Ethical Norms

Ethical Norms

The editorial staff of “Physical Activity, Health and Sports” adheres to the requirements when selecting and accepting articles. These norms are determined by the journal’s scope and standards for the quality scholarly papers and their presentation approved in the scientific community.

The Editorial Board adheres to the principles of the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as well as the principles of DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment).

Ethical obligations of the editors

The editor should consider all manuscripts submitted for publication without prejudice, evaluating each one properly, regardless of race, religion, nationality, or work place of the author(s).

Information is not allowed for publication if there are sufficient grounds which prove that it is plagiarized.

All materials submitted are subject to thorough selection and review. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject an article or return it for revision. The author is obliged to revise the article following the comments of the reviewers or the editorial board.

The editor’s decision to approve an article for publication is based on such characteristics as the importance of the findings, originality, quality of presentation, and relevance to the journal’s profile. Manuscripts may be rejected without review if the editor believes that they do not meet the journal’s profile. In making such decisions, the editor may consult with members of the editorial board or reviewers.

Ethical obligations of the authors

Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works; if the authors used the work or words of others, it was properly documented in the form of references or quotations in quotation marks.

Submitting the same article to more than one journal is considered unethical behavior and is unacceptable.

The article should be structured, contain sufficient references and be formatted in accordance with the requirements.

Unfair or deliberately inaccurate statements in the article constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

The corresponding author shall ensure that all co-authors have read and approved the final version of the article and have agreed to its publication.

The authors are fully responsible for the article’s content and for the fact of their publication. The editorial board does not bear any responsibility to the authors for any possible damage caused by the article’s publication. The editorial is entitled to withdraw an article if it turns out that someone’s rights or generally accepted norms of scientific ethics were violated. The editorial board notifies the author of retraction.

Ethical obligations of the reviewers

To ensure the unbiased evaluation of manuscripts, double-blind peer review is conducted.

Since reviewing manuscripts is an essential step in the publication process and thus in the implementation of the scientific method, every scientist is obliged to perform a certain share of review work.

If the designated reviewer is not sure that their qualifications correspond to the research presented in the manuscript, they should immediately return the manuscript.

The reviewers should properly explain and justify their judgments so that the editors and authors can understand the basis for their comments. Any statement that an observation, conclusion, or argument has been previously published should be supported by an appropriate reference.

The reviewer shall draw the editor’s attention to any significant similarities between the manuscript under review and any published article or any manuscript simultaneously submitted to another journal.

The reviewers shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in the relevant manuscript unless authorized to do so by the author.

 

In accordance with the principles of DORA, the Journal:

  • evaluates manuscripts solely on the basis of their scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, and contribution to the advancement of knowledge;

  • does not use journal-based metrics (including the Impact Factor) as a criterion for assessing individual articles or the scientific quality of an author;

  • does not encourage artificial inflation of citation metrics;

  • supports the responsible use of scientometric indicators.

 

Contributors

The journal is published at the expense of the authors.

 

Plagiarism prevention policy

All papers are subject to plagiarism check using StrikePlagiarism.com by the Polish company Plagiat.pl. We protect the rights of authors/co-authors and investigate allegations of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. The authors are responsible for data reliability and the accuracy of names, surnames and quotations. The authors are responsible for the materials they submit in case of plagiarism detection. Similarly, we protect the journal’s reputation against abuse of office. Thus, the journal reserves the right to reject an article for plagiarism without further explanation and take appropriate legal action. If plagiarism is discovered after publication, the journal may publish a correction or retract the article.

 

Privacy statement

Names and email addresses entered on the journal’s site will be used solely for the stated purposes and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

 

Ethical Approval Policy

The journal requires compliance with ethical standards in conducting and publishing research in accordance with COPE principles.

Submission implies confirmation that:

the research was conducted legally and ethically;

all necessary permissions and approvals were obtained;

no rights of individuals, organizations, or data owners were violated;

research does not pose risks to human safety, the environment, or infrastructure;

safety and environmental regulations were observed;

all data and software were used lawfully.

The journal reserves the right to request supporting documentation and to reject or retract manuscripts if ethical violations are identified.

 

Retraction policy

In rare cases, it may be necessary to retract published articles. The journal will follow COPE guidelines in such cases. The retracted article remains indexed and linked to the original article. The journal provides free, immediate and permanent online access to the full text of all articles.

Retraction: COPE guidelines

The editors should consider retracting a publication if:

  • They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (e.g., of data) or falsification (e.g., image manipulation)
  • It constitutes plagiarism
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
  • It reports unethical research

The editors should consider an expression of concern if:

  • they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors
  • there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case
  • they believe that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive
  • an investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time

The editors may consider correcting if:

  • a small part of an article reports flawed data or content
  • the list of authors/contributors has mistakes (i.e., a person who deserves to be a co-author was omitted or those who does not meet the authorship criteria was included).

 

Conflict of interests

To ensure the objectivity, neutrality, and transparency of the research and to ensure compliance with accepted principles of ethical and professional behavior, authors and reviewers involved in the manuscript submission should include information about funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, financial or non-financial, and whether they have actually had an impact. Application with undeclared conflicts that are later discovered may be rejected. Published articles may need to be re-evaluated, published corrections, or, in serious cases, be retracted. 

Types of conflicts for authors:

Research grants from financial institutions. Please provide information about the research sponsor and grant number in the acknowledgments section;

fees for conference talks;

sponsoring participation in the conference;

sponsoring educational programs;

employment or consulting;

support from a project sponsor;

a position on an advisory board or board of directors, or other type of management relationship;

multiple affiliations;

financial relationships, such as an equity ownership or investment interest;

intellectual property rights (e.g., patents, copyrights, and royalties);

references to “predatory” journals;

property of spouses and/or children who may have a financial interest in the work;

personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly related to the research;

professional interests or personal beliefs that may affect your research.

The author responsible for submitting the article should collect information about conflicts of interest (listed above) from all authors and declare them on behalf of all authors at the stage of manuscript submission. The declared conflicts of interest will be reviewed by the editor and reviewers.

Physical Activity, Health and Sports intends to prevent conflicts of interest by assigning materials to the editorial board and involving reviewers. They must decline in any of the following situations and disclose any conflicts to the journal.

Types of conflicts for editors and reviewers:

editors and/or reviewers have a recent publication or current submission by any author of the manuscript;

editors and/or reviewers share or have recently shared an affiliation with any author of the manuscript;

editors and/or reviewers are collaborating or have recently collaborated with any author of the manuscript;

editors and/or reviewers have a close personal relationship with any author of the manuscript;

editors and/or reviewers have a financial interest in the subject matter of the manuscript;

editors and/or reviewers cannot be objective about the manuscript.

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

The journal permits the use of AI tools as supportive instruments; however:

AI cannot be listed as an author;

authors are fully responsible for manuscript content;

AI use (text generation, translation, data analysis) must be transparently disclosed;

AI use does not exempt authors from originality and citation requirements.

The journal may use software tools to detect plagiarism and AI-generated content.