Ethical principles of the publication of the Social Policy Forum journal
The expert peer-reviewed Social Policy Forum journal covers social issues in the broadest sense (see below for details); it is published fully in line with the ethical principles of its publisher, the Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs.
Editorial board
The editorial board, which is composed for the most part of external representatives from the academic community with the appropriate expertise and representatives of the publisher (see below), monitors compliance with the journal publication ethics, ensures adherence to the set intellectual and ethical standards, compliance with the principles of fairness, objectivity, impartiality, uniform access to all the processes, and the maintaining of the expected quality of accepted articles. It also monitors the potential publication of incorrect data or plagiarised articles and has a system in place to publish corrections, apologies and explanations when required and, if deemed necessary, the board is authorised to withdraw articles.
All the articles submitted are required to correspond to the focus of the journal in terms of their content and be of a professional character; moreover, they must not have been published previously elsewhere.
The journal consists of two parts: peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed.
Judging of the Articles Submitted
The editorial board plays an active role in the assessment of submitted articles and reserves the right to accept or reject contributions.
Articles submitted to the peer-reviewed section must meet the requirements set for peer-reviewed articles (see Information for authors). The first stage involves assessment by members of the editorial board with respect to factual accuracy, compliance of the content with the subject focus of the journal, professionalism and compliance with the requirements for peer-reviewed articles. The members of the editorial board strictly adhere to the principles of fairness, objectivity, impartiality and a unified approach when assessing articles.
Positively evaluated articles are then sent by the editorial board to reviewers who are selected according to proposals made by the members of the editorial board.
The editorial board is also entitled to recommend that the authors revise their articles according to recommendations and resubmit them for assessment; alternatively, the board may recommend the inclusion of articles in the non-reviewed part of the journal.
Reviewers
Reviewers must be experts in the subject matter of the submitted articles and must have no conflicts of interest in relation to the research, the employer of the author or the provider of funding for the article. Reviewers are required to adhere to the ethical principles concerning the writing of peer reviews, as well as principles of fairness, objectivity, impartiality and adopting a unified approach when judging. They must treat reviewed articles with strict confidentiality and be prepared to add references to relevant previously published articles if they are not cited by the author.
Review proceedings
The review procedure takes place anonymously with respect to both parties in the form of two rounds. The first round consists of the evaluation of submitted articles by at least 2 reviewers according to unified established criteria as set out in tabular form (see below); they have the option to express their comments verbally. The reviewers choose from four options: I recommend publication in the reviewed section, I recommend publication in the reviewed section after adding comments, I recommend publication in the non-reviewed section or I do not recommend publication at all.
In the case that the opinions of the reviewers differ, a third review opinion is sought.
Authors are informed by the editor-in-chief of the results of the reviewer assessments and are invited to address the comments provided.Authors are informed by the editor-in-chief of the results of the reviewer assessments and are invited to address the comments provided.
The second round of the review process comprises the assessment of the reviewers concerning the approach to the incorporation of their comments by the author. If the opinion is positive, the review procedure is terminated via the granting of approval.
The editorial board decides whether to include an article in the peer-reviewed section of the journal based on the results of the review process.
Articles submitted for inclusion in the non-reviewed section are assessed by the editor-in-chief with respect to the factual accuracy of the article and compliance with the content focus requirements of the journal and other relevant professional standards. The assessment process adheres to the principles of fairness, objectivity, impartiality and a unified approach. If necessary, the editor-in-chief consults with the members of the editorial board on the acceptability of articles.
The content of the journal must be approved by the editorial board on an issue-by-issue basis.
Authors
Authors are required to adhere to the ethical guidelines for the publication of information and other applicable norms. They must provide accurate and authentic data, follow the rules for the citing of the results of the research and the publications of other authors referred to, protect the personal data obtained during research, indicate all sources of financial support and not distort the information provided in any way. All the listed co-authors should have contributed significantly to the research.
Authors are further obliged to participate fully in the review process and, in the event of errors or shortcomings in their contributions, to cooperate in terms of their elimination or correction.
Brief information for authors (see below) is provided in each published issue of the journal.
Detected errors and deficiencies
In the event that errors and shortcomings are detected during the assessment of articles, the author is invited by the editors to remove or correct them. In the event that they were discovered only after the publication of the article, the author is invited to submit a correction or apology, which the editors will ensure is published in the subsequent issue of the journal.
In the event that the editors receive justified criticism of a published article, the author is informed of the fact and is invited to provide his/her comments. In the case of the detection of serious criticism that should be published, the editors will duly publish the said criticism and the author’s response, or will publish the opinion of the editors should the author fail to respond to the criticism despite being invited to do so.
Any complaints from authors concerning the editorial process are dealt with in the first instance by the editor-in-chief; if the author is not satisfied with the outcome of this stage of the process, the issue is addressed by the editorial board.
The content of the journal consists of social issues in the broadest sense, i.e. in particular social policy, social services, state social support systems, the material needs system, assessment services, disability, the family, the social and legal protection of children, equal opportunities, insurance systems, pension insurance, sickness insurance, accident insurance, income policy, employment, employment policy, employment services, the labour market, employment abroad, the activities of labour offices, wage policy, wage and salary systems, safety at work and in the working environment, migration, the integration of foreigners, international cooperation in areas of social security, social dialogue and collective bargaining, working conditions, work organisation and legislation concerning all these areas, particularly labour legislation and other related topics.
Information for authors
The journal consists of two parts. The first part comprises peer-reviewed articles, studies and analyses; only peer-reviewed contributions are published in this part. The second part is dedicated to non-peer-reviewed contributions.
The editorial board decides on inclusion in the peer-reviewed section of the journal based on the results of the review process, which is anonymous with respect to both parties. The editors take all the necessary steps to ensure full anonymity. Authors may submit contributions to both the peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sections, specifying in which section they prefer their article to be included. The editor-in-chief accepts only unpublished contributions, in electronic form. The author must include his/her full contact address, including a telephone number and email address. Contributions should be sent in electronic form to the following email address: petr.safarik@rilsa.cz.
Formal requirements
The manuscript of a contribution to the peer-reviewed section (preferably broken down into an introduction, the current state of knowledge, researched issues and methods used, results, discussion and conclusion) should comprise approximately 30,000 characters including spaces in MS Word and must contain, in addition to the text itself, a 10-15-line abstract and keywords in both Czech and English. Citations and bibliographic references must be complete and provided in accordance with the relevant standard. Charts and images must be adapted to black and white (the group column format in Excel, not spatial), the source files of which must also be attached. The editor-in-chief ensures the language editing of the text.