Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development

The editorial board, peer reviewers, institutional partners, authors and publisher of the Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development (VJBSD) implement the rules for publication ethics and malpractice, which are based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for best practices for journal editors.

The Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, in cooperation with other economic faculties from the Visegrad Association, publishes the international peer-reviewed scientific journal Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development twice a year. In addition to the founding members, universities and institutions from Thailand, India, Turkey, Moldova, Italy and Germany decided to support the idea of ​​cooperation within the Visegrad Association, and currently it has 43 full and 12 honorary members. The VJBSD journal meets the requirements of the publication process, recognizing the ethical responsibility of all parties to the publication process. Therefore, we take our stewardship responsibility at all stages of publication very seriously and recognize our ethical obligations and other responsibilities.

Duties and responsibilities of editors

Editorial Board accountability

The members of Editorial and Scientific Boards are recognized experts in their fields, their full names and affiliations are provided on the journal web site in the section Editorial Board. The contact information for the editorial office is on the journal web site, section Contact.

Editors of a peer-reviewed journal are responsible for decisions about the articles submitted to the journal – which of them should be published, and, moreover, are accountable for everything published in the journal. In making these decisions, editors may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board as well as by legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Editors should maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct. Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct. An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.

Publication decisions

The editors are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers always drive such decisions. The editors are guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play

Editors should evaluate each paper according to its intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. The editors’ decision to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study´s relevance to the aim of journal. The editors cannot disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than the author(s), reviewers and potential reviewers, and in some instances the editorial board members, as appropriate.

Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. The editors make ensure that material submitted remains confidential while under review.

Disclosure and conflict of interests
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors are guided by COPE’s Guidelines for Retracting Articles when considering retracting, issuing expressions of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published in our journal.  Editors are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. The editor should seek so ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

Peer-review process

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

All submitted papers received by the editorial office are firstly checked by the editors to determine, if they are properly prepared and follow the ethical policies of the journal. The editors are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editors are guided by the policies of the journal editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as copyright infringement and plagiarism. Papers that do not fit the journal ethics policy or do not meet the requirements of the journal will be rejected before the peer-review process. Papers that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.

Once a manuscript passes the editorial checks, it will be assigned to two independent experts for a double blind peer-review. The reviewing process is described in details on the journal’s web site in the section Peer Review Policy. Judgements should be objective, reviewers should have no conflict of interest and should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited. Reviewed articles should be treated confidentially. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the paper and the may recommend to: (i) publish the paper in the current form, (ii) publish the paper after minor corrections, (iii) publish the paper after major corrections and an additional review, (iv) reject the paper. The final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will also be sent to the corresponding author along with any recommendations made by the reviewers.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion.

The guidance for authors are published on the journal’s Web site in the section Instruction for Authors. The guidance for reviewers are published on the journal’s Web site in the section Peer Review Policy.

Similarity check and anti-plagiarism policy
The editors are responsible for scanning all submitted papers in order to detect plagiarism. If plagiarism is detected, the paper is rejected from publication. The journal content is indexed in Similarity Check, the CrossRef initiative to prevent scholarly and professional plagiarism.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

The editors should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher. Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Archiving
The editors ensure digital preservation of access to the journal content on the journal web site. All the printed issues of the EMS journal are available in the registry and library of the Department of Statistics, Operation research and Mathematics, Faculty of Economics and management, Slovak university of Agriculture in Nitra. Based on Slovak publishing regulations on permanent and compulsory availability of all printed issues of scientific journals, all the printed issues of VJBSD journal are available in 12 most important scientific libraries in Slovakia.
This journal is indexed on outstanding databases such as EBSCO, Index Copernicus, CEEOL, GALE etc., that act as permanent electronic archives for academic journals.
This journal is a member of Crossref, which is an organization for publishing working to make manuscripts easy to find, cite and assess. Crossref is an official Digital Object Identifier Registration Agency.

This journal permits to use copies of the manuscripts on the personal websites of authors, on non-commercial discipline-specific servers of preprints, and within non-commercial digital repositories of non-profit institutions with which the authors are affiliated.

