Editorial decision appeals policy

Authors' policy regarding requested appeals of editorial decisions.

To appeal an editorial decision that you have received from The Innovation, please email the editorial office (editorial-office@the-innovation.org) and summarize the scientific basis on which you wish to appeal, including the manuscript number in the subject line of your email (e.g, Appeal to THE-INNOVATION-D-24-01432). The handing editor and, as needed, editorial team will consider your appeal and respond to you once they have done so. Please note that, when your paper is under appeal at Innovation Press, we consider it as being under active consideration; thus, please let us know immediately if you decide to submit to another journal instead. 

Appeals and Complaints

Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions or review reports during the editorial process. Please contact the editorial office of the individual journal to submit your appeals. Editors should allow appeals to override earlier decisions following appropriate reconsideration of the editorial process and decision making (for example, additional factual input by the authors, revisions, extra material in the manuscript, or appeals about conflicts of interest and concerns about biased peer review). Editors should mediate all exchanges between authors and peer reviewers during the peer-review process. Editors may seek comments from additional peer reviewers to help them make their final decision. The editor's decision following an appeal is final. Author protest alone should not affect decisions.
Complaints on editorial process or publication ethics should be delivered to the editorial office of the journal, and will be handled by the editor who responsible for the journal. If the editor is involved in your complaints, please contact the publisher at office@the-innovation.org. For complaints about publication ethics, the editor will follow guidelines published by COPE.

Editorial independence

Policy on independent editorial decisions.

All submissions are initially evaluated in depth by the scientific editors. Papers that do not conform to the general criteria for publication will be returned to the authors without detailed review. Otherwise, manuscripts will be sent to at least two reviewers who have agreed in advance to assess the paper rapidly. The Innovation uses double-blind peer review. The editors will make every effort to reach decisions on these papers within 3 weeks of the submission date. If revisions are a condition of publication, generally 4 weeks are allowed for revisions, and only one revised version of the paper is considered. Evaluations of conceptual advance and significance are made on the basis of the literature available on the day of final decision, not the day of submission. Accepted papers will be published online ahead of the issue as soon as possible and will appear in an issue within 2 months of acceptance. Any major changes after acceptance are subject to review and may delay publication. Editors and Editorial Board members are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups. 

Editorial policies

Policies for Authors, Editors and Reviewers.

This document outlines the standard editorial standards that all The Innovation's journals should adhere to. It also clarifies how publication misconduct will be handled and shows the range of rights and responsibilities of various roles in the academic publishing process, such as authors, reviewers, Editors-in-Chief, Advisory Editors, Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, and in-house editors. The following twenty items, which are the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), serve as the foundation for our editorial policies. The specifics of our journals' editorial procedures range slightly depending on the field. Regarding the exact circumstances of each journal, please visit the relevant journal website for further information.

Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that no part of the work has been published previously in print or electronic format and that the paper is not under consideration by another publication or electronic medium. All in-press or submitted works pertinent to the manuscript under consideration by Innovation Press (including those cited in the manuscript under consideration) must accompany the submission. Related manuscripts that have been submitted elsewhere during the period of revision must accompany revised manuscripts. Failure to provide copies of related manuscripts under consideration elsewhere may delay the review process and may be grounds for rejection.

Double-Blind Peer Review Protocol

All journals hosted by Innovation Press adheres to a rigorous double-blind peer review process to ensure the utmost objectivity and fairness in manuscript evaluation. This protocol mandates that the identities of both authors and reviewers remain undisclosed throughout the assessment process.
To maintain the integrity of this system, authors are required to prepare their submissions in a manner that precludes identification. The following guidelines must be strictly observed when submitting to The Innovation Energy.

Authors must submit two discrete files:
1.Title Page
2.Anonymized Manuscript

The title page shall encompass:
* Manuscript title
* Full names and affiliations of all authors
* Corresponding author's contact information
* Declarations of conflicts of interest* Funding attribution
* Acknowledgments

Anonymized Manuscript Criteria:
* The manuscript must be devoid of any author names, affiliations, or institutional identifiers.
* Self-referential language must be reformulated in the third person. For instance, "as demonstrated in our previous work [reference]" should be recast as "as previously demonstrated [reference]." Critical self-citations may be retained.
* All figures, tables, and supplementary materials must be purged of affiliation-related markers.
* File nomenclature must not include any identifying information.
* Metadata and document properties must be expunged of all author-related details.

