Publication Ethics
Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement
The Journal of the Ethiopian Society of Chemical Engineers (ESChE) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics. This statement is based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and applies to authors, reviewers, and editors involved with the journal.
Zero tolerance for misconduct: Plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, duplicate submission, and undisclosed conflicts of interest are treated as serious violations and may result in rejection, retraction, or a report to the author's institution.
Duties of Authors
Originality
Submitted work must be original. Ideas or words from other sources must be properly cited or quoted.
No Duplicate Submission
Manuscripts must not be submitted simultaneously to more than one journal, or substantially duplicate an already-published paper.
Data Integrity
Authors must present accurate data. Fabrication, falsification, or selective/misleading data reporting is prohibited.
Authorship criteria
Authorship should be limited to those who made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the work. All listed authors must have approved the final manuscript and agree to be accountable for its content. Anyone who contributed materially but does not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged separately.
Disclosure & conflicts of interest
Authors must disclose any financial, personal, or professional relationships that could be perceived to influence the results or their interpretation — including funding sources, employment, consultancies, or patents.
Fundamental errors in published work
If an author discovers a significant error in their own published work, they are obligated to promptly notify the journal's editor and cooperate to correct or retract the paper as needed.
Duties of Reviewers
Confidentiality
Manuscripts under review must be treated as confidential documents and not shared, discussed, or used for the reviewer's own advantage.
Objectivity & disclosure
Reviews should be conducted objectively, with comments supported by clear argument. Reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest and decline to review where one exists.
Alertness to related work
Reviewers should flag any substantial overlap between the manuscript and other published or submitted work of which they are aware.
Duties of Editors
Fair evaluation
Manuscripts are evaluated solely on their intellectual and technical merit, without regard to the authors' race, gender, religion, nationality, or institutional affiliation.
Confidentiality
Editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and publisher, as appropriate.
Handling misconduct allegations
Editors will investigate reported cases of suspected misconduct — including plagiarism and data manipulation — following COPE's established flowcharts, and take appropriate action such as requesting clarification, issuing a correction, or retracting the article.
Plagiarism Screening
All submitted manuscripts are screened for textual similarity using plagiarism-detection software prior to peer review. Manuscripts exceeding an acceptable similarity threshold, or showing evidence of unattributed copying, will be returned to the author or rejected outright.
Retractions & Corrections
Correction
Issued for minor errors that do not affect the overall validity or conclusions of the work (e.g., a typo in an author's affiliation or a data transcription slip).
Retraction
Issued when the integrity of the published work is seriously compromised — such as through confirmed data fabrication, plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research conduct.
Complaints & Appeals
Concerns about the editorial process, a published article, or suspected misconduct may be raised by contacting the editorial office. All complaints are reviewed following COPE guidelines, and authors may appeal an editorial decision by submitting a written request with supporting justification to the Editor-in-Chief.
Questions about this policy? Contact the editorial office at editor@esche.org.et.
