Tsinghua University Press (TUP) is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), adhering to its principles and guidelines for addressing misconduct to safeguard the integrity of research. TUP publishes journals complying with Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA). The journals independently make decisions on the journal contents. TUP supervises the behavior of the Editorial Office to ensure transparency and trusted publishing.
Authors are encouraged to value the opportunity for publication and uphold the esteemed reputation of TUP journals.
TUP endorses the definition of an author by ICMJE (updated January 2025). Individuals (limited to humans) that meet all the following four criteria can be recognized as authors:
● substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
● drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
● final approval of the version to be published; AND
● agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
The others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project but do not meet the criteria of an author should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. AI or AI-assisted technology should not be listed as authors.
For manuscripts with multiple authors, one or more authors should be indicated as the corresponding author. The corresponding author should ensure that all the authors have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication. In addition, the corresponding author is responsible for communicating with the editorial office, overseeing the publication process and ensuring the integrity of the final document.
Any change to the author list during the editorial process should be approved by all authors, including any who have been removed. The corresponding author should put forward a written application including the consent of all authors before the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) makes a final decision for the paper. It can be modified after EIC approval. Requests for a change in authorship will be evaluated and require the publication of a Correction for published papers.
The contributions of each author should be clarified when a manuscript is submitted to the TUP’s publication. The CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) author statement is suggested for use.
Authors should ensure the originality of their works. Reuse of text work should be appropriately cited or quoted, and permission should be obtained.
Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable in TUP journals. All the submissions are checked for plagiarism by CrossCheck (powered by iThenticate). If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation or action is taken on the basis of the COPE principles on plagiarism.
Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. When submitting the manuscript, all the authors should certify that the manuscript is original and has not been previously published or is not under consideration for publication in other journals. Once the misconduct behavior is confirmed, the paper is rejected.
The publication of very similar papers based on the same experiment and/or study constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable. Authors should avoid undue fragmentation of their work, that is, unnecessarily splitting a body of work into several shorter papers.
Previous publications on a preprint server such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and ChemRxiv could be considered a subsequent publication in TUP journals, but authors should fully disclose the fact at the time of submission and cite the preprint in the reference list. When the paper is published, authors are encouraged to link from the preprint server to the TUP journal’s publication to enable readers to find, access, and cite the final peer-reviewed version.
The content could be published, which first appeared in an author’s thesis or dissertation so long as this is the only form in which it has appeared. It should be noted in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and cited accordingly in the reference list.
Conference papers or abstracts should expand their content to be considered original work. Authors should obtain permission for reuse if they do not hold copyright, and it should be cited in the reference list before submission.
Editors are in-house editors and Editorial Board Members (EBMs) who take on an editorial role on behalf of the Publisher. The EIC is ultimately accountable for the decision of a manuscript. Editors should exercise their responsibilities on the basis of the EIC’s or EBM’s suggestion of whether the paper needs to be modified or can be published. Editors should obey the responsibilities below.
Manuscripts should be handled in a confidential manner. No details should be disclosed to anyone before it is published without permission from the author (except the reviewers, potential reviewers, EIC, publisher or the occasion where a formal investigation into the allegations of unethical behavior is being conducted). Editors should respect the independence of the authors’ ideas.
Editors should evaluate all manuscripts fairly and promptly, on the basis solely of their intellectual merit. They must assess submissions without bias, disregarding the authors’ ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, age, or institutional affiliation. However, editors may consider the history record of the previous manuscripts submitted by the same authors. Editors can reject the manuscript directly if it is not in accordance with the requirements of a specific journal in terms of theme, breadth, depth, and English expression.
Editors should follow up on any indications or allegations of questionable research practices in a timely manner and consider appeals that are against editorial decisions fairly and seriously.
Manuscript review is an essential stage in the process of publishing, and peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers have the following responsibilities.
Reviewers should inform the editor of any similarity between the submitted manuscript and work that is already published or under consideration at other journals.
Reviewers should alert the editor if there is any indication of potential misconduct, including but not limited to ethical concerns regarding animal experiments or studies involving human subjects and scientific misconduct.
Reviewers should treat the manuscript and the review process as confidential. The content in the manuscript shall not be shared with others, nor shall reviewers use nonpublic information contained in a paper to advance their own research or financial interests.
Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format.
Reviewers should focus on the content of the manuscript, avoid personal criticism and evaluate the quality of the manuscript, the level of the experiments and the theory objectively.
● Reviewers should explain and support their judgments.
● Reviewers should identify whether the relevant and important literature has been properly cited by the authors. Guiding the authors to cite the reviewer’s own paper is absolutely forbidden.
Any reviewer who feels unqualified to review the manuscript or prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor immediately.
TUP follows the COPE position statement and the Ethical and Practical Guidelines for the Use of Generative AI in the Publication Process released by STM regarding the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools. For everyone who may be involved in academic publication, TUP journals adopt the following policies and continuously monitor development and adjust or refine this policy when appropriate.
