Transparency and ethics statement
Last revised June 2020
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Journal management
The journal is published by the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC), an unincorporated association (https://ewtec.org). The international editorial board are all recognized experts within the field and their details are listed at https://marineenergyjournal.org/imej/about/editorialTeam. The Editor in Chief is Prof AbuBakr S. Bahaj and the postal address of the journal is: Sustainable Energy Research Group Building 178, Room 4007 Boldrewood Innovation Campus, Southampton, UK SO16 7QF -
Publication schedule
Four issues will be published each year. Page numbers will increase continuously through each volume (one volume per year). -
Peer review process
Each submission will be subject to single-blind peer review by a minimum of two independent reviewers assigned by an IMEJ editor. Reviewers are required to state any competing interests before completing a review. Reviewers, once having accepted the review, can write anonymous comments for the author and separate confidential comments for the editor. They can also upload a marked up copy of the manuscript. They must make an overall recommendation of either (a) Accept; (b) Revisions required (no second round of review); (c) Resubmit for review (another review round required); (d) decline. Where only one reviewer recommends 'decline', the editor may decide to decline, or request a review from a third independent reviewer. All communications between authors and editors, and between editors and reviewers, should be through the submission system at http://marineenergyjournal.com. This ensures traceability. -
Authorship and contributions
All authors should make a material contribution to the submission, and the submitting author must declare the specific contribution of each author. Courtesy authorship is strongly discouraged. -
Anti-plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined as presenting another author’s work as if it were your own. It can range from a single sentence to an entire article. It also includes data, text, figures and analysis methodology. All submissions will be checked before progressing to the review stage, using industry-standard anti-plagiarism solutions. Any submissions where plagiarism is suspected will be declined immediately. IMEJ may contact the submitter’s institution to alert them to the possible ethical breach. Minor infringements, for example omitting a reference to a non-essential figure copied from a source, will be dealt with during the review and copy-editing stages. -
Duplicate (or ‘redundant’) publication
Publishing substantially the same material in more than one article, usually in separate journals, is regarded as duplicate publication and is serious breach of publication ethics. Authors are required to confirm that their article has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration. If it is brought to the attention of the editor, the submission will be declined (if still in the pre-publication phase) or retracted (if already published) with a permanent note to the effect on the page attached to the unique URL for the published article. -
Conference papers
The IMEJ will publish special issues of selected papers from the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) series. Articles from EWTEC will only be published in IMEJ if they have been peer reviewed and recommended for the special issue by the peer reviewers. -
Post-publication discussion and corrections
For each published article, responses will be accepted for six months after the publication date. Retractions and corrections will be linked on the page attached to the unique URL for the published article. -
Ethical oversight
All submissions including research involving humans or animals, or using personal data, are required to state that appropriate ethical review has taken place and approval granted by the appropriate body (a university research ethics committee, for example). -
Data and reproducibility
Authors are encouraged to submit supplementary materials for readers to download and reproduce their results. These will be linked on the page attached to the unique URL for the published article. -
Competing interests
Authors are required to declare any competing interests during the submission process. This includes any financial or in-kind support offered by organizations or individuals. If undeclared competing interests are bought to the attention of the Editor-in-chief after a paper has been accepted, the paper may either be retracted, or a correction published along with the article, depending on the severity of the breach and its likely impact on the review process. Editors will always strive to invite reviewers who are independent of the authors of papers under review. However, it not always possible to find all the potential links between authors and reviewers in advance. Reviewers should decline to review any paper where there could be any doubt of their independence from the authors. If it is found after publication that a reviewer was not independent, then the paper will normally be retracted, unless at least two other independent reviewers recommended that the paper be accepted. -
Allegations of misconduct
There are a large number of potential ethical breaches that can be committed in the process of publication, many of which are listed by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) web site. The most common include:- Plagiarism (see section 5)
- Redundant publication (see section 6)
- Reviewers suggesting that authors should add multiple references to the reviewer’s work out of proportion to the actual relevance or importance in the field of research. In this case the author should notify the editor (or Editor-in-chief) who will request the reviewer amend the review and if the response is not positive, invite a new reviewer.
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Complaints and appeals
If an author believes that an editor has unfairly treated them in respect of the processes described above, they can contact the editor-in-chief confidentially. The editor-in-chief’s decision is final.
