Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Planner and Development (JPD) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, editorial independence, peer review transparency, and academic quality. The journal expects all authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members to follow ethical standards throughout the submission, review, editorial decision-making, publication, and post-publication stages.

JPD publishes only Original Research Articles and Review Articles that provide a clear scholarly contribution to urban and regional planning knowledge, methodology, policy, or practice. The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, inappropriate authorship, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, abuse of editorial position, or any other form of academic misconduct.

Policy Sections

1. Editorial Responsibilities

1.1 Publication Decisions

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board are responsible for making publication decisions based on the academic quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical integrity, relevance to the journal’s aims and scope, peer review reports, and contribution of the manuscript to urban and regional planning scholarship and practice.

Editorial decisions are not influenced by the authors’ nationality, gender, institutional affiliation, ethnicity, religion, political views, personal relationships, academic rank, editorial position, or payment of publication fees. All manuscripts are assessed according to the same scholarly, ethical, and editorial standards.

1.2 Editorial Screening

All submitted manuscripts undergo initial editorial screening before peer review. Manuscripts may be rejected before external review if they fall outside the journal’s scope, lack originality, contain unacceptable similarity, have serious methodological weaknesses, do not follow the journal template, or do not comply with ethical requirements.

1.3 Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff must treat all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents. Information about submitted manuscripts must not be disclosed to anyone except the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial board members, and publisher where necessary for the editorial process.

1.4 Conflicts of Interest

Editors must not use unpublished information from submitted manuscripts for personal, academic, or professional advantage. Editors should recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a financial, institutional, personal, academic, supervisory, competitive, or professional conflict of interest.

1.5 Submissions by Editors, Editorial Board Members, and Journal Staff

JPD allows submissions from the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, and journal staff, provided that such submissions are handled under strict conflict-of-interest safeguards and full editorial independence, in accordance with the COPE Core Practices on editorial independence and the COPE guidance “Editor as author.”

When a manuscript is submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, an Editorial Board member, a reviewer, or any person involved in the journal’s editorial or administrative process, the submitting person must be completely excluded from all stages of editorial handling, reviewer selection, peer review management, editorial discussion, and final decision-making for that manuscript.

Such manuscripts shall be assigned to an independent handling editor who has no conflict of interest with the author(s), including recent co-authorship within the last five years, institutional dependency, supervisory relationship, financial interest, close personal relationship, or direct academic competition. If the Editor-in-Chief is an author, the manuscript shall be handled by the Managing Editor, an Associate Editor, an independent Editorial Board member, or, where necessary, an external guest editor from another institution.

To protect the integrity of the double-blind process, the submitting editor or Editorial Board member shall have no access, through the journal’s online editorial system (OJS) or by any other means, to the identities of the assigned reviewers, the reviewer reports, the editorial correspondence, or the decision file relating to their own manuscript at any stage prior to publication. The manuscript is processed entirely outside the authoring editor’s editorial account.

Manuscripts submitted by editors or Editorial Board members are subject to the same editorial screening, similarity checking, ethical requirements, peer review standards, revision procedures, and acceptance criteria applied to all other submissions. No preferential treatment, accelerated review, reduced scholarly requirements, or automatic acceptance is permitted.

At least two independent external reviewers shall evaluate such manuscripts. For submissions authored by the Editor-in-Chief or Managing Editor, the journal shall invite an additional independent reviewer or appoint an external handling editor from another institution to strengthen the impartiality and transparency of the process.

To preserve editorial balance and in line with international indexing standards, including the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the proportion of published research papers in any single issue in which at least one author is an editor, an Editorial Board member, or a reviewer of the journal shall not exceed 25%. The editorial office monitors and records this proportion for every published issue.

Every published article authored or co-authored by an editor, Editorial Board member, reviewer, or journal staff member must include an explicit Editorial Independence Statement within its conflict-of-interest section. The statement shall confirm the author’s role in the journal and declare that the author was not involved in the editorial handling, reviewer selection, peer review, or final decision-making for the manuscript.

The final editorial decision shall be made only by an independent handling editor or an authorized editor with no conflict of interest. Any breach of this policy may lead to suspension of the review process, reassignment of the manuscript, rejection, correction of the publication record, retraction, or further action under the journal’s publication ethics procedures.

Mandatory Editorial Independence Statement (to be included in the published article):

The author [Name] is the Editor-in-Chief / a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Planner and Development. The author was not involved in the editorial handling, reviewer selection, peer review process, or final decision-making for this manuscript. The manuscript was handled independently by an appointed independent handling editor according to the journal’s conflict-of-interest, publication ethics, and peer review policies.

2. Reviewers’ Responsibilities

2.1 Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Reviewers assist the editorial team in evaluating the academic quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, and relevance of submitted manuscripts. Reviewer comments should help editors make informed decisions and help authors improve their manuscripts.