● GenAI should not be listed or cited as an author or coauthor.
● GenAI cannot be used to create, alter, or manipulate original research data and images.
● GenAI can be used to help authors in formatting, language editing, and correcting.
● Authors should disclose the use of GenAI at submission in the cover letter and provide details of how GenAI was used within the Method, Acknowledgments, or other related sections.
● Any undisclosed use of GenAI is possibly considered misbehavior.
● The editorial team (including the Editorial Office and Editorial Committee) could use trusted GenAI platforms to perform integrity checks, such as copyright infringement, unauthorized reuse, paraphrasing, or plagiarism, if only they ensure that intellectual property and privacy are protected.
● The editorial team should not fully rely on GenAI outcomes.
● If the Journal is informed about the undisclosed use of GenAI by the author, the Editorial Office initiates an investigation.
● GenAI should not be used to create a review of a paper.
● Manuscripts under review, including supplementary material, should never be uploaded to publicly available GenAI services.
● If the peer reviewers suspect undisclosed use of GenAI by the authors, they should inform the Editorial Office.
TUP adheres to the COPE principles regarding appeals and complaints concerning the peer-review process and editorial decisions. Authors have the right to appeal if they believe their manuscript was unfairly treated during peer review or if they consider the rejection decision to be incorrect. However, to lodge an appeal, authors must present substantial evidence or new information/data that counters the reviewers’ comments and the editors’ decisions.
Authors should submit their appeal letter to the Journal’s Editorial Office, directing it to the editors, and include specific responses, evidentiary materials, or any new information/data they wish the journal to consider.
Authors must not submit their manuscript for publication elsewhere until they receive a final decision or decide to withdraw their manuscript from consideration and have informed the journal accordingly. Each appeal is assessed on its individual merits. Editors consider only one appeal per manuscript, and the EIC’s decision on the appeal is final.
The social relationships or bias of researchers may influence their reports of findings. Usually, it is difficult to judge whether such an impact exists. The authors are requested to transparently disclose their affiliations, fundings, and conflicts of interest along with their articles to allow the readers to make their own judgments. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed when the manuscript is submitted to the Journal.
Conflicts of interest may also impact peer review for reviewers and decision-making for editors. Before a manuscript is handled, potential peer reviewers and editors should report any conflicts of interest.
Potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include but are not limited to:
● Funding: Research grants from the government and nonprofit academic societies. It should be declared in the Funding section with the correct funder names and the grant numbers.
● Financial relationships: Benefits, gifts, or services received from commercial organizations or companies that may benefit from or lose through the publication of an article. Employment (especially when an author’s affiliation is a commercial company), patents (including issued or pending), stock ownership, consultancies, equipment and materials (offered for free by a commercial company), etc., should be declared.
● Editorial relationships: If the authors are members of the Journal’s EBMs or a guest editor for the current Special Issue during the peer-review process of a manuscript, they should never be involved in the decision-making and review of this manuscript. It needs to be declared who and what roles they play.
● Other nonfinancial relationships include academic commitment, personal relations, political or religious beliefs, etc. These relationships should be declared if they are strong enough to be competing interests.
An ICMJE Disclosure Form or Conflict of Interest Policy by WAME may assist in determining what should be disclosed.
TUP acknowledges its responsibility to correct any scientifically relevant errors in published papers that may impact their scientific interpretation. The Editorial Office is fully responsible for the correction, retraction, or expression of concerns for the publications.
Authors will have the chance to double check symbols, formulas, and figure legends before final publication, as these may accidentally have changed during typesetting. After final publication, substantial changes in content, such as new results and corrected values, are not allowed without the approval of the EIC.
Corrections are made when:
● the authorship is changed, OR,
● there are scientifically relevant errors, e.g., missing sections/tables/figures, raw data errors, replacing images, table, and figure errors, OR,
● an entire reference has been added or removed.
Correction could be raised by:
● The authors. It should be submitted by the corresponding author with the approval of all coauthors, especially when it is related to scientific or nonscientific content. The original article title, author list, link to the article, and correction details should be included in the communication with the Journal. A new manuscript to address the correction is strongly recommended when it relates to scientific content. If new materials that add to/replace the original article probably change the scientific findings, they must be submitted for peer review. With respect to nonscientific content, the Editorial Office carefully reviews the evidence to avoid ethical misconduct. Authors should understand that the Editorial Office may refuse the authors’ correcting request, express editorial concerns, or retract this article after investigation.
● The readers or the Editorial Office. The Editorial Office will investigate it in collaboration with the authors. The authors’ institution may be informed when there is a suspected research integrity issue.
Once approved by the Editorial Office and EIC, the paper will be revised, accompanied by the publication of a correction note. A correction note is a distinct publication that is linked to the updated paper. It serves to inform all readers that a significant change has been made, and the updated version is available on the website. Notification will be sent to all relevant indexing databases to ensure that their records are updated as well.
