About the Journal

EDITORIAL POLICY

"Journal of Native and Alien Plant Studies" adheres to the publishing standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

 

REVIEW POLICY

This policy defines the principles, procedures, and ethical standards for peer review. The purpose of the review process is to ensure the quality, reliability, and scientific value of publications.

Peer Review Principles:

  • Objectivity: Evaluation is conducted impartially, without discrimination.
  • Confidentiality: Materials submitted for review are not subject to disclosure.
  • Competence: The reviewer must provide a high-quality expert assessment.
  • Ethics: It is prohibited to use information from the manuscript for personal gain.

The review procedure includes the following stages:

Initial review. All manuscripts submitted to the editorial office undergo a preliminary check for compliance with all journal requirements and policies. Manuscripts that do not pass the initial review are rejected.

Double-blind review. Manuscripts that have passed the initial review are sent for double-blind review by specialists in the relevant field. Before this, all personal data of the authors is removed from the text. This stage of the review process lasts up to one month.

Decision. Based on the reviews, the editorial board makes a decision to accept, revise, or reject the manuscript and informs the authors of the decision. If necessary, the authors are provided with the reviewers' comments, which should be taken into account. If the article is rejected without further consideration, reviewers’ comments are not provided.

If a decision is made to re-review the manuscript, it undergoes a second round of blind review after revision. Submission of a revised version does not guarantee acceptance. In cases involving only minor revisions, the editor may conduct the follow-up assessment without initiating an additional round of external review.

If the author submits reasonable objections to the review outcomes, these are considered by the editor-in-chief and/or the responsible editor. The final decision regarding publication is made by the editor-in-chief, taking into account the reviewers’ recommendations and the manuscript’s compliance with the journal’s requirements. In cases of a conflict of interest, the decision is made by the deputy editor-in-chief.

Policy Violations. In case of identified violations, the manuscript may be rejected, the publication retracted, or other appropriate measures may be taken.

 

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND PUBLICATION ETHICS POLICY

The editorial board of the Journal of Native and Alien Plant Studies adheres to the principles of academic integrity, scientific ethics, and international standards of publication activity.

Editorial and publishing activities are carried out in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine in the field of scientific activity, regulatory acts of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine on the formation of the List of scientific professional publications.

All participants in the editorial process (authors, reviewers, editors) must be guided by the provisions of the current legislation of Ukraine, in particular the laws: «On Scientific and Scientific-Technical Activities», «On Higher Education», «On Education» (Article 42), and «On Academic Integrity», and also follow the ethical guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

 

AI POLICY

The editorial board of the «Journal of Native and Alien Plant Studies» adheres to the recommendations of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) on the use of AI tools in the preparation of publications and the «Recommendations on the Use of AI in Scientific Communication» (EASE) developed by the European Association of Science Editors.

For authors

Generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Bing AI cannot be credited as authors or co-authors of a publication because they cannot bear legal or ethical responsibility for its content.

Authors may use AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, DeepL, image generation tools, etc.) to improve the language, style, or structure of the manuscript. The authors of the publication are  fully responsible for the entire content of the manuscript, regardless of the source of its creation or origin.

Authors should clearly disclose in the “Methods” or “Acknowledgements” section whether artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of the manuscript (indicating the name and version of the software). Authors should clearly outline the specific roles that any AI tools played in the preparation of the manuscript.

For Reviewers

Currently, this journal does not allow reviewers to use generative artificial intelligence or AI-supported technologies in order to protect authors' rights and confidentiality.

For editors

Editors can use AI tools for technical review of manuscripts (detection of generated content, plagiarism, design check, selection of reviewers). The final decision on publication is made by the editor based on the reviews and scientific value of the work. Submitted manuscript should be treated as a confidential document.

 

FILING COMPLAINTS. RETRACTION

The retraction procedure is carried out in accordance with international standards of publication ethics, specifically the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and current Ukrainian legislation. In cases where plagiarism, fabrication, falsification of data, or significant errors affecting the reliability of the publication are identified and documented, the editorial board makes a decision to retract.

Initiation of the procedure. The initiators may be the author(s), the editorial board, or other parties. The request must be submitted in writing along with evidence.

Preliminary review. The editorial office registers the request, verifies its validity, and notifies the author(s).

Review by the Academic Integrity Committee. The committee conducts an expert evaluation, hears explanations from the parties involved, and provides a conclusion.

Decision making. Based on the conclusion, a decision is made: retraction of the article, issuance of corrections, or a finding of no violation. The decision is approved by the editorial board.

Formalizing the retraction. Information regarding the retraction of the article is published on the journal's website, stating the reason and maintaining the text of the article marked as "Retracted." A corresponding DOI status is assigned.

Retraction is aimed at ensuring scientific integrity and the reliability of published content.

  

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

The journal publishes fully open access journals, which means that all articles are available on the internet to all users immediately upon publication.  Full-text access to scientific articles of the journal is presented on the official website in the Archives section.

There is no open access fee (or article publishing charge, APC) for the authors.

Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author as long as they cite the source.

The journal is licensed by  CC Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.