Ethical Guidelines

The journal Revista Kawsaypacha: Sociedad y Medio Ambiente is committed to the academic community to carry out comprehensive work with a high standard of academic quality and is governed by the ethical principles for research evaluation established by the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in this document (PUCP, 2011, art. 8-12).

Likewise, it adheres to the principles of transparency and good practices in academic publications established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE); and adopts the ethical guidelines established by SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the American Psychological Association (APA).

General principles

The Journal assumes that all individuals involved are respectful of ethics and human rights, and in this regard, promotes compliance with the following general ethical principles: respect for persons, beneficence and non-maleficence, justice, scientific integrity, and responsibility. These principles apply to everyone involved in the process: authors, reviewers, members of the Editorial Board, and the entire team involved in the editorial process.

Ethical Guidelines for Authors

The ethical essence of all scientific communication is that the author accurately and fully accounts for the methods and results of their studies. It is essential to ensure that written works are entirely original, of high quality, and academic relevance, and have been guided by the following principles:

Originality and no plagiarism:  The author must ensure that their manuscript is original and unpublished, and that any observation, comment, or argument included in the manuscript, which has been previously published, is accompanied by the appropriate citation and reference.

Plagiarism is the copying or misuse of another person's intellectual property, and self-plagiarism is the act of presenting the author's own previously published work as a new original piece. Both practices are unethical.

Editors will use various tools to identify similarities and verify that proper citation has been done.

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publication: An author must not publish manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal or publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one magazine constitutes an unethical behavior.

Duplicated publications are not considered: manuscripts that rework extended abstracts presented at academic events, as well as those that synthesize dissertations or theses registered in university repositories. In any of these cases, the manuscript to be submitted must reproduce brief extensions of the original text, and on the preceding page (see below), the reference to the original text and the context in which it was produced must be clearly indicated. If the publication of this manuscript is accepted, in coordination with the author, this information will be included in the article.

Co-authorship of the manuscript: When including other authors, only consider those who have made significant contributions to the conception and writing of the presented research. We recommend considering the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) specification system, which identifies 14 different roles. Co-authors will determine who will assume the role of corresponding author, and this person will be responsible for establishing communications with the Journal.

Protection of rights and well-being of research participants: Researchers must ensure ethical treatment of human or non-human participants involved in their studies. Authors, when describing their research, are prohibited from revealing confidential information or identifying individuals unless the participants provide a document giving explicit consent for such disclosure. In this case, the author must attach said document to the manuscript (APA, 2020).

Conflict of interest: Authors must explicitly state that the manuscript they are submitting has no conflicts of interest (personal, economic, financial, institutional, or other) that could limit the objectivity of the content.

Communication of errors: when authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own work to be reviewed or has already been published, it is their obligation to notify the Editor of the Journal promptly and cooperate to amend the error.

 

Ethical guidelines for reviewers and evaluators

The reviewers or evaluators are academics and researchers, with recognized prestige in their field nationwide and worldwide; the texts will be assigned to them according to their subjects and specialties. The reviewers will fulfill their function in total anonymity and the anonymity of the authors will also be maintained.

Peer review plays an important role in the decision-making process of the Editorial Board and can contribute to improving the author’s work. Reviewers’ role is regulated by the following principles:

Promptness: the appointed referee must acknowledge their capacities and time availability proposed by the Editors. In case the reviewer did not master the manuscript’s topic, its rejection should be notified and if possible, another reviewer can be proposed.

Confidentiality: the received manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. It must not be shown to or discussed with others, except if expressly authorized by the Editor.

Standards of objectivity: reviews must be conducted objectively, based on the content of the manuscript and the observations should be clearly stated with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources: reviewers should identify relevant published work which has not been cited by the authors and suggest its inclusion. They must verify that an observation, comment, or argument which has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. The reviewer should also notify the Editor about any significant similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other publication of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest: information and ideas obtained from the peer review system must be kept under strict confidentiality and must not be used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. Reviewers will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors or institutions connected to the papers.

 

Ethical Guidelines for Editors

The Editors are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal will be published, considering the policies of the Editorial Board of the journal and the opinions of the reviewers, as well as the coordination throughout the editorial process. The Editorial Board will be aware of the current legal requirements concerning defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

They need to consider the following criteria to make decisions:

Fair play: the evaluation of the manuscripts will be done without considering the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Objectivity: the evaluation of the manuscripts should be conducted objectively based on the content of the manuscript and the support of the arguments.

Confidentiality: no member of the Editorial Team can disclose any information about a manuscript submitted to the journal to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest: original material disclosed in a manuscript submitted to the journal must not be used by any Editor or Editorial Team member for their own research without the author’s explicit written consent.

 

Against malpractice and misconduct

The Editors of the journal Revista Kawsaypacha: Sociedad y Medio Ambiente take seriously allegations of misconduct and malpractice. For that they will consider the guidelines of the Publication Ethics Committee (COPE) and the guidelines of the Regulations of the Research Ethics Committee of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, to respond to complaints that may be submitted before, during or after the publication process.

Some of the issues of misconduct and malpractice that we deal with include (but are not limited to):

• Data or research fraud (manipulation of data or reporting research that has not been done).
• Contributor fraud (adding people who have not contributed significantly as co-authors or not recognizing those who contributed).
• Plagiarism in all its forms.
• Simultaneous submission.
• Undisclosed conflict of interest or competing interest.
• Researcher, Editors, or reviewer bias (influencing the research process in any way that breaks research ethics).

All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be considered, even if it is discovered years after publication.

For more information on publication ethics violations, we recommend reviewing section "IV. Publication Ethics Violations" of the Normas Éticas de la revista Derecho de la PUCP. These will be considered by the Editorial Board in response to any ethical misconduct.