Publication Ethics and Ethical Clearence

Publication Ethics

Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

• Editors shall evaluate manuscripts solely on the basis of their academic merit originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

• Editors shall ensure a fair, unbiased, and timely double-blind peer review process for every submission.

• Editors shall not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

• Editors shall not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research without the express written consent of the author.

• Editors shall recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest, whether professional, financial, or personal.

• Editors shall take reasonable responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised regarding a submitted or published manuscript, in line with the procedures set out in Section 4.

• Editors shall ensure that all submissions are screened for plagiarism and, where applicable, undisclosed AI-generated content prior to being sent for review. 

Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers

• Reviewers shall assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may, through editorial communications, also assist authors in improving their manuscript.

• Reviewers who feel unqualified to review a manuscript, or who cannot complete the review within the required timeframe, shall notify the editors promptly so that alternative reviewers may be contacted.

• Any manuscript received for review shall be treated as a confidential document and shall not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editors.

• Reviews shall be conducted objectively; personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers shall express their views clearly, with supporting arguments.

• Reviewers shall identify relevant published work not cited by the authors and shall bring to the editors' attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published work of which they have personal knowledge.

• Reviewers with a conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submission shall decline to review the manuscript.

• Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review shall be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Duties and Responsibilities of Authors

• Authors of original research shall present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data shall be represented accurately in the manuscript. A manuscript shall contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.

• Authors shall ensure that they have written entirely original works, and that if the work or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

• An author shall not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication (duplicate submission/publication).

• Authorship shall be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions shall be listed as co-authors, and all co-authors shall have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

• Authors shall disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript, and shall disclose all sources of financial support for the project.

• Authors shall promptly notify the editors if they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, and shall cooperate with the editors to retract or correct the paper.

• Where research involves human participants, animals, or the use of sensitive personal, cultural, or cross-border migration data, authors shall obtain and declare all necessary ethical approvals as set out in Section 3.

Ethical Clearance

Research Involving Human Participants

Given the journal's scope — transnational and transborder phenomena including migration, displacement, refugee movements, cross-border trade and labor, diaspora communities, and border governance — many submissions to Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies will involve human participants, primary interviews, surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, or secondary use of personal data. All such research must have been conducted in accordance with the ethical principles set out in the Declaration of Helsinki (as most recently revised) and any equivalent national or institutional regulations applicable to the researchers' home institution or the location of the fieldwork.

Authors must have obtained prior approval from a properly constituted Research Ethics Committee (REC) or Institutional Review Board (IRB) before commencing data collection. The name of the approving body, the approval/protocol reference number, and the date of approval must be reported in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Informed Consent and Data Protection

• Free and informed consent must be obtained from all identifiable human participants, and this must be explicitly stated in the manuscript.

• Where participants are unable to give informed consent, or where the study involves vulnerable populations, authors must describe the measures taken to protect participants' rights and welfare, including consent obtained from a legal guardian or authorized representative where applicable.

• Identifying information (names, precise locations, images, or other identifying details) shall not be published without explicit, specific consent from the individual concerned, unless the identifying information is essential for scientific purposes and its omission would compromise the validity of the research — in which case additional written consent for publication is required.

• Authors must comply with applicable data protection regulations governing the cross-border transfer, storage, and processing of personal data collected in the course of transnational research.

Vulnerable Groups and Cross-Border/Migration Data

Research involving refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, undocumented migrants, trafficked persons, children, or other populations in precarious legal or humanitarian situations requires particular care. Authors must demonstrate in their manuscript that:

• Participation was genuinely voluntary and free from coercion arising from participants' dependence on humanitarian, legal, or state assistance;

• Confidentiality and, where necessary, anonymity were protected to avoid exposing participants to legal, physical, social, or economic risk (including risk of immigration enforcement action);

• Data collected across national borders were handled in accordance with the legal requirements of all relevant jurisdictions; and

• Where full formal ethical review was not institutionally available (e.g., in certain field settings), an equivalent ethical risk assessment was conducted and is described in the manuscript, together with a justification.

Mandatory Ethical Clearance Statement

All manuscripts reporting research involving human participants must include an “Ethical Clearance Statement” immediately before the References section, using substantially the following format:

Manuscripts based entirely on publicly available secondary data, documentary/archival analysis, or policy analysis that do not involve direct engagement with human participants must include a brief statement confirming this, e.g., “This study did not involve human participants and did not require ethical clearance.”

 

Research and Publication Misconduct

Forms of Misconduct

Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies treats the following, without limitation, as research or publication misconduct:

• Fabrication or falsification of data, findings, or results.

• Plagiarism, as defined in Section 5.

• Duplicate or redundant submission or publication without appropriate disclosure and cross-referencing.

• Undisclosed or inappropriate use of artificial intelligence in the generation of manuscript text, data, or analysis, as defined in Section 6.

• Improper allocation of authorship, including ghost authorship, guest authorship, and gift authorship.

• Failure to disclose material conflicts of interest or sources of funding.

• Ethical violations in the treatment of human participants, including failure to obtain appropriate ethical clearance or informed consent.

• Manipulation of the citation or peer-review process, including citation stacking and reviewer coercion of self-citation.

Reporting and Investigation Procedure

• Concerns regarding possible misconduct may be raised by editors, reviewers, readers, or any third party, and should be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief with supporting evidence.

• The Editor-in-Chief shall conduct a preliminary assessment and, where warranted, refer the matter to the Editorial Board's Ethics Committee for formal investigation, following COPE's published flowcharts and guidelines.

• The author(s) concerned shall be given a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations before any final decision is made.

• Where the allegation concerns the author's institution (e.g., falsification of data, breach of ethical clearance requirements), the journal may refer the matter to the relevant institution or funding body for further investigation.

• The investigation and its outcome shall be documented and retained by the editorial office in accordance with the journal's records-retention policy.

Sanctions

Depending on the severity of confirmed misconduct, Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies may apply one or more of the following sanctions: formal written warning to the author(s); mandatory correction; requirement of a formal explanation from the author's institution; rejection of the manuscript; retraction of a published article (see Section 7); a formal notice of the finding published in the journal; a ban on future submissions from the author(s) for a specified or indefinite period; and, where appropriate, notification of the author's institution and/or relevant professional or funding bodies.