Grounds for the retraction of an article include:
- discovery of plagiarism in the publication;
- duplicate publication of the article in multiple journals;
- discovery of falsification or fabrication in the work (e.g., manipulation of experimental data);
- discovery of serious errors in the work (e.g., misinterpretation of results) that call its scientific value into question;
- an incorrect list of authors (omission of an individual who qualifies as an author, or inclusion of individuals who do not meet authorship criteria);
- an undisclosed conflict of interest (or other violations of publication ethics requirements);
- republication of an article without the author’s consent.
Procedure for the retraction of an article
The retraction of a publication is handled by the journal’s editorial office, either upon the author’s request or at the editorial office’s own discretion.
Once a decision to retract a text has been made, the editorial office shall inform the author or the group of authors. The author(s) must be provided with the specific rationale for the retraction.
If the author(s) fail to respond to the editorial office’s inquiries, it is appropriate to seek assistance from the Council on Publication Ethics.
When an article is retracted, the editorial office shall state the reason for the retraction (in cases of plagiarism, the sources from which the material was taken must be identified) and the date of the retraction. The article and its metadata will remain on the journal’s website as part of the relevant issue; however, the electronic version of the text will be marked with the label “RETRACTED” along with the date of retraction. This same label will also be applied to the article entry in the issue’s table of contents. A protocol must be submitted to the Council for Ethics in Scientific Publications and the scientific information databases (NEB, CyberLeninka); this document must specify the date of the meeting, the list of attendees, the results of the review, a reasoned decision, and a completed form.
Information regarding retracted texts is forwarded to:
- NEB (elibrary.ru);
- CyberLeninka;
- the Council for Ethics in Scientific Publications (for inclusion in the unified database of retracted articles).