Publication Ethics

Socialʹnye i gumanitarnye znania is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics. This policy draws on the guidelines of Associations of Scientific Editors & Publishers, COPE and applies to everyone involved in the publication process: authors, reviewers, and editors.

1. Authorship

  • Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a meaningful contribution to the work – whether through conceiving the study, collecting or analysing data, drafting the manuscript, or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
  • All listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to be accountable for its content.
  • Gift authorship (listing someone, such as a senior colleague, who did not contribute) and ghost authorship (omitting someone who did) are both unacceptable.

2. Originality & Plagiarism

  • Submitted manuscripts must be the authors' own original work.
  • All borrowed ideas, wording, data, or figures must be properly cited and attributed.
  • Self-plagiarism – republishing previously published material without acknowledging the original source – is treated equally seriously.
  • The editorial team screens all submissions using plagiarism detection software (e.g. Antiplagiat, Domate).

3. Redundant & Simultaneous Submission

  • Manuscripts under review at Socialʹnye i gumanitarnye znania must not be under consideration elsewhere at the same time.
  • If the work builds on a previously published preprint, conference paper, or thesis, authors should disclose this at the time of submission and provide a reference.

4. Data Integrity & Research Conduct

  • Authors warrant that the data and results they present are genuine and accurate.
  • Fabrication (inventing data), falsification (manipulating data or results), and any deliberate attempt to mislead readers constitute serious misconduct.
  • If authors discover a significant error in a published article, they should notify the editorial office promptly so that a correction (erratum) or retraction can be issued.

5. Research Involving Human Participants

  • Studies involving data collection from human participants – including surveys, interviews, experiments, and analysis of personal data – must comply with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and all applicable national legislation on data protection.
  • Authors should confirm that informed consent was obtained and, where applicable, that the study was approved by an institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee.
  • The anonymity and confidentiality of participants must be protected unless they have given explicit permission otherwise.

6. Conflicts of Interest & Funding

  • Authors must disclose any circumstances that could be perceived as influencing their findings: funding sources, institutional affiliations, personal or commercial relationships.
  • The absence of conflicts of interest should also be stated explicitly.
  • Reviewers and editors who have a conflict of interest with respect to a manuscript must recuse themselves from its evaluation.

7. Peer Review

  • Socialʹnye i gumanitarnye znania operates an independent peer-review process. Reviewers are expected to evaluate manuscripts on their merits, providing objective and constructive feedback.
  • Reviewers must not use information from an unpublished manuscript for their own purposes.
  • The content of reviews and the identity of reviewers are treated as confidential.
  • We ask reviewers to offer specific, actionable comments rather than vague assessments.

8. Editorial Responsibilities

  • Publication decisions are based on scholarly merit, rigour of argument, and adherence to ethical standards – never on an author's identity, institutional affiliation, gender, ethnicity, or political views.
  • The editorial team will investigate all substantiated allegations of misconduct, regardless of when the work was published.
  • Where serious misconduct is confirmed, the editors may: reject the manuscript, publish a correction, retract the article, or notify the author's institution.

9. Use of Generative AI
Authors may use generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) as assistants – for example, for language editing, translation, or data processing. The following conditions apply:

  • An AI tool cannot be listed as an author. Authorship carries accountability, and an algorithm cannot bear it.
  • Any use of generative AI must be disclosed in the Methods section or in an acknowledgement note, specifying the tool used and the task it was applied to.
  • Authors remain fully responsible for the content of their work, including the accuracy of facts, the integrity of citations, and the absence of plagiarism.

10. Reporting Suspected Misconduct
If you – whether as an author, reviewer, or reader – suspect a breach of publication ethics (plagiarism, data fabrication, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or any other concern), please contact us at sgz-journal@ya.ru . We will look into every report and treat the identity of the reporter as confidential.

This policy was adopted on 2026-07-01 . The editorial team reserves the right to update it as needed. The current version is always available on the journal's website.