Web site
The editors ensure that the journal web site, including the text that it contains, demonstrates that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.

Publishing schedule 
Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development (VJBSD) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published twice a year (June and December) by the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra.

Name of journal
Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development (VJBSD) journal is unique and it cannot be easily confused with another journal or misled potential authors and readers about the journal origin or association with other journals.

Duties and responsibilities of reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the editors in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Authors who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

Promptness
Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process, so that the relevant reviewers may be contacted.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editors.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Independent, external reviewers, who are experts in the given academic field, are not affiliated with the research center represented by the author.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer´s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties and responsibilities of authors

Reporting standards

The paper must be an original unpublished work written in good English. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work, underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

The paper submitted to the VJBSD journal should neither been published before nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The only exception is if the submitted manuscript builds on previously published articles elsewhere by the same author(s). In this case, author(s) are obligated to show more significant development in the submitted manuscript than the original published article and also to show that the original article is well cited in the submitted manuscript.

All papers are subjected to a double blind, peer-review process. Firstly, each submission is reviewed by the journal editors, who may reject it, if it is not dealing with the subject matter of the journal and does not meet the journal requirements or if it is of a low quality. In the second stage of the review process, the paper is sent to two independent reviewers. The Journal uses anonymous double-blind review process. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the paper and they may recommend to: (i) publish the paper in the current form, (ii) publish the paper after minor corrections, (iii) publish the paper after major corrections and an additional review, (iv) reject the paper. Reviewers include the recommendations and comments, which are then sent to the author(s). The editors should not reverse decisions on publication unless serious problems are identified.

Each paper must be submitted by e-mail to: renata.prokeinova@uniag.sk. The paper is successfully submitted if the author receives a confirmation e-mail.

Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from „passing off‟ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper.

Acknowledgement of sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work and supporting the claims they made.

Authorship of the paper

Authors, whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. VJBSD assumes that all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Copyright and Access

The author(s) must agree that the published version of the paper will be placed on the website of the journal (in pdf format). Before an article goes to print, the author(s) must sign and return the copyright agreement (scanned signed copy in pdf) provided by the journal.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible. Readers should be informed about funding sources of the research and on the role of the funders in the research.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author´s obligation to promptly notify the journal editors or publisher and cooperate with the editors to retract or correct the paper. If the editors or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Open access and copyright policy
The journal offers access to the contents in the open access system on the principles of non-exclusive license Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Appeals and complaints

Appeals and complaints procedure applies to appeals to editorial decisions, complaints about failure of processes such as long delays in handling papers and complaints about publication ethics. The complaint should in first instance be handled by the Editor-in-Chief(s) responsible for the journal and/or the Editor who handled the paper. If they are the subject of the complaint please approach the in-house publishing contact as regards scientific content, (e.g., an appeal against rejection), processes (e.g., time taken to review), and publication ethics (e.g., author’s, or reviewer’s conduct).

Publication fee
There is no publication fee for the manuscript processing in the Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development (VJBSD).

Authorship principles

VJBSD journal assumes that all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted. Authors must adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. All authors whose names appear on the submission made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; approved the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate). All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. The corresponding author should ensure that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors, manage all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication, provide transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor, and make sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate. The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. Authors are advised to ensure the correct author group, the corresponding author, and the order of authors at submission. An author who has changed their name for reasons such as gender transition or religious conversion may request for their name, pronouns and other relevant biographical information to be corrected on papers published prior to the change. Authors are strongly recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process. For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative. Authors should treat all communication with the journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information. In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate.

Biosafety and biosecurity

Research submitted into the journal must be carried out in compliance with relevant institutional biosafety and biosecurity protocols and any national or international recommendations relevant to the research field. Researchers are expected to be aware of dual-use concerns related to their work and take steps to minimize misuse of their work. Where submitted research is deemed to present a potential dual-use risk, the Editor may ask authors to provide details of how such a risk has been mitigated and how it complies with their institutional and funder’s requirements, as well as any national regulations.  We reserve the right to take expert advice in cases where we believe that concerns may arise and may require a manuscript to undergo peer review specifically to assess the dual use risk.