2.2 Promptness

Reviewers who feel unqualified to review a manuscript or unable to complete the review within the requested time should decline the review invitation promptly.

2.3 Confidentiality

Reviewers must treat manuscripts under review as confidential documents. They must not share, discuss, reproduce, or use unpublished manuscript content for personal, academic, or professional advantage.

Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts or review materials to public or unsecured artificial intelligence tools or third-party platforms.

2.4 Objectivity

Reviews should be objective, constructive, and supported by clear academic reasoning. Personal criticism of authors is not acceptable. Reviewers should evaluate the manuscript based on its scholarly merit, methodology, evidence, clarity, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal’s scope.

2.5 Acknowledgement of Sources and Ethical Concerns

Reviewers should notify the editor if they identify uncited sources, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, image or map manipulation, citation manipulation, or substantial overlap with published work.

2.6 Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must disclose any financial, institutional, personal, academic, or professional conflict of interest that may affect their objectivity. Reviewers should decline the review invitation if they cannot provide an impartial evaluation.

3. Authors’ Responsibilities

3.1 Reporting Standards

Authors must present accurate, original, and well-structured scholarly work. Manuscripts should include a clear research problem, objectives, methodology or review method, results or synthesis, discussion, conclusions, and appropriate references.

Authors must ensure that the manuscript complies with the journal’s Author Guidelines, official manuscript template, ethical requirements, and citation style.

3.2 Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that their manuscripts are original and properly cited. JPD does not accept plagiarism, self-plagiarism, improper paraphrasing, uncited use of text, data, maps, tables, figures, photographs, diagrams, or any other form of unethical reuse.

All submitted manuscripts are subject to similarity screening according to the journal’s Plagiarism and Similarity Policy.

3.3 Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. Manuscripts that have been published elsewhere, or that substantially overlap with previously published work without a clear new contribution and proper citation, are not acceptable.

3.4 Authorship and Contributorship

All listed authors must have made a significant scholarly contribution to the manuscript. All authors must approve the submitted version and agree to be accountable for the integrity of the work.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship, and inappropriate omission of contributors are not acceptable. Any change in authorship after submission must be justified and approved by all authors and the editorial office.

3.5 Conflicts of Interest

Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, personal, academic, editorial, supervisory, or professional relationships that may influence, or appear to influence, the research, interpretation, review, or publication process. If no conflict of interest exists, authors should state this clearly in the manuscript.

Authors who are editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, or journal staff must disclose their role in JPD at submission. Such disclosure does not prevent submission, but it requires independent editorial handling according to the journal’s policy on submissions by editors and Editorial Board members.

3.6 Funding Disclosure

Authors must disclose all sources of funding, including grant numbers and funding agencies where applicable. The role of the funding body in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decision must be stated. If the research received no external funding, this must be clearly declared.

3.7 Data Availability

Authors should provide a data availability statement where applicable. If data are publicly available, authors should provide the repository name, link, and accession number. If data are available upon reasonable request, this should be stated. If data cannot be shared, the reason must be clearly explained.

3.8 Ethics Approval

Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, stakeholder engagement, institutional data, or personal information must comply with relevant institutional and national ethical standards. Where ethical approval is required, authors must provide the name of the approving authority and the approval code. If ethical approval is not required, authors should state this clearly.

3.9 Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools

Authors must disclose any use of generative artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, including language editing, translation, coding assistance, data processing, or content generation.

Artificial intelligence tools must not be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, interpretation, citations, and ethical compliance of the submitted manuscript.

3.10 Fundamental Errors in Published Work

If authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article, they must promptly notify the editorial office and cooperate in issuing a correction, clarification, or retraction where necessary.

4. Research Misconduct

Research misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • Plagiarism and self-plagiarism.
  • Duplicate or redundant publication.
  • Data fabrication or data falsification.
  • Image, map, table, or figure manipulation.
  • Citation manipulation.
  • Inappropriate authorship.
  • Undisclosed conflicts of interest.
  • Abuse of editorial position or interference with peer review.
  • Misrepresentation of ethical approval.
  • Submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals.

When ethical concerns are identified before or after publication, the editorial office will investigate the case and may request clarification, reject the manuscript, issue a correction, publish an expression of concern, retract the article, or notify the relevant institution where necessary.

5. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

JPD is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. If errors or ethical concerns are identified after publication, the journal may issue:

  • Correction: for errors that do not invalidate the main findings.
  • Expression of Concern: when serious concerns require further investigation.
  • Retraction: when findings are unreliable, unethical, plagiarized, duplicated, or based on fabricated or falsified data.

All post-publication notices will be linked to the published article where applicable.

6. Complaints and Appeals

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal if they believe that an editorial decision resulted from a procedural error, factual misunderstanding, or overlooked evidence. Appeals must provide clear academic justification.

Complaints related to editorial conduct, peer review, ethical concerns, delays, or publication procedures will be handled by the editorial office in a fair and documented manner.