Berghahn is committed to the highest academic standards and seeks to enable innovative contributions to the scholarship in its fields of speciality and this statement outlines our general Ethics and Misconduct policies across all our journals. We use the foundational recommendations of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) and COPE Core Practices. For more detail or for specific questions with regard to individual journals please contact the Journals Manager.
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study.
All Authors who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors.
Authors should avoid:
Authors are to submit only entirely original works, and must cite or quote the work and/or words of others in an appropriate manner and in line with the journal’s published guidelines.
When citing others’ (or your own) previous work, please make sure you have:
Berghahn is committed to inclusive citation and scholarly practices. We encourage contributors to cite and engage with a broad diversity of scholars, particularly those whose work has been historically excluded or marginalized.
All Authors should include in their submission a clear statement disclosing any competitive, collaborative, ideological, financial, or other relationships or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be interpreted as influencing the research included in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed, including where relevant project or funding reference numbers.
Authors submitting an original paper to the journal should not have the paper under consideration with any other journal at that time. Authors may only withdraw their paper if the paper is rejected before or after peer review, or if Authors notify the Editor of their intention to withdraw as soon as a decision on the manuscript is communicated by the Editors, including where such a decision indicates the need for revisions. Any copyrighted materials must have all of the necessary permissions cleared.
If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, the author is obliged to promptly notify the journal Editor or Publisher. Post-publication changes to scholarly articles are generally discouraged and require careful consideration due to the need to maintain the integrity of the published record. If changes are deemed necessary, they will be handled through a formal mechanism like a correction notice, erratum, or retraction, and are linked to the original article. Authors are to cooperate fully with the Editor to retract or correct the article in form of an erratum.
All authors must sign and submit with their article an author agreement before publication. Some journals ask authors to transfer their copyright to the journal, or society. Others accept a License to Publish from the authors, whereby the author retains ownership to the rights. Authors who publish in Open Access journals retain copyright and must sign the appropriate CC BY license, with CC BY NC ND as the publisher default license. Image Integrity - It is not acceptable to obscure, move, or introduce a specific feature within an image. However, identities of certain parties shown in an image may be obscured as and when an Author and Editor agree it is necessary (e.g. for anonymizing a source).
require authors of articles reporting data to indicate whether or not data methods (e.g., analyses codes) and materials will be made available to any researchers for the purpose of result reproducibility. If the authors agree to make the materials available, they should specify where. Data from secondary resources must be appropriately cited.
The Author will explicitly acknowledge the use of any AI tools in the writing of the Article, production of images or graphical elements of the Article, or in the collection and analysis of data. Authors are wholly responsible for the content of their Article, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any plagiarism or other breach of publication ethics. Please refer to Berghahn AI Policy.
To review the material in a timely way with care, consideration and objectivity.
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents along with any other information or material supplied during the review process.
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Referees should express their views clearly with constructive supporting arguments.
Reviewers should indicate instances where they believe observations or arguments derived from other publications are not accompanied by the relevant source or reference.
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must not be used for personal advantage, and should be kept confidential. Reviewers approached to review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, ideological, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors or institutions associated with the manuscripts should remove themselves from the review process. Reviewers should inform the editor if they do not feel they are qualified/do not have the time to review a manuscript and declare any potential conflicts of interest relating to a manuscript or author.
Editors are independently responsible from the Publisher for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. Journal editors give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for publication. They judge each on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
Journal editors may reject a submitted manuscript without formal peer review if they consider it to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its scope and editors are to make all reasonable effort to process submissions on time.
If a journal editor receives convincing evidence that the main substance or conclusions of an article published in the journal are incorrect, or there is any suspicion of misconduct then, in consultation with Berghahn Journals team, the journal editor should ensure the publication of an appropriate notice of correction.
Editors are to keep the peer-review process confidential. They do not share information about a manuscript with anyone outside of the peer-review process.
Editors will delegate the peer review of any original self-authored research article to a member of the editorial or advisory board as appropriate.
Berghahn journals generally use double blind reviewing, in which all parties remain anonymous throughout the process. Research articles are typically reviewed by at least two Reviewers, in a double blind process. The Editor selects Reviewers who have suitable expertise in the relevant field and follows best practices in doing so.
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the Editor or the members of the Editorial Board for their own research purposes without the Author's explicit written consent. Any conflicts of interest such as competitive, collaborative, ideological, or other relationships or connections with any of the Authors, Reviewers or institutions associated with the manuscripts should be declared to the Publisher. The Editor is not to be involved in decisions about articles which he/she has written himself/herself.
Journal editors who receive a credible allegation of misconduct by an author, reviewer, or journal editor, have a duty to investigate the matter along with alerting Berghahn staff.
This includes:
Based on the investigation and reply from the author(s), an editor will consider:
You can access the full range of COPE guides and resources at all times. Useful guidelines are available here in the links below:
The Editor will consider retractions, corrections or expressions of concern in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines. Any misconduct complaints should be handled with all due care and attention, allowing authors to respond to any allegation. Editors should refer to the COPE flowcharts in these cases.
All special issue Guest Editors are responsible for the peer review process and work in close collaboration with the Journal Editors throughout the review and editing process; this includes liaising with contributors to ensure quality submissions that follow the journal style and guidelines. Guest Editors work closely and supportively with contributors prior to initial submission and through the review process, this enhances cohesion and quality of the overall submission. Final editorial decisions rest with the Journal Editors.
The Publisher and Editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct had occurred. The Publisher is prepared to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies in line with COPE guidelines.
The Publisher maintains a record of the existence of everything published with information (metadata) describing each publication. The published version of an article is considered the “version of record” and should remain as unaltered as possible.
The Publisher follows best practices as outlined in the COPE flowcharts linked below with regard to suspected conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript and suspected conflict in a published article.
The Publisher ensures that its reporting of content usage remains compliant with the industry standards and the COUNTER Code of Practice. The Publisher may partner with third parties, including commercial services, to provide users with metrics to illustrate the impact and reception of content.
The publisher will not use GenAI in the production process of an article without notification.