The International Journal of Contemporary Research in Multidisciplinary (IJCRM) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, and responsible scholarly communication. The journal follows established principles of ethical publishing and expects authors, editors, reviewers, and editorial staff to adhere to recognized standards of publication ethics, including the principles promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

1. Editorial Responsibility

The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board are responsible for maintaining the academic integrity and quality of the journal. Editorial decisions are based on the scientific quality, originality, relevance, methodological rigor, and ethical standards of submitted manuscripts.
Editorial decisions are made independently and are not influenced by commercial interests, authors’ institutional affiliations, nationality, gender, religion, or other non-academic considerations.

2. Peer Review and Confidentiality

All research manuscripts are subjected to an appropriate peer-review process. Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, and confidential assessments.
Reviewers must:

• Maintain confidentiality of submitted manuscripts.
• Avoid using unpublished information for personal advantage.
• Declare potential conflicts of interest.
• Evaluate manuscripts objectively and professionally.
• Inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, or other ethical concerns.

Editors and reviewers must not disclose manuscript information to unauthorized persons.

3. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be based on substantial intellectual contributions to the research and manuscript. All listed authors must have made meaningful contributions, approved the final manuscript, and accepted responsibility for the integrity of the work.
Gift authorship, guest authorship, honorary authorship, and ghost authorship are not permitted.
Any request to add, remove, or change the order of authors after submission must be supported by a written explanation and agreement from all affected authors.

4. Originality and Plagiarism Policy

IJCRM considers plagiarism a serious violation of academic and publication ethics.
Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• Copying text, ideas, data, images, tables, or results without appropriate attribution.
• Presenting another person’s work as one’s own.
• Substantial verbatim copying without quotation and citation.
• Mosaic or patchwork plagiarism.
• Improper paraphrasing.
• Self-plagiarism involving substantial reuse of previously published material without appropriate disclosure.
• Reuse of figures, tables, datasets, or other copyrighted material without proper permission or attribution.

All submitted manuscripts may be screened using appropriate plagiarism-detection software before or during the editorial process.
A similarity score is not, by itself, considered proof of plagiarism. The editorial team evaluates the nature, source, extent, and context of the similarity. Legitimate similarities such as references, standard terminology, methodology descriptions, and appropriately quoted material may be excluded from consideration.
Where substantial plagiarism is detected before publication, the manuscript may be rejected.
If plagiarism is discovered after publication, the journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction, depending on the seriousness of the violation.

5. Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal.
Manuscripts should not contain substantial material that has already been published elsewhere unless the previous publication is clearly disclosed and the secondary publication is ethically justified.
Authors must disclose related manuscripts, conference papers, preprints, datasets, or previous publications that could create concerns regarding duplicate or overlapping publication.

6. Fabrication and Falsification of Data

IJCRM does not tolerate research misconduct, including:

• Fabrication of data or results.
• Falsification or manipulation of research data.
• Manipulation or deceptive alteration of images.
• Selective reporting intended to mislead readers.
• Manipulation of statistical analyses or results.
• Misrepresentation of research findings.

Where serious concerns arise, the journal may request supporting data, ethical approvals, methodological information, or clarification from the authors or their institutions.
Confirmed misconduct may result in manuscript rejection, correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

7. Research Ethics and Participant Protection

Research involving human participants must comply with applicable ethical standards and must receive approval from an appropriate institutional or recognized ethics committee where required.
Authors should provide an appropriate statement regarding ethical approval and informed consent when applicable.
For clinical studies and trials, authors should provide relevant registration information where registration is required or appropriate.
Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international standards for the ethical treatment and welfare of animals.

8. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships that could influence, or appear to influence, the research or editorial decision-making process.
Potential conflicts may include:

• Financial relationships.
• Employment or consultancy.
• Research funding.
• Personal or professional relationships.
• Institutional affiliations.
• Intellectual property interests.
• Other relationships that may create a perceived conflict.

The existence of a conflict of interest does not automatically prevent publication; transparency and appropriate management are essential.

