Retraction policy

Retraction of a published article is an official procedure applied in cases of violations of academic integrity, publication ethics, or significant errors that affect the reliability of research results. Retraction is carried out in accordance with international standards COPE Retraction Guidelines.

The editorial board may publish a Correction or Erratum for minor errors that do not affect the validity of the research results, without going through the retraction procedure. All corrections are subject to approval by the journal’s editorial board.

Correction / Erratum

If errors are found in published articles, depending on their nature and severity, the journal corrects the errors by:

• publishing a short notice about the Correction / Erratum;
• all corrections are accompanied by an explanation, which is published in the Notices section on the journal’s website.
• making changes to the electronic version of the article with appropriate notation;
• 
linking the corrections to the original publication (using a unique DOI);
• 
updating metadata where necessary.

The term ‘Editorial Error’ is used in cases where a significant error occurs on the part of the journal’s editorial board during the editing of an article for publication. A significant error is an error that affects the scientific presentation and integrity of the article, the reputation of the authors or the journal, as well as compliance with the requirements of the Procedure for the Formation of the List of Scientific Professional Journals of Ukraine.

Expression of Concern

The expression of concern is used in cases of reasonable suspicion regarding the authenticity or integrity of a publication. The editorial board publishes a notice about the expression of concern, stating the grounds and the status of the review (without disclosing personal data); upon completion of the review, the notice is replaced by a correction or retraction, or the concern is withdrawn with an appropriate explanation.

The editorial board guarantees objectivity, impartiality and adherence to the principles of fairness during the consideration of all cases.

Article retraction procedure proceeds on the following grounds:

• plagiarism or unauthorised use of other authors' results or materials of research;
• falsification or fabrication of data or facts;
• significant errors in the research that affected its results (caused erroneous results);
• duplicate publication (without corresponding references or approval from the editors of other publications);
• copyright infringement.

 Retraction is initiated by authors, reviewers, the editorial board, or readers based on a substantiated request.

The person initiating the retraction submits a written statement justifying the reasons for retracting the publication. The written statement is submitted to the editorial board, indicating the facts and evidence justifying the procedure.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board conduct an initial review of the statement. Based on the results of an impartial investigation conducted in accordance with the principles of publication ethics and the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, the Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Editorial Board, makes one of the following decisions:

• dismiss the complaint as unjustified;
• correct the article by publishing a correction note;
• officially retract the article with a published notification.

In the event of a decision to retract an article, an official notification about the retraction of the article is published on the journal's website and in the relevant issue, stating the reasons for the retraction; the electronic version of the article remains publicly available with the note ‘Retracted’; information about the retraction of the publication is sent to the relevant indexing and scientometric databases. The author(s) are notified in writing of the reasons for and consequences of the retraction. The applicant (if not the author) is notified of the editorial board's decision.

The author(s) have the right to appeal within 30 days following notification of the retraction. The appeal is reviewed by the editor-in-chief and independent experts, whose decision is final.