As a leading journal in the release of the latest scientific achievements in the field of economic development in Iran, quarterly journal of economic growth and development research is committed to meeting high standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. In our ethical standards and procedures, we set out general expectations for authors, editors, reviewers, publishers and society partners.

We are a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an organization that provides advice and resources on all aspects of publication ethics and research and publication misconduct. 

In addition to upholding our overarching ethical standards, individual journals we publish may also adopt specific ethical policies relevant to their research communities. Authors are expected to check the Instructions for Contributors of the relevant journal prior to submission and adhere to any policies regarding ethical standards that are mentioned.

Defining a conflict of interest

Authors submitting to Quarterly Journal of Economic Growth and Development Research are Required to declare any potential conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest are those that could be considered or viewed as exerting an undue influence on the presentation, review and publication of their work. These may be financial, non-financial, professional or personal in nature.

Payame Noor University Research Journals' Publication Ethics

This publication ethics is a commitment which draws up some moral limitations and responsibilities of research journals. The text is adapted according to the “Standard Ethics”, approved by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, and the publication principles of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

 1.      Introduction

Authors, Reviewers, editorial boards and editor-in-chiefs ought to know and commit all principles of research ethics and related responsibilities. Article submission, review of reviewers and editor-in-chief's acceptance or rejection, are considered as journals law compliance otherwise the journals have all the rights.

 2.      Authors and Authors responsibilities

• Authors should present their works in accordance with journal's standards and title.

• Authors are obliged to participate in peer review process.

• All authors have significantly contributed to the research.

• All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

• List of references, financial support.

• Forbidden to publish same research in more than one journal.

• Authors should ensure that they have written their original works/researches. Their works/researches should also provide accurate data, underlying other's references.
• Authors are responsible for their works' accuracy.
• What to do if you suspect plagiarism
•         (a) Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript
•         (b) Suspected plagiarism in a published manuscript

Note 1: Publishing an article is not known as acceptance of its contents by journal.

• Duplicate submission is not accepted. In other words, none of the article's' parts, should not carry on reviewing or publishing elsewhere.
• Overlapping publication, where the author uses his/her previous findings or published date with changes, is rejected.
• Authors are asked to have authors' permission for an accurate citation. When using ones direct speech, a quotation mark (“   ”) is necessary.
• Corresponding author should ensure that the complete information of all involved authors in the article.

• Corresponding author is responsible for the priorities of co-authors after their approval.
• Paper submission means that all of the authors have satisfied whole financial and local supports and have introduced them.
• Author(s) is/are responsible for any fault or inaccuracy of the article and in this case, journal's authorities should be informed immediately.
• Author(s) is/are asked to provide and reserve raw data one year after publication, in order to be able to respond journal audiences' questions.

 3.      Research and Publication Misconduct

Author(s) should avoid the research and publication misconduct. If some cases of research and publication misconduct occur within each steps of submission, review, edition or publication, journals have the right to legal action. The cases are listed as below:

• Fabrication: Fabrication is the practice of inventing data or results and reporting them in the research. Both of these misconducts are fraudulent and seriously alter the integrity of research. Therefore, articles must be written based on original data and use of falsified or fabricated data is strongly prohibited.
• Falsification: Falsification is the practice of omitting or altering research materials, equipment, data, or processes in such a way that the results of the research are no longer accurately reflected in the research record.
• Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the act of taking someone else's writing, conversation, idea, claims or even citations without any acknowledgment or explanation of the work producer or speaker.
• Wrongful Appropriation: Wrongful appropriation occurs when author(s) benefits another person's efforts and after a little change and manipulations in the research work, publish it on his/her own definitions
• False Attribution: It represents that a person is the author of a work but she/ he was not involved in the research.

 4.      Reviewers' Responsibility

Reviewers must consider the followings:

• Qualitative, contextual and scientific study in order to improve articles' quality and content.
• To inform editor-in-chief when accepts or reject the review and introduce an alternative.
• Should not accept the articles which consider the benefits of persons, organizations and companies or personal relationships; also the articles which she/he, own, contributed in its writing or analyze.
• The reviewing must be carried out upon scientific documents and any self, professional, religious and racial opinion is prohibited.
• Accurate review and declaration of the article's strengths and weaknesses through a clear, educational and constructive method.
• Responsibility, accountability, punctuality, interest, ethics adherence and respect to others' right.
• Not to rewrite or correct the article according to his/her personal interest.
• Be sure of accurate citations. Also reminding the cases which haven't been cited in the related published researches.
• Avoid of express the information and details of articles.
• Reviewers should not benefit new data or contents in favor of/against personal researches; even for criticism or discrediting the author(s). The reviewer is not permitted to reveal more details after a reviewed article being published.
• Reviewer is prohibited to deliver an article to another one for reviewing except with permission of editor-in-chief. Reviewer and co-reviewer's identification should be noted in each article's documents.
• Reviewer shouldn’t contact with the author(s). Any contact with the authors should be made through the editorial office.
• Trying to report “research and publication misconduct” and submitting the related documents to editor-in-chief.

