant
- Conditions for access if materials are controlled
- Statement of any significant limitation affecting reproducibility
Archiving Policy
Archiving policy should explain how the journal preserves article availability over time and how the scholarly record is protected against data loss, website disruption, or platform change.
The policy should identify whether the journal uses internal preservation, repository deposition, external preservation systems, institutional arrangements, or other methods.
Archiving policy should describe
- How published articles are preserved long term
- What happens if the journal changes platform or ceases publication
- Whether policy pages, metadata, or PDFs remain accessible
- Any repository or preservation service participation
Privacy Policy
Privacy policy should describe how the journal collects, stores, uses, and protects personal information obtained through submissions, peer review, editorial correspondence, contact forms, mailing lists, and website operations.
Personal information may include names, affiliations, email addresses, account details, manuscript files, reviewer reports, and communication records.
Privacy policy should address
- What personal data are collected
- Why the data are collected
- How submission and review records are handled
- Who may access the information for legitimate editorial or operational reasons
- How the site handles communication preferences
- Whether cookies or analytics tools are used
Operational privacy expectations
- Reviewer identities should be handled according to the journal’s peer review model
- Manuscript files should be protected from unauthorized access
- Editorial correspondence should be used only for legitimate journal functions
- Users should know how to contact the journal for privacy-related queries
Suggested privacy statement
Names, email addresses, affiliations, manuscript files, reviewer reports, and other information submitted to Clinics Cardiology will be used only for the stated editorial, review, publication, and journal communication purposes for which they were collected.