Publication Ethics

The editors’ roles and responsibilities

1. Publishing Policy
The editors of the journal select manuscripts based on their quality, ensuring that they align with the journal’s aim and scope, and comply with relevant legal standards. During the selection process, equal treatment is upheld, with no discrimination based on ethnicity, race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, or political affiliation. The ultimate responsibility for manuscript acceptance rests with the editors, who make their decisions based on the outcomes of the double-blind peer review process.

2. Transparency and Confidentiality in the Review Process
Journal editors are responsible for supervising the entire review process, ensuring that manuscripts are assessed by qualified experts in the field and receive a fair and unbiased evaluation. Additionally, they uphold the confidentiality of all information pertaining to the manuscripts, as well as the identities of authors and reviewers, except in instances of ethical violations, such as plagiarism.

3. Plagiarism Prevention and Management
Editors implement rigorous measures to detect and address plagiarism and other ethical violations.

All submissions received are verified using a dedicated software and the generated similarity reports are analyzed by the Editor.

Manuscripts found to be suspect are rejected, and the appropriate authorities are promptly notified. If ethical breaches are confirmed, the editors will inform the author’s affiliated institution and communicate the misconduct to the broader scientific community.

Authors’ Duties and Responsibilities

1. Manuscript Preparation and Quality Criteria
Authors must ensure that their manuscripts align with the aims and scope of the journal, and that their content fully complies with the guidelines published on the journal’s website. The submitted contribution must be original, the result of the authors’ own research, with appropriate citation of all sources and references used. Authors are required to provide accurate and complete information regarding their institutional affiliation, as well as a valid email address for correspondence. Additionally, they must mention in the acknowledgments section if the research has received financial support, providing relevant details to identify the grant or project. Authors are obligated to respond to the editorial team’s requests, adhere to established deadlines, and consider any suggestions provided. They assume full responsibility for the content of the submitted material.

2. Authorship
Individuals are considered authors of a work if they actively contributed to research, the development of arguments, data interpretation, and the drafting of the manuscript. In some instances, authors may clearly outline their specific contributions or state that they have shared equal responsibility in the creation of the work.

3. Errors in Published Works
Should the author identify any errors after the material’s publication, they are responsible for promptly contacting the journal’s editorial team to request a correction, revision, or, in more serious cases, a retraction of the work.

Reviewers’ Duties and Responsibilities

1.Professional Expertise and Deadline Compliance
Reviewers are expected to decline evaluating an article if they do not possess the required expertise. Those selected must provide a thorough, objective assessment of the manuscript, utilizing the evaluation form provided by the editorial team. Their feedback should be constructive, respectful, and free from any personal criticism. Furthermore, reviewers are expected to adhere to the given deadline for completing their evaluations. If unable to meet the deadline, they should promptly notify the editorial team and request an extension.

2. Conflicts of Interest
If reviewers suspect or discover the identities of the authors, and the existence of a conflict of interest (personal, financial, professional, etc.), they must promptly notify the editorial team and recuse themselves from the manuscript review process.

3. Ethical Misconduct
If reviewers identify any deviations from ethical, such as plagiarism, data manipulation, or other forms of fraudulent conduct, they are required to promptly report them to the editorial team.

Intellectual Property Rights and Responsibilities

The editors will take all necessary measures to safeguard the author’s rights, ensuring compliance with applicable copyright laws.

The author is responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce illustrations, maps, tables, and other content from external publications or electronic sources.

If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the author(s) must complete, fill out, and submit an agreement to the correspondence address of the Romanian Journal of Population Studies, certifying the scientific quality of the submission and the transfer of intellectual property rights.

Agreement of guarantee and attribution of intellectual property.Download [file format .doc (51.0 KB)]

Use of GenAI tools

Our journal recognizes the potential of GenAI to assist authors in writing their manuscripts. However, to ensure responsible use and maintain the integrity of our publication, any use of GenAI during the research or writing process must be clearly disclosed in Acknowledgments Section: which tool and how it contributed to your work (e.g., for grammar and style improvement, literature review assistance, brainstorming initial ideas for the structure etc.).
Outputs of GenAI require human verification and critical analysis. The author(s) remain(s) responsible for the accuracy, originality, and validity of the work.

Open Access Statement

Romanian Journal of Population Studies is an open access journal. All content is freely available: users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print for research use, search or link to the full texts of articles, with proper citation.

Articles can be cited using their unique DOI (Digital Object Identifier). However, the commercial use of the freely available articles (e.g. pay per view) is prohibited.

The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.

Archiving

The content of the journal is archived in the Digital Library of the “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca. Archive