 5.      Editorial Board Responsibilities

• Journal maintenance and quality improvement are the main aims of editorial board.
• Editorial board should introduce the journal to universities and international communities and publish the articles of other universities and international societies on their priority.
• Editorial board must not have quota and excess of their personal article publishing.
• Editorial board is responsible for selecting the reviewers as well as accepting or rejecting on article after reviewers' comments.
• Editorial board should be well-known experts with several publications. They ought to be responsible, accountable, truth, adhere to professional ethics and contribute to improve journal aims.
• Editorial board is expected to have a database of suitable reviewers for journal and to update the information regularly.
• Editorial board should try to aggregate qualified moral, experienced and well-known reviewers
• Editorial board should welcome deep and reasonable reviews, and prevent superficial and poor reviews, and deal with one-sided and contemptuous reviews.
• Editorial board should record and archive the whole review's documents as scientific documents and to keep confidentially the reviewers' name.
• Editorial board must inform the final result of review to corresponding author immediately.
• Editorial board should keep the article's contents confidentially and do not disclose its information to others.
• Editorial board ought to prevent any conflict of interests due to any personal, commercial, academic and financial relations which may impact on accepting and publishing the presented articles.
• Editor-in-chief should check each type of research and publication misconduct which reviewers report seriously.
• If a research and publication misconduct occurs in an article, editor-in-chief should omit it immediately and inform indexing databases or audiences.
• In the case of being a research and publication misconduct, editorial board is responsible to represent a corrigendum to audiences rapidly.
• Editorial board must benefit of audiences' new ideas in order to improve publication policies, structure and content quality of articles.

 6.      Peer-review process

Peer Review Process starts with the submission of an article to the Editor. After recording when the article was received, author’s name and title of the submission, the Editor assigns the article to a member of the Editorial Review Panel. An email is sent to both the author and the reviewer informing both of the assignment and how the two can contact each other.

Primary Review Process

• Once in the reviewer’s hands, the article is reviewed for grammatical and technical correctness.
   
• Only major revisions are addressed with the author.  In most cases, if major revisions are required, the reviewer will contact the author and the two will attempt to rectify the problem. If the problem cannot be resolved between the two, the Editor is contacted and other members of the Editorial Review Panel may be contacted for suggestions on how to proceed. If the problem is resolved the article moves to an Assistant Editor for secondary review. If the problem cannot be resolved, the Editor informs the author via email that his/her submission has been rejected and if he/she would like to revise the article and resubmit, the article will be received as a new submission and will be subject to the same process. In most cases, the author will be supplied with a copy of the Editorial Panel’s critiques.
   
• Minor revisions include corrections to grammar or spelling and rewording for clarity.

Secondary Review Process

• If a reviewer accepts a manuscript with only minor revisions, it is returned to the Editor and then subsequently assigned to one of the Assistant Editors for a secondary review of grammar and technical content. 
• Upon secondary review by an Assistant Editor, if a major problem has been overlooked by the assigned reviewer during the preliminary review, the reviewer is notified and, in most cases, the author is contacted to try to resolve the problem. If the problem is resolved the article is returned to the Editor for formatting. If the problem cannot be resolved, the Assistant Editor informs the Editor and other members of the Editorial Review Panel may be contacted for suggestions on how to proceed. If no suitable solution can be found, the Editor informs the author via email that his/her submission has been rejected and if he/she would like to revise the article and resubmit, the article will be received as a new submission and will be subject to the same process. In most cases, the author will be supplied with a copy of the Editorial Panel’s critiques.
• If approved, the Assistant Editor returns the article to the Editor for formatting and publication.

Formatting and Publication

• Once the article has been electronically formatted, it is assembled in a journal with other approved articles. The assembled journal undergoes one last review by all three Assistant Editors and the Editor. Final corrections are made by the Editor and the journal is sent to the printer.
• In some cases, at either level of review, a manuscript may be deemed as needing too much revision of technical content and may be rejected. In these cases, there is no an attempt to resolve the problem with the author. The article is simply rejected and the author is sent an email. The author is informed that if he/she would like to revise the article and resubmit, the article will be received as a new submission and will be subject to the same process. In most cases, the author will be supplied with a copy of the Editorial Panel’s critiques.
• What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author's ideas or data?

PNU supports Open Access

Payame Noor University (pnu) is mission-driven to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of high-quality research. We embrace both green and gold open access (OA) publishing to support this mission.

References

1. 1.       “Standard Ethics”, approved by Vice-Presidency for Research & Technology, the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology
2. 2.       Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Code of Conduct, www.publicationethics.org