Retractions
A retraction alerts readers that an article is unreliable or affected by a serious publication-integrity problem that cannot be resolved adequately by correction. Its main purpose is to protect the scholarly record, not to punish authors. This policy follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
1. Grounds for Retraction
- findings that cannot be trusted because of major error, fabrication, falsification, or materially inappropriate analysis;
- substantial plagiarism, or undisclosed duplicate publication that undermines the publication record;
- unauthorised material, copyright infringement, or another serious rights problem that a narrower remedy cannot address;
- serious ethical failures in the research;
- a compromised or manipulated assessment process, leaving no adequate basis for confidence in the publication;
- a major undisclosed competing interest that affected interpretation or assessment and cannot be handled through disclosure and correction.
Retraction may follow an honest error as well as misconduct. Evidence supporting the reliability or integrity judgement is required, but the author's intent does not always need to be proven before the record is corrected.
2. Safeguards in the Decision
A retraction decision is made by an authorised editor with no conflict of interest, and the publisher supports its implementation. Examination of the evidence and the chance to respond follow the Integrity Investigations policy.
A bare allegation, an authorship dispute alone, a disagreement over a defensible interpretation, or an error that a correction can adequately resolve does not normally justify a retraction. A preprint that has been posted publicly is not a duplicate publication under the journal's preprint policy.
Authors are normally informed and given a reasonable opportunity to respond. Their agreement is not required when the evidence warrants action. Protection of readers must not be delayed indefinitely by non-response or by an unresolved institutional process.
3. Retraction Notice
The notice identifies the article and its DOI, states who is issuing the retraction, gives the supported reasons, and separates established findings from questions that remain open. The authors' agreement or disagreement may be recorded accurately.
Wording must be factual and proportionate. Collective blame must not be inferred simply because several authors or articles are involved. Related cases may be examined together, but each article needs an adequate evidential basis.
The notice is dated, freely accessible, clearly labelled as a retraction, and permanently linked to the article. The article is normally kept, marked with an unmistakable status warning, rather than deleted.
A retraction does not revoke rights already granted under the CC BY 4.0 licence.
