Code of Ethics

Committed to ensuring the highest standards of publishing ethics and preventing any irregularities, População e Sociedade is governed by the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guideline for Journal Editors provided by COPE – Committee on Publication Ethics (available at http://publicationethics.org). Although the journal’s application as a full member of COPE is still in progress, the compliance with all the rules foreseen in the aforementioned Code is already mandatory.

Editors and Editorial Board duties

to ensure the quality assurance processes of the Population and Society magazine;
to ensure that all articles are assessed for originality prior to the review process (if plagiarism or other malpractices are detected, editors will follow COPE guidelines);
to ensure the confidentiality of the peer-review process (double-blind peer review), as well as the anonymity of authors and reviewers;
to accept, reject or request modifications to the submitted article, based on the reviewers' recommendations (editors will publish all articles accepted for publication, except in cases in which gross errors or reprehensible ethical conduct are subsequently detected, such as plagiarism;
to always evaluate articles submitted to the journal as to their intellectual content, as long as their topic fits the theme of the journal, independently of the authors’ ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and political or religious beliefs;
to ensure that all information relating to articles submitted to the journal is kept confidential;
to use the materials contained in a submitted article only with the express written consent of the authors;
to not allow texts with content or language that may be seen as discriminatory and/or offensive to a particular social group to begin the evaluation process, rejecting them in advance, regardless of the content and language of the articles being the responsibility of the authors.

Authors duties

to report the work carried out in a rigorous manner and present an objective discussion of its meaning;
to restrain from submitting the same article to more than one journal at the same time;
to confirm that his/her work is original and renders its own contributions, in the sense that they were not copied or plagiarized from other works, in whole or in part, without the respective source being clearly cited;
to detail the authorship of the submitted article and those who contributed significantly to the conception, project, execution or interpretation of the reported study. In case other persons have participated in substantial aspects of the research project, they must be acknowledged or listed as co-authors or collaborators;
to reveal financial conflicts or other conflicts of interest that may influence the results or interpretation of the article, disclosing all sources of financial support;
to avoid using offensive, discriminatory or abusive language, namely with regard to ethnicity, culture, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, language and health conditions;
when authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is their obligation to immediately notify the Journal's Editors and Editorial Board and cooperate with them to correct or withdraw the article.

Reviewers roles and responsibilities

to provide a high quality service to the best of their abilities and knowledge;
to treat any text received for consideration as a confidential document and inform the journal's editors if they are aware of plagiarism;
to make sure that the authors have properly identified all the sources used in their investigation, calling the editors' attention if they notice any similarity or overlap between a text under review and any other published article that they are aware of;
to objectively conduct the revisions of texts and formulate clear observations, based on arguments that support them, following the evaluation criteria provided by the journal and using constructive and objective language, free from any malice or prejudice, so that the author can use the reports to improve their article;
when the reviewer cannot guarantee the submission of his review within the stipulated period, he or she must immediately report this fact to the journal's editors, so that the text can be sent to another reviewer;
reviewers should not consider articles in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or links with any of the authors or institutions related to the articles.