Ethics Policy

The journal Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS) requires its authors, editors and reviewers to meet the highest ethical standards. As part of the submission and review process, authors and reviewers are required to accept and sign our ethical agreements applicable to those roles.

ESTS editors can ask to see the informed consent form and approval of the relevant institutional review board. In some countries ethical review boards do not always exist, but where they do exist, their approval should have been sought if appropriate.

Conflicts of Interest

When authors submit papers to ESTS, they will be required to agree to a conflict of interest statement and confirm that their submitted manuscript adheres to principles of ethical publishing:

  • It is the lead-author’s responsibility to declare all relevant competing interests for consideration during the review process.

  • A competing interest can be financial or non-financial, professional or personal and can occur at any stage of the publication process.

  • ESTS requires authors to submit an article only to ESTS and not to submit simultaneously to more than one journal. We do not accept duplicate submissions. The reasons for this requirement are to minimise any duplication of reviewing, editing and administrative labor between journals, as well as avoiding any potential conflicts between journals for the right to publish.
  • Editors and reviewers of ESTS are also asked to declare any conflict of interests after submission of the manuscript and before publication.

Fraud and Plagiarism

Fraud is the fabrication and the manipulation of data, results, or research conclusions. ESTS takes allegations of fraud seriously and will follow our appeals process. If the allegation of fraud refers to the journal’s editors, the matter will be investigated by an ad hoc committee consisting of three members of ESTS’s editorial board. In order to lodge a complaint about potentially fraudulent work published in ESTS, please contact the managing editor by email. Please note that we have a duty to inform the author and author’s institution if a complaint is upheld.

Researchers should only submit work that is original and that hasn’t been previously published. ESTS tolerates a small amount of self-citation, but authors are advised to use this option judiciously. Depending on the scale and nature of the plagiarism (e.g. redundant publication, text recycling, salami slicing) the author may be asked to rewrite and resubmit, or the paper may be declined entirely.