TUP journals adhere to the COPE’s Retraction Guidelines for handling retractions, which is summarized below, and refer to the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (NISO RP-45-2024) Guidelines. A summary of COPE’s Retraction Guidelines is as follows:
The main purpose of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity rather than to punish the authors. Retractions could be requested by an article’s authors, by an institution, by readers, or by the editor. The Journal may retract publication even if all or some of the authors do not agree.
The original publication will be retained on the platform with a “Retracted” watermark, and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked paper.
The Journal considers retracting a publication if:
● Clear evidence reveals that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error) or as a result of fabrication (e.g., of data) or falsification (e.g., image manipulation).
● It constitutes plagiarism.
● The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication).
● It contains material or data without authorization for use.
● Copyright has been infringed upon, or there are other serious legal issues (e.g., libel and privacy).
● It reports unethical research.
● It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer-review process.
● The authors failed to disclose a major conflict of interest that, in the editor’s view, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.
Notices of retraction will:
● Be linked to the retracted article wherever possible (i.e., in all online versions).
● Clearly identify the retracted article (e.g., by including the title and authors in the retraction heading or citing the retracted article).
● Be clearly identified as a retraction (i.e., distinct from other types of correction or comment).
● Be published promptly to minimize harmful effects.
● Be freely available to all readers (i.e., not behind access barriers or available only to subscribers).
● State who is retracting the article.
● State the reason for retraction.
● Be objective, factual, and avoid inflammatory language.
Corrections or expressions of concern are usually issued instead of retractions if:
● The authorship is disputed, but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings.
● The main findings of the work are still reliable, and corrections could sufficiently address errors or concerns.
● An editor has inconclusive evidence to support retraction or is awaiting additional information, such as from an institutional investigation.
● Author conflicts of interest have been reported to the Journal after publication, but in the editor’s view, these conflicts are unlikely to have influenced the interpretations, recommendations, or conclusions of the article.
When an investigation is ongoing or the evidence is inconclusive, an Expression of Concern may be issued. Editors believe that it is essential to inform readers about potential issues within the paper to uphold journal transparency:
● there is a suspicion of academic misconduct within the paper, yet the evidence is insufficient to determine it as such; OR
● the results of the study are suspected to be unreliable, but the author’s institution is unwilling to initiate an investigation; OR
● conflicting interpretations exist among the authors; OR
● an investigation is in progress, and final conclusions may require an extended period.
TUP is committed to promoting transparency, reproducibility, and the advancement of scientific research. To this end, TUP encourages authors to share their scientific data by presenting in the main manuscript or the supplementary materials, or by depositing datasets into publicly available data repositories.
The requirements for data sharing depend on the individual journal. For some journals, especially biological and medical journals, deposition of new scientific data in a community-endorsed publicly accessible platform, or registration in a clinical trial registry is mandatory. Examples of appropriate public repositories are listed below:
● Biological magnetic resonance data: Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank
● Nucleic sequences: Genbank
● Protein sequences: Uniprot
● Protein structure: Protein Data Bank
TUP journals require the authors to give a statement on data availability. Any restrictions on availability, including if data is distributed by a for-profit company, must be clearly stated in the manuscript. The data availability statement should be given as one of below:
● For any article type contains no new scientific data, data sharing is not appliable.
● Declare that all data are included in the paper and supplementary materials.
● Declare under what circumstances the authors can be contacted for the data.
● Declare from which platform, what types of the data are obtained, and provide the link and accession number.
● Declare the clinical registration name, registration identification number, registration date, name of the register, and URL for the registry.
In cases where there is suspicion of misconduct, TUP journals will conduct an investigation in accordance with the principles and workflow suggested by COPE. If valid concerns arise, the authors will be contacted to discuss the matter. TUP journals may then implement the following measures, among others:
(1) If the manuscript is still under review, it may be rejected and returned to the authors.
(2) If the paper has been published online, the response will vary on the basis of the nature and severity of the violation:
● a correction may be appended to the paper, OR
● an expression of concern may be issued alongside the paper, OR
● in extreme cases, retraction of the paper may be warranted.
During or after the investigation, the related institutes of the authors will be informed to conduct the investigation or about the decision.
TUP considers only the removal of a published article from the website and relevant dataset when the Editorial Office believes that its availability to the public may pose a risk of substantial harm to public health or safety or when it infringes on a third party’s legal right. A statement will therefore address why the content has been removed.
A Journal occasionally organizes special issues focusing on certain topics (e.g., research hotspots). The guest editors are experts in this topic and who are mostly invited by the EIC or EBMs. The general peer review process for special issues is almost the same with the regular submissions. The only difference is that for special issues, the guest editors will send the submissions out to the reviewers and may recommend a decision to the EiCs or EBMs. EiCs or EBMs oversees the aim and scope of the special issue, the background of the guest editors, and the peer review process of all special issues to ensure the high standards of publishing ethics as well as are responsible for the final decisions of the submissions in special issues.
