Misconduct

Research Publishing Ethics Guidelines for Journals

The principles of research integrity - honesty, transparency, accountability, care and respect - are encompassed by our core editorial policies described above. We follow our University’s definition of research misconduct, as follows:

‘Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or deception in proposing, carrying out or reporting results of research and deliberate, dangerous or negligent deviations from accepted practice in carrying out research. It includes failure to follow agreed protocol if this failure results in unreasonable risk or harm to humans, other sentient beings or the environment, and facilitating of misconduct in research by collusion in, or concealment of, such actions by others. It includes any plan or conspiracy or attempt to do any of these things.

Misconduct in this context does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretation or judgement in evaluating research methods or results, or misconduct (including gross misconduct) unrelated to the research process.’

Cambridge University Press and its publishing partners take all forms of misconduct seriously and are committed to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record. This commitment includes the use of tools and services, both in-house and third-party, to detect or investigate misconduct.

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Our approach to reported misconduct

In cases where concerns about misconduct or potential errors in our published content are raised, we are guided by the COPE recommendations.

When managing a case of suspected misconduct relating to a journal, our initial step would be to inform the author(s) and editor(s) involved. Our next step would be to help the journal editor to investigate the concern, including sharing information necessary to conduct the investigation with relevant third parties, or referring the case to a relevant institution for investigation. Any such information sharing would be conducted in line with relevant privacy and data processing laws, applicable Terms of Use, and ethical guidance such as that provided by COPE.[1] Investigation may also include the use of various tools and services, in-house and external, to detect or investigate misconduct (for example, plagiarism or image manipulation detection tools).

If the investigation concludes there is a concern of direct relevance to the integrity or accuracy of the content itself, we would consider issuing a correction or a retraction informed by COPE’s Retraction Guidelines. We may also alert the relevant institution(s), funder(s), or other bodies accountable for the research to the misconduct. If content is retracted, we do this in a way that still preserves the integrity of the academic record and of other affiliated works. This includes maintaining any associated metadata and, if legally possible, the abstract. Please see our Post-publication notices, changes and discussions policy for more information.

Our policies on commonly encountered forms of misconduct

Unethical conduct of research/research misconduct

It is misconduct to carry out research in humans or human tissue or data without informed consent from the individuals involved and/or without consideration for their safety, dignity or rights to privacy. It is also misconduct if such research is carried out without obtaining the required approvals and permissions or without compliance with national laws.

Publications suspected of reporting unethical research in humans or human tissue or data, or research which does not comply with the relevant journal’s policies on human remains may be retracted.

Similarly, research which does not comply with our policies in effect at the time on the ethical and humane conduct of research in animals or on research involving the collection of biological specimens, samples or fossils may be retracted.

Unethical reporting and dissemination of research/publication misconduct

Data and image falsification and fabrication

The modification of any data or images in a way that misrepresents the findings (known as data falsification) or the fabrication of images, data or results (known as data fabrication) is clear misconduct and may lead to a retraction of the publication affected.

Plagiarism

Cambridge University Press adheres to the University’s definition of plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as ‘using someone else’s ideas, words, data, or other material produced by them without acknowledgement’.

Plagiarism can occur in respect to all types of sources and media, including:

text, illustrations, musical quotations, extended mathematical derivations, computer code, etc.;
material downloaded from websites or drawn from manuscripts or other media;
published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and grey literature.

We do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our publications, and we reserve the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered post-publication, we will follow our guidance outlined in our Post-publication notices, changes and discussions policy. We expect our readers, reviewers and editors to raise any suspicions of plagiarism either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing publishingethics@cambridge.org.

Text recycling

Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism, is when an author re-uses sections of text from their own previous publications without proper attribution. This is distinct from redundant or duplicate publication which refers to larger scale repeated publication of text or data with at least one author in common. When assessing the acceptability of text recycling in a given manuscript, these factors will be considered:

How much text is recycled
Where in the article the text recycling occurs
Whether the source of the recycled text has been acknowledged
The clarity to readers of any content re-use
Whether the article is a research or non-research article
Whether there is a breach of copyright.

Where text recycling is deemed unacceptable, a submitted manuscript may be rejected. A published article may require retraction or a post-publication change as described in our Post-publication notices, changes and discussions policy.

Redundant publication

Duplicate or redundant publication occurs when a work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by the author(s) of the work without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap. This can be in the same or a different language.[2]

When authors submit manuscripts to our journals, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless a journal is explicit that it does not have an exclusive submission policy. At the time of submission, authors should also disclose details of related papers they have authored, even if in a different language, similar papers in press, and any closely related papers previously published or currently under review at another journal.[3]

We do not support substantial overlap between publications, unless:

it is felt that editorially this will strengthen the academic discourse; and
we have clear approval from the original publication; and
we include citation of the original source.

We expect our readers, reviewers and editors to raise any suspicions of duplicate or redundant publication, either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing publishingethics@cambridge.org. If redundant publication is discovered post-publication, we will follow our guidance outlined in our Post-publication notices, changes and discussions policy.

Deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow our Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

Undeclared competing interests

Failure to declare a potential competing interest may be misconduct. In some circumstances, this may lead to the rejection of a submission or retraction of a publication.

Other types of misconduct and fraud

The following are examples of forms of misconduct which, in addition to data and image fabrication and falsification, may be regarded as fraud.

Knowingly providing false or fraudulent affiliation information
Offering authorship of a publication for sale, or buying authorship of a publication
Attempting to manipulate peer review to influence its outcome.

If suspected, these behaviours may lead to rejection or retraction of any publication(s) affected, and notification of any affected parties or institutions responsible for the research or researcher.

[1] ‘Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct’, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.7

[2] Based on COPE’s definition of redundant publication, available at: http://www.publicationethics.org/category/keywords/redundant-publication

[3] Based on the WAME’s Recommendations on Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals, available at: https://wame.org/recommendations-on-publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals