Complaints Handling

Due to the adoption of the Law of Ukraine On Academic Integrity dated 18.12.2025 and the establishment of The Ethical Principles of COPE, the editorial office introduces a procedure for considering Complaint for Violations of Publication Ethics and/or Academic Integrity (Complaint).

An Application for violations of academic integrity and publication ethics in a submission or published Paper (Complaint) may be submitted to the Editorial Office of the Journal e-maiby an organization or an individual: Author, Reviewer, other Reader, etc.

The Application should contain:

  1. A clear statement of the essence of the violation;

  2. The provided Evidence (references to sources, copies of documents, quotes or excerpts from texts, etc.);

  3. General reliable information about the applicant, and their contact details.

The received complaint will be registered by the Responsible Executive of the Editorial Office, after which the Editor-in-Chief, based on a preliminary analysis, will determine whether the grounds are sufficient to consider the Application, or to leave the Application without action, or to send the Applicant a request for additional materials for the case to proceed.

In the event of a decision to consider the Application, the documents will be transferred to the Authorized Person or the Authorized Body, which will set a date for consideration and invite the Author and the Applicant and experts to the relevant meeting.

During the consideration of the Application, the Authorized Body will hear the arguments of the Applicant, the Author, assessing the nature of the violation, the available evidence, the extent of the violations and the consequences. If necessary, independent experts may be involved during the consideration or following the results of the meeting.

Following the results of the consideration of the case, a decision will be made regarding the Paper (either to reject the complaint, or to make corrections (minor) to the publication, or to reject the unpublished submission or to retract the published Paper) and possible sanctions against the violators.

The Protocol of the meeting will be provided to the Applicant, the Author and the Author's employer.

The Applicant and the Author have the right to appeal the decision of the Authorized Body within 30 days by contacting the Editorial Board or the Higher Authorized Body.

After that the decision will be realised.

In the event of a decision to withdraw the published Paper, the Paper will be retracted in accordance with the established Retraction Procedure.