For Authors

Guidelines for Authors

These Guidelines set out the general responsibilities of authors submitting scholarly work to journals, book series, edited volumes, and other publications issued by the University of Warsaw or under its auspices.

They should be read together with the University of Warsaw Publishing Ethics and Integrity Policy and with the specific submission, editorial, licensing, and research data policies of the relevant journal, series, or publishing unit.

Authors are expected to follow recognised standards of research and publication integrity and to cooperate with editors in maintaining the accuracy, reliability, and integrity of the scholarly record.

1. General Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for the integrity, originality, and accuracy of the work they submit for publication.

Authors are expected to:

• submit original work;
• present research methods, data, results, arguments, and conclusions accurately and honestly;
• provide appropriate references and attribution for all sources and materials used;
• accurately disclose authorship and individual contributions;
• disclose relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding;
• comply with copyright and other intellectual property requirements;
• obtain all required approvals and permissions relating to research, data, and third-party materials;
• comply with applicable research data requirements;
• respond to reasonable requests from editors for clarification, documentation, corrections, or additional information;
• cooperate in resolving concerns and correcting errors relating to their publication.

2. Responsibilities of the Corresponding Author

The Corresponding Author serves as the principal contact between the authors and the editorial or publishing office.

The Corresponding Author is responsible for:

• managing communication with the editorial office on behalf of all authors;
• responding to editorial queries;
• coordinating revisions and corrections;
• providing required permissions and documentation;
• confirming that all persons listed as authors have made an appropriate contribution to the work;
• ensuring that all authors are aware of and approve the version submitted for publication;
• providing, where requested, documentation confirming the authors' consent and the required permissions to use third-party materials.

3. Authorship

Authorship should reflect a genuine and significant intellectual contribution to the work.

A person listed as an author should:

• have made a significant intellectual contribution to the research or publication;
• have participated in drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
• approve the final version to be published;
• accept responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work within the scope of their contribution and cooperate in resolving questions concerning the publication.

A person should be listed as an author only where the authorship criteria applicable to the publication have been met.

4. Contributors

Individuals who have contributed to a publication but do not meet the applicable criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors. Their contribution should instead be appropriately acknowledged, for example in the acknowledgements or a contribution statement.

Such contributions may include acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group, administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, or proofreading.

Where individuals have contributed in different ways or to different extents, authors are encouraged to provide transparent information describing their respective roles. The University of Warsaw supports the use of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), where appropriate, to describe individual contributions.

5. Unacceptable Authorship Practices

The following authorship practices are considered unacceptable:

• Ghost authorship – failure to identify a person whose substantial contribution warrants authorship.
• Guest authorship – listing as an author a person who has made no genuine contribution to the work.
• Gift or honorary authorship – assigning authorship because of a person's position, status, affiliation, relationship to the research team, or another reason unrelated to an appropriate contribution to the publication.

6. Changes to Authorship

Requests to change authorship after submission must be appropriately justified.

A request to add or remove an author, or to change the order of authors, should include:

• an explanation of the reason for the requested change;
• agreement from all listed authors;
• agreement from the person being added or removed, where applicable.

Any change is subject to approval by the appropriate editor or authorised publishing body.

Where a request concerns material that has already been published, the matter should be handled transparently and, where appropriate, reflected in a formal correction or corrigendum.

7. Originality and Previous Publication

Authors should submit original work and disclose any relevant previous publication or dissemination of the same or substantially overlapping material.

When submitting a work, authors should ensure that material taken from other sources is properly identified and attributed and that any required permissions to use protected content have been obtained.

Authors should follow the specific policy of the relevant journal or publishing unit regarding simultaneous submission, previous publication, preprints, conference papers, repository versions, and other forms of prior dissemination.

8. Plagiarism, Text Recycling, and Duplicate Publication

Plagiarism and other forms of appropriation of another person's work are incompatible with publication ethics. Quotations and all other material taken from existing sources must be appropriately identified and referenced.

The following practices are unacceptable:

• copying another person's text without appropriate attribution;
• presenting another person's ideas, arguments, data, or results as one's own;
• inappropriate or misleading paraphrasing of another person's work;
• substantial reuse of an author's own previously published material without appropriate disclosure or citation;
• duplicate or redundant publication of substantially overlapping work without disclosure to the editor and appropriate reference to the earlier publication.

Authors should exercise particular care when paraphrasing or summarising material published by others.

9. Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors must disclose actual or potential conflicts of interest that could influence, or reasonably be perceived as influencing, the submitted work.

