Ethics Policy

PUBLICATION ETHICS

The Journal of Contemporary Thought is committed to transparency, probity and responsibility and is guided by the policies of ethics and integrity outlined here. The policies are applicable to its stakeholders including the Editor and the Editorial team, contributors and peer reviewers:

1.   The Editor and the Editorial team shall ensure that the Journal maintains its core focus on theory in policy and in content.

2.   The Editor and the Editorial team shall ensure freedom of expression and quality, maintain the double-blind peer review process of the Journal, be accessible to authors and be ready to publish corrections, clarifications and retractions within given timelines.

3.    Authors must ensure that all work submitted to the Journal is original, is not published or under consideration elsewhere, declare conflicts of interest if any, and give due credit to funding agencies. If accepted, authors may be expected to submit a good faith undertaking that their submission has not been generated through any AI tools.

4.    If the author intends to use any copyrighted material, written permission for re-use must be submitted to the Journal once the manuscript is accepted.

5.    In case of multiple authorship, the corresponding author must be identified clearly.  To be cited as an author, one is expected to have made a significant contribution to the article submitted to the Journal. Individuals who may have contributed, but do not qualify to be cited as co-authors, may be acknowledged accordingly. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to provide the institutional affiliation and current address of the authors, and notify any change in the address given.

6.   Peer Reviewers shall respect the confidentiality of the peer review process, not use information or ideas obtained from the manuscript for their own or any other person or organization’s advantage or discredit, declare any potential conflicts of interest, and not allow their reviews to be prejudiced by personal preferences or ideological positions.

7.     Peer Reviewers should accept a review assignment only if a submission falls within their area of expertise, be constructive in their reviews and offer suggestions for improvement, even if a manuscript is rejected, and complete the review within the time given by the Journal.

The Journal of Contemporary Thought follows the general policies of ethics and integrity outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For details, authors and peer reviewers may refer to the COPE Guidelines at http://publicationethics.org