Authorship

Innovation Press ascribes to the authorship and contributorship guidelines defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.ICMJE.org). Unrestricted joint authorship is allowed. Each author may indicate only one email address.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate contributors are listed as authors and that all authors have agreed to the manuscript’s content and its submission to The Innovation.

If the author list includes a consortium, an optional list of members is permitted in a special "Consortia" section that appears just before the paper’s Acknowledgments section. In such a case, a full list of members is required, although a URL may also be included if desired. No affiliations are permitted in the "Consortia" section. If you wish to include affiliations, this list should appear as Supplemental Information.

The Change of Authorship Request Form should be used by authors to request any change in authorship including changes in corresponding authors. Please read, fill and return this form, fully completed, to The Innovation Editorial Office with your revised manuscript.（Download: Change-of-Authorship-Request-Form.docx）The Innovation Editorial Office will consider the information you have provided to decide whether to approve the proposed change in authorship.

By signing this declaration, all authors guarantee that the order of the authors are in accordance with their scientific contribution, if applicable as different conventions apply per discipline, and that only authors have been added who made a meaningful contribution to the work.

If you are not able to return a fully completed form in time that it was sent to the author requesting the change, The Innovation Editorial Office may have to withdraw your manuscript. The Innovation cannot publish manuscripts where authorship has not been agreed by all authors (including those who have been removed).

Declaration of interests

Transparency is essential for a reader’s trust in the scientific process and for the credibility of published articles. We feel that disclosure of competing interests is a critical aspect of transparency. Therefore, we ask that all authors disclose any financial or other interests related to the submitted work that (1) could affect or have the perception of affecting the author’s objectivity, or (2) could influence or have the perception of influencing the content of the article.

Prior to acceptance, author groups of all article types (front or back matter) are asked to complete and submit a "Declaration of Interests" form (PDF). We also ask that authors disclose any competing interests in the article in a dedicated Declaration of Interests section.

Public and patient participation in research reporting

As part of its patient and public partnership approach, Innovation Press promotes active patient and public involvement in clinical research. We ask authors to include a Patient and Public participation statement under the title "Patient and public involvement" in the methods section of their articles to facilitate co-production of research.

We recognize that patient and public participation is still in its early stages and that it might not be appropriate or practical for every paper. As a result, we still review studies in which patients were not involved. Note that only research articles, study protocols, and cohort profiles are eligible for this practice.

The following questions should include a succinct response from the patient and public involvement statement, customized according to the reported study design：

1.When and how were patients and the general public initially involved in the research?

2.How did their priorities, experiences, and preferences impact the development of the research question(s) and outcome measures?

3.In what ways did patients and the general public contribute to the study's design?

4.What role did they have in the study's recruiting and execution?

5.Were they asked to evaluate the time commitment needed to engage in the research and the burden of the intervention?

6.How did they (or will they) contribute to your plans to share the study's findings with participants and pertinent, larger patient communities, for example, by deciding what data to disclose, when to share it, and in what format?

Please indicate if patients were not involved.

We recommend that writers take a close look at the GRIPP2 reporting checklist's guidelines for the best ways to report patient and public involvement in addition to the previously mentioned items.

We will ask authors to provide the Patient and Public Involvement statement if it is not included in the submitted manuscript.

Preprint servers

We will consider papers previously posted on preprint servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv. This policy applies only to the original submitted version of the paper; authors should not post revisions that respond to editorial input and peer review or post the final published version to preprint servers. Also, The Innovation’s prepublication policies with regard to coverage in the broader media still apply to studies posted on preprint servers.

Reporting guidelines

When applicable, adherence to the following guidelines is advised. Please organize your content according to these principles. Your contribution should include completed relevant checklists, structured abstracts, and flow diagrams; these will be published in the final edition of your article.

CONSORT Statement

When reporting randomised controlled trials, kindly make use of the relevant CONSORT statement extensions, such as the one for abstract writing.

ARRIVE(Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments)

Reports for animal studies and in vitro

CARE (for CAse Reports)

Reports for clinical case

SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interven-tional Trials)

Reporting integrity and transparency for clinical trial protocols

SRQR, COREQ

Reports for qualitative research

STROBE

Reports for observational studies in epidemiology

STARD

Reporting specifications for diagnostic accuracy studies

PRISMA

Reports for systematic overview

RIGHT (Reporting Items for practice Guidelines in HealThcare)

Reports on guidelines for health systems, public health and clinical medicine

STREGA

Reports for gene-disease association studies

ACCORD

Reports for consensus studies

EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research)

Comprehensive list of reporting guidelines.

Ethical Guidelines for Authors

1. Authors are responsible for the soundness and reliability of the manuscript, and must cooperate with the Editorial Office when original pictures and data, and other proof materials are required.

2. The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect the contributions of each individual to the study. Four basic criteria must be met collectively to be credited as an author:
* Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
* Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
* Final approval of the version to be published;
* Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Those who do not meet all four criteria (such as those who provide purely technical, or financial and material contributions to the work) should not be rewarded with authorship, but be listed in the Acknowledgment section.

3. The corresponding author is the one who takes primary responsibility for communicating with journal editors during manuscript processing, before and after publication, and typically ensures that all the journal's requirements are satisfied properly. This includes ensuring that all authors have agreed to be so listed and have approved submission of the manuscript to the journal, providing details of authorship, ethical committee approval and clinical trial registration documents, gathering conflict of interest forms, etc. In general, only one corresponding author is allowed. For multi-center trials or multidisciplinary studies, the list of clinicians and researchers is typically published with more corresponding authors. These additional authors should be academically responsible to different institutions or research groups.

4. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors based on their contributions, and be agreed by all authors. Any changes to the author and/or institution lists should be approved by the responsible author (first author and/or corresponding author), and a formal proposal approved by all authors must be submitted to the Editorial Office to elucidate the reason(s).

5. Authors who contribute equally to the work should be identified at the time of submission. The number of first co-authors is generally not more than two. In the case of multi-center trials or multidisciplinary studies where there are indeed more than two first co-authors, then the list may be as appropriate for the situation. Those added to the list beyond two should come from different institutions or research groups.

6. For reporting clinical trials, the authors should follow relevant guidelines (such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) for the reporting of randomized controlled trials, Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND) for the reporting standards of non-randomized evaluations of behavioral and public health interventions, Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) for the conduct and dissemination of observational studies, the Standards of Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (STARD).

7. In cases of clinical trial studies (randomized controlled studies, cohort studies, case-control studies, case reports, studies conducted on human subjects, or samples taken from the human body, even psychological and social studies involving questionnaires), the authors, in principle, should register the study in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry and provide the registration number in the manuscript.

8. The authors should declare any possible financial and/or non-financial conflicts of interest at the end of their manuscript and in the cover letter, as well as confirm this point when submitting their manuscript in the submission system. If no conflicts of interest exist, authors need to state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest". In case of a conflict of interest, all economic interests that may have an impact on the results of their research (e.g., a commercial interest relationship with a company; a company providing funds for the experimental design and implementation, data processing, article writing; etc.) must be declared.

9. The authors must identify the organizations, institutions, or people who provided financial support for conducting the research and/or preparing the article at the time of submission.

10. The authors are supposed to submit their manuscript themselves and they are not allowed to entrust a third party to submit it. The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:
* Ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
* Managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication*;
* Providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
* Making sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate.

11. If an author disagrees with the results of the peer reviews and the editor's decision, that author may submit a written challenge and make detailed interpretations and explanations for disagreeing with the reviewers' suggestions/editor's decision to the Editorial Office. The editor will then review this response and decide whether the reviewers made an error in judgement, or additional peer review is necessary. The editor’s decision at this point is final.

12. Authorship changes are not allowed after a manuscript is officially accepted after peer-review.

13. Authors are not allowed to revise data, figures, and key results during proofreading.

14. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the manuscript in the form of an erratum.