Chinese Journal of Food Hygiene follows internationally recognized publication ethical standards. According to the relevant guidelines published by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) and combined with the actual situation of the journal, we have formulated the ethical standards for the publication of the journal:
1. Duty of Authors:
1) Authors have duty to ensure the originality of their manuscripts, and ensure that research results of other researchers used in the manuscripts are properly cited and marked, and the manuscripts do not involve plagiarism, data falsification, multiple submissions, redundant publication, confidential information, etc.
2) All listed authors must meet the journal's authorship criteria, that is, all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation. They should have made substantial contributions to the following: conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, etc.
3) Authors have duty to declare their individual contribution to the research and article, as well as all potential conflicts of interest involved in the research. All authors need to fill in and submit the journal's Author Contribution Statement and Conflict of Interest Statement (see Download Center). This is to confirm that all authors have made substantial contributions to the article and there is no nominal author, and to disclose all potential conflicts of interest involved in the research. A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could influence (or bias) the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript. Authors should also disclose conflicts of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.
4) Authors should state the funding information related to the research in the manuscript, but not other funding information unrelated to the research.
2. Duty of Editors:
1) Editors should deal with each manuscript fairly and impartially, and accept or reject a manuscript according to the journal's scope, the novelty and academic quality of the manuscript.
2) Editors should strictly follow the review process of the journal and keep the true review records. They have the duty to keep confidential the information of authors and reviewers, the authors' research results, and the intermediate materials in manuscript processing.
3) Editors have the responsibility to avoid academic misconduct such as multiple submissions and redundant publication. Editors should conduct plagiarism checking on all manuscripts.
4) Editors should provide authors with detailed revision opinions or reasons for rejection as much as possible, objectively state the review status of manuscripts, and do not make personal comments or attacks on review experts and authors.
5) In the process of editing and publishing, editors should not only pay attention to publishing standards, but also respect author's point of view and writing style, and should obtain author's consent for key revisions of a manuscript, such as revision to academic views.
6) Editors have the duty to accept appeals from authors. If authors have any disagreement to the review comments or review results, they could submit a written appeal to the Editorial Office by sending it to the journal’s email (spws462@163.com). Author who submits appeal needs to make detailed explanation for each review comment. After receiving the appeal, editors will investigate and deal with it as soon as possible, and the result of the appeal will be fed back to the author.
7) Editors should encourage authors and readers to make discussion on the journal’s published articles. Comments can be sent to the journal’s email (spws462@163.com). Editors will deal with it as soon as possible and give feedback as appropriate. We welcome readers and authors to actively provide their comments on the articles to the journal, which can help us to create a positive academic environment.
3. Duty of Reviewers:
1) Reviewers should make honest, objective, and fair review based on the principles of maintaining academic integrity and respecting academic freedom; they shall not prejudice or discriminate against author's country, institution, race, religion, political belief, gender, etc., and shall not disclose the research content of manuscripts that they review.
2) When there are conflicts of interest between reviewer and author (e.g., kinship, teacher-student relationship, alumni relationship, colleague relationship, competition relationship), in order to ensure the fairness of the review, the reviewer should consult the Editorial Office in time to obtain further suggestions.
3) When a reviewer finds the research is similar to his/her own, the review comments must not contain unsubstantiated or malicious criticism and unfair content. The reviewer should avoid making unfounded allegations.
4) Reviewers should review manuscripts in a timely manner as agreed. If reviews cannot be returned on time, the reviewer should notify the Editorial Office in time and withdraw from reviewing the manuscript, and can recommend suitable reviewers. Without the permission of the Editorial Office, reviewers are not allowed to entrust their own students or colleagues to review the manuscripts on their own behalf.
5) When reviewers encounter a manuscript, they have reviewed, they are obliged to report the situation to the Editorial Office and complete the review according to the journal’s standards.
