To uphold academic integrity and standardize publishing practices, the Editorial Office of University Chemistry has established the following publication ethics guidelines in accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and international standards (e.g., COPE). Authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to adhere to these responsibilities.

1. Responsibilities of Authors

(1)   Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts are accurate, reliable, and compliant with applicable laws and regulations.

(2)   Manuscripts must be original and free from plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or other forms of academic misconduct. The content must not involve confidential information.

(3)   Simultaneous submission or duplicate publication is not permitted.

(4)   Authorship must accurately reflect contributions. All listed authors should have made substantial contributions and be ordered according to their contributions. Authorship, order, and affiliations should be determined upon submission and should not be changed without valid reasons.

(5)   If significant errors are identified after publication, authors must promptly notify the editorial office and cooperate in issuing corrections or retractions.

(6)   Authors should respect reviewers’ comments and may submit an appeal to the editorial office if disagreements arise.

(7)   If generative AI is used during manuscript preparation, its use must be appropriate and transparently disclosed, including the tool name, usage, and specific contributions. Generative AI tools must not be listed as authors. Authors bear full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and reliability of the manuscript. Failure to disclose or improper use may result in editorial actions, including rejection or retraction.

2. Responsibilities of Editors

(1)   Editors should evaluate manuscripts objectively and fairly in accordance with the journal’s scope and standards.

(2)   All submissions should undergo similarity checks to prevent plagiarism and duplicate publication. Manuscripts with confirmed misconduct will be rejected.

(3)   Editors should avoid selecting reviewers with conflicts of interest and, where possible, avoid reviewers from the same institution as the authors.

(4)   Editors must ensure the integrity of the peer-review process and maintain confidentiality of all related materials.

(5)   Editors may perform language editing and formatting adjustments; substantive changes require author approval and must respect the author’s intent.

(6)   Editors should provide feedback or reasons for rejection.

(7)   Complaints and appeals must be handled carefully, with verification and timely responses.

(8)   For published articles confirmed to involve academic misconduct, the journal will issue a retraction notice and clearly indicate the retracted status of the article, and will notify relevant databases to update the article’s status in order to prevent further inappropriate dissemination.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

(1)   The journal adopts a single-blind peer review process.

(2)   Reviewers must provide fair, objective, and unbiased evaluations.

(3)   Reviewers should declare any conflicts of interest and provide clear recommendations regarding publication suitability.

(4)   Reviews should be completed within the agreed timeframe. If unable to do so, reviewers should promptly notify the editorial office. Delegation of review without permission is not allowed.

(5)   Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality and must not disclose or misuse unpublished manuscript content, including sharing it with third parties or processing it using generative AI tools. Reviews must be based on independent academic judgment and should not rely solely on automatically generated content.