Citations and references

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work and to support the claims they made. Excessive self-citation, coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite, gratuitous and unnecessary citation of articles published in the journal to which the paper has been submitted, and any other form of citation manipulation are inappropriate. Citation manipulation will result in the article being rejected, and may be reported to authors’ institutions.  Any attempts by peer-reviewers or editors to encourage such practices should be reported by authors to the publisher

Retraction and correction policy 

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work. If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the journal and/or publisher will carry out an investigation. 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: an erratum/correction may be placed with the article, an editor’s note or editorial expression of concern may be placed with the article, 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. Retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform marked “retracted”.

Data availability statement
Scientific claims can be replicated by access to the raw data, thus assessing the integrity of original published research that must include mandatory availability statements as regards the associated data or figure source data files (even concerning confidential or proprietary data).

Ethical responsibilities
Editors of the VJBSD journal enforce a peer-review process together with ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Authors wishing to publish their papers in the journal must abide to the following:

• Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.
• Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.
• Republishing content that is not novel, published elsewhere or in other language is not tolerated unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work.
• A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various publications or to one publication over time.
• Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper. Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.
• Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings. Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data. No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own. Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given.
• If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper or some corrections are to be made, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of the EMS journal so that appropriate actions can be taken. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.
• The journal uses software to check for plagiarism. Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated, and the following measures will be taken accordingly. First, the manuscript that has been proven to be involved in plagiarism will be immediately rejected along with the immediate rejection of any other manuscript submitted by the same authors. Second, each author involved in the violating manuscript will be banned from submitting any new manuscript to the journal in a period of two years.

For any complain or concerns regarding any publishing article, please contact renata.prokeinova@uniag.sk. We will acknowledge your e-mail and provide an estimated time to study and solve your complaints or concerns.

Informed consent

Individual participants can decide with reference to personal data collected, recorded text, or taken photos, particularly regarding images of vulnerable people or in sensitive contexts. Authors must secure written informed consent, and identifying details of the studied participants must not be made public. Consent is not required if information is anonymized and does not include detailed descriptions that may result in identity disclosure.

The protection of vulnerable groups and individuals

VJBSD journal supports international ethical standards related to research and publication of research that relate to vulnerable groups and individuals who must receive specific protections throughout the entire scientific enterprise. Ethical oversight focuses on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices.

Involvement of animals (data or biological material) in research
The welfare of animals used for research, education and testing must be respected. Authors should provide detailed information on the ethical treatment of their animals in their submission, and document informed consent in manuscripts entailing client-owned animals together with adherence to exemplary practice of veterinary care. If a research was granted exemption or did not require ethics approval, this information should be presented in the manuscript.

Involvement of human participants (data or biological material) in research
Research studies involving human participants, their data or biological material, should declare a statement that confirms that the study was approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional or national research ethics committee and certify that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards (Declaration of Helsinki or comparable ethical standards). To ensure the integrity of the reporting of patient-centered trials, authors must register prospective clinical trials in suitable publicly available repositories. VJBSD journal advocates complete and transparent reporting of biomedical and biological research and research with biological applications.

Involvement of human embryos, gametes, and stem cells in research
Research reporting experiments covering human embryos/embryonic stem cells and gametes, and associated clinical applications must clarify having followed specific guidelines and regulations. A detailed statement must specify the research ethics committee that approved the experiment. Informed consent must be received from cell/tissue recipient/donor, and the circumstances of material donation must be outlined.

Involvement of plants, algae, fungi in research

VJBSD journal values stewardship, transparency, and adhering to governance with regards to collecting and utilizing specimens and conducting experiments and/or field studies. Field studies involving genetically engineered plants must be conducted in accordance with national or local legislation and, if applicable, the manuscript needs to include a statement specifying the appropriate permissions or licenses.

Sex and gender in research

 Sex as a biological attribute and gender as influenced by socio-cultural contexts must be employed must be employed carefully to keep clear of confusion, including in article title and abstract. Disaggregated data and study design must be configured in terms of sex and/or gender, and respective outcomes clarified.

Publisher’s Confirmation
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work.