Conflicts may arise from financial relationships, employment, consultancy, honoraria, research funding, personal or family relationships, and professional or institutional connections. They also include relevant relationships with editors, reviewers, editorial board members, editorial offices, and publishing bodies.

Conflicts should be disclosed as early as possible, preferably before submission or as soon as they become known during the editorial process. Where a relevant conflict becomes known after publication, authors should inform the appropriate editorial or publishing office.

Authors must also disclose relevant sources of funding in accordance with the requirements of the publication.

10. Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

Artificial intelligence systems must not be listed as authors of publications.

Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and appropriateness of all content submitted under their names, including content prepared with the assistance of AI tools.

Authors who use AI-assisted technologies, including large language models, chatbots, and image-generating tools, should disclose such use as required by the relevant publication.

The disclosure should provide sufficient information to explain how the technology was used. Where AI has been used as writing assistance, this should be disclosed in accordance with the publication's requirements, for example in the acknowledgements or another designated section.

11. Research Data and Reproducibility

Authors are encouraged to manage and share research data in ways that support transparency, verification, and reuse.

Where appropriate and legally and ethically possible, authors should:

• make research data available in standard and reusable formats;
• follow the FAIR principles – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable;
• use appropriate and trustworthy repositories;
• comply with institutional and funder requirements concerning research data;
• cite datasets used or created in connection with the publication;
• provide a DOI, accession number, or other persistent identifier where available.

Restrictions on data sharing resulting from confidentiality, personal data protection, ethical requirements, contractual obligations, or other legitimate reasons should be respected.

12. Ethical Approvals, Human Participants, and Confidential Material

Authors are responsible for obtaining all ethical approvals, participant consents, and permissions required for the research and for publication.

This applies in particular to research involving human participants, confidential or protected data, materials subject to legal restrictions, third-party materials, and other research requiring ethical review or informed consent.

The Corresponding Author should ensure that the required documentation is available and can be provided to the editorial or publishing office upon request.

13. Copyright and Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for respecting intellectual property rights. They should ensure that the submitted work is original, quotations and other reused materials are properly identified and attributed, and permission has been obtained wherever required.

Appropriate attribution is also required when reusing an author's own previously published material. The submitted work must not unlawfully infringe third-party rights.

Specific licensing arrangements, including Creative Commons licences and the rights retained by authors, are determined by the relevant journal, book series, or publishing unit.

14. Preprints and Other Forms of Prior Dissemination

Authors should inform the editorial or publishing office of any earlier dissemination of the submitted work or a substantially overlapping version.

Policies concerning preprints, conference proceedings, repositories, working papers, and other forms of prior dissemination may vary between publication types. Authors should consult the requirements of the relevant journal, series, or publishing unit before submission.

Where previously disseminated material is permitted, its existence should be transparently disclosed and appropriately cited.

15. Authors' Responsibilities After Publication

Authors' responsibility to cooperate with the editorial or publishing office continues after publication.

If an author discovers a significant error or omission in their published work, they should inform the relevant editorial or publishing office without undue delay.

Depending on the nature of the matter, the publication may require a correction, erratum, corrigendum, addendum, or another appropriate editorial notice.

Authors are expected to cooperate with legitimate investigations concerning the accuracy, integrity, or ethics of their published work.

16. Cooperation in Cases of Suspected Misconduct

Authors are expected to cooperate in good faith when concerns arise regarding the integrity of a submitted or published work.

Concerns may relate to plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, manipulation of figures, tables, or citations, authorship irregularities, duplicate publication, peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, inappropriate use of AI, or other practices that may undermine the integrity of the publication.

Authors may be asked to provide documentation, research data, permissions, authorship statements, ethical approvals, or other information necessary to clarify the matter.

17. Journal- and Publication-Specific Requirements

Individual journals, book series, and publishing units may establish additional requirements concerning manuscript preparation, anonymisation for peer review, accepted article types, data availability statements, authorship declarations, licensing, open access, preprints, publication fees, supplementary materials, research reporting standards, and the use of artificial intelligence.

Before submitting their work, authors should consult the specific instructions applicable to the publication to which they intend to submit.

Contact

General questions concerning publication ethics at the University of Warsaw may be addressed to:

Research Services Office
E-mail: ja.lewczuk@uw.edu.pl

Questions concerning the submission, preparation, review, licensing, or publication of a specific manuscript should normally be addressed first to the relevant journal, academic editor, or publishing unit.