Author, Reviewer and Publisher Responsibilities

The International Journal of Nutrology (IJN) defines below the responsibilities of authors, peer reviewers, editors, the journal's sponsoring organization, and the publisher. These responsibilities apply to all submitted and published content, including regular articles, invited content, supplements, and special issues.

IJN follows the principles described in the ICMJE Recommendations on Responsibilities in the Submission and Peer-Review Process and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Following these standards does not imply membership in the organizations that developed them.

Responsibilities of authors

Authors are responsible for the integrity, originality, accuracy, and transparent reporting of their work. Authors must:

submit original work that is not simultaneously under consideration, accepted, or published elsewhere;
identify, cite, and discuss relevant previous work and disclose any overlap with conference abstracts, preprints, reports, theses, datasets, or other publications;
obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted or otherwise restricted material;
present data, methods, analyses, and results honestly and without fabrication, falsification, inappropriate manipulation, or selective omission;
retain the primary data and documentation supporting the work and provide them to the journal when reasonably requested, subject to ethical, legal, privacy, and confidentiality restrictions;
follow the applicable study-reporting guideline and provide the required checklist or protocol registration when applicable;
obtain and report all required ethics approvals, informed consent, assent, permissions, clinical-trial registrations, and safeguards for human participants, vulnerable populations, and animals;
ensure that every author meets the journal's authorship criteria and that all contributions are accurately described;
disclose all funding, institutional support, financial and non-financial relationships, and potential conflicts of interest;
disclose relevant use of artificial intelligence or AI-assisted technologies in accordance with journal policy;
participate in peer review in good faith and respond to editorial and reviewer comments clearly, respectfully, and point by point;
avoid citation manipulation, including adding references solely to satisfy improper citation requests;
review and approve the final manuscript and proofs; and
notify the journal promptly of any significant error, omission, integrity concern, or change affecting the published record and cooperate with any necessary correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other action.

Authors must not contact reviewers about a submitted manuscript or attempt to discover their identities. Authors must preserve the confidentiality of editorial correspondence and peer-review reports.

Author responsibilities after publication

After publication, authors remain responsible for responding to legitimate questions about the article and for cooperating with requests for supporting information. Authors must promptly report errors that may affect interpretation, reliability, ethics, or attribution. Disagreement with a correction or retraction does not prevent IJN from taking action necessary to protect readers and the scholarly record.

Selection of peer reviewers

Peer reviewers are selected independently by the handling editor on the basis of subject expertise, methodological competence, independence, availability, and absence of relevant conflicts of interest.

IJN does not require authors to recommend or nominate peer reviewers. Authors must not submit reviewer names or contact information unless the editor makes a specific, exceptional request. Any information provided does not bind the editor, and the journal remains solely responsible for reviewer selection and verification.

Responsibilities of peer reviewers

Before accepting an invitation, reviewers must assess whether they have the necessary expertise, sufficient time, and independence to provide a fair review. Reviewers must:

accept only assignments that fall within their competence and can be completed within the agreed deadline;
declare all actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest, including relevant personal, professional, academic, institutional, competitive, collaborative, supervisory, or financial relationships;
decline the invitation or consult the editor whenever impartiality may reasonably be questioned;
keep the manuscript, supplementary files, reviews, author information, and editorial correspondence strictly confidential;
not share the manuscript or involve another person in the review without prior permission from the editor;
not upload manuscripts, files, excerpts, data, images, or peer-review reports to public or external generative-AI systems or other services where confidentiality, data protection, and intellectual property cannot be assured;
not use unpublished information, data, arguments, or ideas for personal benefit or the benefit of another person or organization;
provide an objective, evidence-based, constructive, specific, respectful, and sufficiently detailed review;
distinguish comments intended for the authors from confidential comments intended only for the editor;
identify relevant uncited work when scientifically necessary, without requesting citations for personal advantage or to increase citations to a particular author, journal, institution, or group;
alert the editor confidentially to suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, image manipulation, data fabrication, ethical problems, undisclosed conflicts, or other integrity concerns;
not contact the authors directly about the manuscript;
disclose to the editor the name and contribution of any person who assisted with the review, after receiving prior permission for that assistance;
submit the review within the agreed period or notify the editor promptly if a delay or withdrawal is necessary; and
delete or securely destroy personal copies of the manuscript and associated confidential materials after completing the review, except where retention is authorized by the journal or required by law.

Reviewers provide recommendations; they do not make the final editorial decision. Review reports must not contain personal attacks, discriminatory language, unsupported allegations, or instructions intended to manipulate citations.