9. Funding and Financial Disclosure

Authors should clearly disclose all sources of financial support for the research.
Where applicable, the role of the funding organization in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decisions should be stated.
If no external funding was received, authors should provide an appropriate funding statement.

10. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

The journal is committed to maintaining an accurate scholarly record.
If a published article contains a significant error, the journal may publish an appropriate correction or amendment.
Retraction may be considered when an article contains serious errors that invalidate its findings or when there is confirmed evidence of serious misconduct, plagiarism, fabricated or falsified data, unethical research, or substantial duplicate publication.
Expressions of concern may be published when serious allegations require investigation but the available evidence is not yet sufficient to support a final editorial decision.
Corrections and retractions will be clearly identified and linked to the original article where technically possible.

11. Editorial Conflicts of Interest

Editors must not participate in editorial decisions involving manuscripts in which they have a personal, professional, financial, or institutional conflict of interest.
Such manuscripts should be handled independently by another qualified editor whenever appropriate.

12. Reviewer Misconduct

Reviewers must not:

• Appropriate authors’ unpublished ideas or data.
• Share manuscripts with unauthorized individuals.
• Contact authors directly about confidential review matters unless authorized.
• Manipulate reviews to promote personal interests.
• Recommend excessive citations solely to increase their own citation count.
• Review manuscripts where they have a significant conflict of interest.

13. Complaints and Appeals

Authors may submit a formal appeal regarding an editorial decision when they believe that a significant factual or procedural error has occurred.
Complaints concerning editorial conduct, publication ethics, authorship, plagiarism, peer review, or other publication matters will be investigated by the editorial team according to the nature of the complaint.
Where necessary, the journal may seek information from authors’ institutions, funding agencies, ethics committees, or other relevant bodies.

14. Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI

Authors may use artificial intelligence and language-model tools responsibly for purposes such as language improvement, grammar correction, or assistance during manuscript preparation.
AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot accept responsibility for the integrity, originality, and accuracy of scholarly work.
Authors remain fully responsible for:

• The accuracy of all content.
• Verification of AI-assisted information.
• Proper citation of sources.
• Avoiding plagiarism.
• Protecting confidential information.
• Disclosing substantive use of AI where required.

AI-generated content must not be used to fabricate data, references, citations, images, results, or research findings.
Reviewers and editors must maintain manuscript confidentiality and should not upload confidential manuscripts to external AI systems where confidentiality cannot be assured.

15. Copyright and Intellectual Property

Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts are original and that all third-party material is appropriately cited and used with permission where required.
Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions for copyrighted figures, tables, photographs, datasets, or other material.
The journal respects intellectual-property rights and may investigate allegations of copyright infringement.

16. Post-Publication Concerns

Readers and researchers are encouraged to notify the journal if they identify substantial errors, suspected plagiarism, data concerns, unethical research, or other issues affecting the integrity of a published article.
All credible concerns will be reviewed objectively and confidentially. Appropriate action will be taken when evidence supports a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

17. Ethical Compliance

By submitting a manuscript to IJCRM, authors confirm that:

1. The work is original.
2. The manuscript is not under simultaneous consideration elsewhere.
3. All authors have approved the submitted version.
4. Appropriate ethical approval has been obtained where required.
5. Sources and contributions have been properly acknowledged.
6. Conflicts of interest have been disclosed.
7. Funding information has been disclosed.
8. The data and results have not been fabricated or falsified.
9. Plagiarism and inappropriate text or data reuse have been avoided.
10. The manuscript complies with applicable ethical and scholarly standards.

18. Commitment to Publication Integrity

IJCRM is committed to continuously improving its editorial policies and publication practices. The journal reserves the right to investigate suspected ethical violations at any stage of the publication process, including after publication.
Where appropriate, the journal may follow relevant COPE guidance and applicable ICMJE recommendations when addressing allegations of misconduct, corrections, retractions, authorship disputes, duplicate publication, plagiarism, and other publication-ethics matters.

Last Updated: January 2026