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Corrections, retractions and editorial expressions of concern

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the journals and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after an investigation, there are valid concerns, the authors concerned will be contacted under their given email address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the journal and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

• If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

  1. an erratum/correction may be placed with the article.

  2. an editor’s note or editorial expression of concern may be placed with the article.

  3. or, in severe cases, retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, editor’s note, editorial expression of concern, or retraction notice. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform watermarked “retracted” and the explanation is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

• The author’s institution may be informed.
• A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

In exceptional circumstances, Science Press reserves the right to remove an article, chapter, book or other content from Science Press’s online platforms. Such action may be taken when (i) Science Press has been advised that content is defamatory, infringes a third party’s intellectual property right, right to privacy, or other legal right, or is otherwise unlawful; (ii) a court or government order has been issued, or is likely to be issued, requiring removal of such content; (iii) content, if acted upon, would pose an immediate and serious risk to health. Removal may be temporary or permanent. Bibliographic metadata (e.g. title and authors) will be retained, and will be accompanied by a statement explaining why the content has been removed. 

Where substantial doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article, journal editors may consider issuing an expression of concern. However, expressions of concern should only be issued if an investigation into the problems relating to the article has proven inconclusive, and if there remain strong indicators that the concerns are valid.  Under some rare cases, an editorial expression of concern may also be issued when an investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time.

The expression of concern will be linked back to the published article it relates to.