Responsibilities of editors

The Editor-in-Chief and handling editors are responsible for the fairness, integrity, confidentiality, independence, and timeliness of the editorial process. Editors must:

evaluate manuscripts according to scientific validity, originality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, relevance, clarity, and suitability for the journal's scope;
make decisions without discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, political belief, institutional prestige, geographic origin, career stage, or ability to pay;
ensure that APC payment, waiver eligibility, advertising, sponsorship, commercial interests, personal relationships, citation targets, and indexing objectives do not influence editorial decisions;
protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, reviewer identities, review reports, and editorial correspondence;
select qualified and independent reviewers and assess their recommendations critically rather than treating reviewer recommendations as binding decisions;
avoid selecting reviewers with relevant conflicts of interest or recent close relationships with the authors;
recuse themselves from manuscripts involving their own work, close collaborators, family members, competitors, institutional conflicts, financial interests, or other relationships that could affect impartiality;
assign conflicted submissions to an independent editor who has full authority over review and decision-making;
provide authors with clear decisions and relevant reviewer comments and allow a reasonable opportunity to respond when revision is invited;
address appeals, complaints, allegations, and post-publication concerns consistently and without retaliation;
investigate credible concerns about research or publication integrity and contact institutions, funders, or other journals when appropriate;
take timely action through rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other notices when the evidence requires it;
avoid coercive citation practices and reject reviewer requests for irrelevant citations;
ensure that negative, inconclusive, or replication findings are not rejected solely because of the direction of their results; and
maintain accurate records sufficient to support editorial decisions and future integrity investigations.

Editorial confidentiality and artificial intelligence

Editors and editorial staff must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript beyond those directly involved in its evaluation, production, integrity assessment, or legally required handling. Unpublished material must not be used for personal or commercial advantage.

Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscript content to external AI tools unless the journal has specifically authorized a secure service and confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, and data-processing requirements have been verified. AI output must never replace independent expert judgment or determine the editorial decision.

Editorial decisions and appeals

The Editor-in-Chief has final responsibility for editorial content and publication decisions. Acceptance is never guaranteed, including after revision. An acceptance decision may be reconsidered before publication if significant concerns arise about ethics, legality, authorship, data reliability, peer-review integrity, or compliance with journal policy.

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal or complaint through the journal's published procedure. Appeals must be evaluated by an editor who was not directly responsible for the disputed decision whenever reasonably possible. An appeal does not guarantee a new external review or reversal of the original decision.

Responsibilities of the sponsoring organization and publisher

The journal's sponsoring organization and publisher support publication, administration, production, infrastructure, preservation, and integrity while respecting editorial freedom. They must:

protect the Editor-in-Chief's authority over individual editorial decisions and the timing and content of publication;
not interfere in manuscript acceptance or rejection for political, institutional, financial, advertising, sponsorship, reputational, or commercial reasons;
keep APC administration and waiver decisions separate from peer review and editorial decision-making;
maintain accurate and accessible information about ownership, management, editorial contacts, peer review, fees, licenses, copyright, ethics, complaints, corrections, and archiving;
provide and maintain the technical and administrative services needed for submission, peer review, production, online publication, DOI registration, metadata distribution, and digital preservation;
protect personal data and confidential editorial records through appropriate access controls and security practices;
retain the records required to document peer review, editorial decisions, corrections, and integrity investigations, subject to applicable law and data-protection requirements;
support editors in investigating credible allegations and communicating with institutions, funders, reviewers, authors, and other journals when appropriate;
publish corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, and other notices promptly, clearly, and permanently linked to the affected article;
ensure that advertising, sponsorship, reprint income, special issues, supplements, and other revenue sources do not influence editorial decisions;
not guarantee or misrepresent inclusion in Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, MEDLINE, DOAJ, or any other indexing or abstracting service; and
correct inaccurate or misleading information on the journal website and in promotional communications.

Editorial freedom

Consistent with the ICMJE recommendations on journal ownership and editorial freedom, the Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the scientific and editorial content of IJN. The publisher, sponsoring organization, advertisers, funders, partners, and service providers must not direct or overturn decisions about individual manuscripts.

Handling suspected misconduct

Allegations will be assessed fairly, confidentially, and without predetermined conclusions. The journal may request explanations, original data, ethics documentation, contribution records, or other evidence. When the matter is beyond the journal's ability to investigate, it may refer the concern to the authors' or reviewers' institution, employer, funder, ethics committee, or another appropriate authority.

All parties must cooperate and must not retaliate against a person who raises a concern in good faith. Confidentiality may be limited when disclosure is necessary for a fair investigation, protection of participants or readers, institutional notification, or compliance with law.

Related IJN policies

Questions, disclosures, and integrity concerns should be sent to the IJN editorial office at [email protected].

Last updated: August 2026.