The Journal Policies

Publication ethics policy (academic integrity):

All articles undergo a double-blind review process.
Copyright terms are described in detail here.

The editorial board reserves the right to reject articles that do not meet scientific standards, lack originality, or fall outside the scope of the journal.

The journal is guided by the principles of COPE, WAME, DORA regarding the ethics of the publication process:

  • All participants in the process (authors, editors, reviewers) are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest
  • Editorial decisions are independent of commercial or institutional influences
  • The peer review and decision-making processes are clearly regulated
  • The peer review and decision-making processes are clearly regulated

Prohibited practices:

  • any form of plagiarism
  • self-plagiarism without proper citation
  • data falsification or fabrication
  • duplicate publication
  • incorrect authorship attribution

All participants in the publication process (editors, authors, and reviewers) must adhere to ethical standards to ensure the quality and reliability of publications:

  1. Ethical obligations of editors:
    • Careful selection and peer review of submitted articles
    • Impartial evaluation of manuscripts, regardless of the authors’ race, religion, or nationality
    • Exclusion of conflicts of interest and maintaining confidentiality at all stages of the publication process
    • Respect for copyright and mandatory citation of original sources during the electronic distribution of articles
  2. Ethical obligations of authors:
    • Providing an accurate and complete account of the research results, including appropriate references to sources
    • Responsibility for the content of the article and its compliance with scientific standards
    • Avoidance of plagiarism and simultaneous publication of results in multiple journals
    • Listing all co-authors who have made a significant scientific contribution, and disclosing any potential conflicts of interest
  3. Ethical obligations of reviewers:
    • Objective and confidential evaluation of manuscripts
    • Identification of potential conflicts of interest and timely provision of feedback
    • Responsibility for identifying errors and suggesting corrections if the work contains inaccurate data

Complaint handling procedure and retraction:

The journal’s editorial board considers complaints in accordance with the principles of objectivity, impartiality, and confidentiality, taking into account COPE guidelines. Complaints are reviewed within 30 calendar days

Complaints must be submitted electronically to the journal’s email address and must include: information about the complainant; a description of the complaint; and supporting materials. Anonymous submissions are considered only if sufficient evidence is provided.
Complaints are processed as follows: registration of the complaint; preliminary assessment of its validity; investigation involving the relevant parties; and decision-making by the editorial board.
Based on the review results, the following decisions may be made: rejection of the complaint; correction of the article; or retraction of the article.
Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions. Appeals are reconsidered with the involvement of independent experts.
A retraction notice is published separately, indicating the reasons, while the article remains in the archive with appropriate labeling. In cases where errors are identified that do not affect the main results, the editorial board publishes a correction.

Grounds for retraction include: plagiarism or self-plagiarism; falsification or fabrication of results; significant errors affecting the reliability of results; duplicate publication; violations of ethical or copyright standards; and unethical use of artificial intelligence.

Open access policy

The journal supports an Open Access model

  • all published materials are freely available for reading, downloading, and distribution
  • articles are distributed without access restrictions
  • authors retain copyright (under the CC BY 4.0 license)

Policy on the use of artificial intelligence

The journal recognizes the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools as auxiliary instruments but regulates their application as follows:

  • The use of AI is permitted for: language editing of texts; structuring of authors’ materials; use as a tool for searching information sources; visualization of authors’ data; and generation of UDC classification based on the article title
  • The use of AI is prohibited for: generating scientific results without author oversight; submitting texts entirely generated by AI without author verification; and concealing the use of AI

Authors must declare the use of AI (if applicable); full responsibility for the content rests with the authors; and AI cannot be listed as a co-author.

Publication fee policy

The journal publishes articles on a fee-based model (Article Processing Charges, APC):

  • the fee amount is determined by the editorial board and is published on this page of website (in the “Payment Terms” section)
  • the fee is charged only after the article has been accepted for publication
  • payment does not influence the peer review process or the decision on acceptance
  • the fee is the same for all authors
  • students enrolled in state-funded third-level higher education programs are eligible to have their individual articles published free of charge, provided that the articles meet the established requirements and adhere to the principles of academic integrity
  • discounted publication fees apply to articles by reviewers and to articles submitted in English

Archiving Policy

Article metadata are mandatorily registered using standardized bibliographic description formats and persistent identifiers (DOI, ORCID).

For long-term preservation, cloud services are used that support:

  • regular backup of data on secure servers;
  • use of long-term preservation formats (PDF);
  • file integrity checking;
  • secure server solutions with restricted access to the administrative section.

The Editorial Board guarantees:

  • free and permanent open access to all published materials;
  • preservation of content even in the event of the journal’s discontinuation;
  • stability of URLs and long-term accessibility of digital objects;
  • indexing of materials in open scientific search systems.

All journal materials are preserved indefinitely, with no time limitation on access.