Ethical Standards

Declaration of ethics

The publication of Investigaciones Geográficas attending to a general code of ethics and good practice in research and academic work. In this section the responsibilities of all the parties involved in the publishing process are defined.  We have put together a team of editors, an editorial committee and a board of reviewers that are highly qualified and experienced, in order to ensure the compliance of these guidelines of ethics and good practice are followed. All the relevant information regarding institutional affiliation, academic degrees and contact of people involved in the publication of Investigaciones Geográficas are available on the web site.

Responsibilities of the team of editors

The team of editors is in charge of enforcing the application of these general guidelines for publication, as well as overseeing the evaluation process. It is the editors’ responsibility to ensure that the material being published is of relevance to the overall scope of this journal, that all the manuscripts are compliant with the formatting guidelines, and that the diversity in points of view and perspectives being published are disciplinary sound and adequate in the context of a respectful academic discussion.

The editors are responsible of enforcing all legal dispositions, including, but not limited to, those related to plagiarism, authorship and defamation.

The editors are responsible of ensuring that the evaluation process is double blind. Al the information from authors and peer reviewers, as well as sensible data included in manuscripts and evaluation reports, has to remain confidential until the material is published.

All unpublished material cannot be used by the editors without explicit consent from the authors.

Likewise, members of the team of editors are not authorised to use any information from manuscripts and/or evaluation reports, for personal benefit. If there is a conflict of interest between a member of the team of editors and an author and/or evaluator, the editorial task will be transferred to another member of the team.

The team of editors will respond to any ethical conflict derived from either published articles or complaints regarding published articles, in order to safeguard the reputation of the journal and authors, as well as to ensure the relevance of the published material.

Material submitted to Investigaciones Geográficas will be assessed and sent to peer review, regardless of the ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, creed, nationality and ideological position of the authors.

Responsibilities of the authors

By submitting a manuscript to Investigaciones Geográficas authors accept these ethics guidelines for publication, and declare that the material being submitted is original and is not under consideration for other publications.

Authors must guarantee that all secondary source material included in their manuscripts is adequately referenced. Plagiarism, in any of its possible forms, will not be tolerated by the team of editors.

If a manuscript is presented by multiple authors, a significant contribution by all of them has to be ensured. It is responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all authors agree on the version of the manuscript being final.

In the case of private or sensible data being used as part of a submitted article, explicit consent from the owner of said information is required. The corresponding author will be held responsible for obtaining explicit authorisations.

It is responsibility of the authors to explicitly mention any supporting institutions when due. Likewise, any commitment that may influence the interpretation of discussion and conclusions must be explicitly stated by the authors.

The authors must explicitly state if there are conflicts of any nature (e.g. financial) that may influence the results and interpretations of their research.

If errors or mistakes are detected by the authors once the manuscript has been published, it is their obligation to inform the director of Revista de Urbanismo, so the mistake can be disclosed on the following issue.

Responsibility of reviewers

All members of the reviewers’ council are professionals and academics in the field of urban studies, with expertise in diverse areas of the discipline. Investigaciones Geográficas ensures the diversity Evaluators are selected by the team of editors, based on their expertise. However, a reviewer can reject an evaluation, or recommend someone better suited for the task, if they see that the material submitted to them is not within their area of specialisation, or if they find any conflict of interest that may affect their objectivity in the evaluation process. In said case, the reviewer rejecting the article is requested to maintain absolute conditionality regarding the material, while it is under review.

In order to ensure a timely development of the review process, reviewers must inform the editor if they accept or reject a manuscript as soon as possible.

Reviewers must ensure that the content of manuscripts under review is kept under strict confidentiality, thus, it cannot be discussed or disclosed to third parties.

Reviewers must ensure that the information included in every manuscript is accurate and truthful. If any omission or error is detected, it will be informed on the review report. The same applies is plagiarism of evident similarities to work that has already been published is detected.

Reviewers are not authorised to make use of any information contained in a manuscript under review, unless there is explicit authorisation from the authors.

All criticism and observations contained in review reports must be presented in a respectful and neutral language, and must be based on reasonable and well documented arguments.

Management of unethical conduct

The recognition of unethical conduct

When misconduct and / or unethical actions are identified, they should be reported to the editorial team.

Misconduct and unethical actions include, but are not limited to, examples here, such as plagiarism or falsification of research.

The report of unethical conduct must provide sufficient information and evidence to initiate an investigation. All complaints must be considered and treated in a similar manner, until a corresponding result or agreement is achieved.

 Investigation

The editor is responsible for choosing the appropriate form of research and editorial advice from the editorial committee, the academic committee or the evaluator when making this choice.

The evidence must be gathered in a manner that avoids the situation and the proliferation of accusations.

Communication

Notify the author or evaluator of a misunderstanding or misapplication of the ethical standards of the journal.

Writing a letter or statement addressed to the author expressing the unethical behavior and issuing a warning.

The publication of a formal observation with the details of the inappropriate behavior.

The publication of an editorial comment detailing the inappropriate behavior.

The withdrawal and formal elimination of the work in question from the journal, together with notifying the supervisor of the author or group of evaluators and the hearing of the publication.

Enforce a formal embargo on the author's presentations for a specific period of time.