EDITORIAL POLICY

The journal Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection is an international scientific journal covering the wide range of disciplines involved in nuclear science and technology as well as in the field of radiation protection. The journal is open for papers dealing with nuclear power, research reactors, accelerators, nuclear materials, waste management, radiation measurements, and radiation protection. However, basic reactor physics and design, particle and radiation transport theory, and development of numerical methods and codes will also be important aspects of the editorial policy.

The journal was founded in 1981 by NUKLIN Business Association for Research and Development, which assembled nine research institutes from the former SFR Yugoslavia. At that time, the journal was titled NUKLEARNA TEHNOLOGIJA. When SFR Yugoslavia fell apart at the beginning of nineties, NUKLEARNA TEHNOLOGIJA disappeared as well. In 1995, the journal was renewed by the Yugoslav Nuclear Society as a scientific and professional information journal on peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In 2002, the founders of the journal, Yugoslav Nuclear Society, and its publisher, Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, have been joined by the Yugoslav Radiation Protection Association as the journal's co-founder. Since then, relying on a broader community of researchers, the journal has been published as an international scientific journal in English titled NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY & RADIATION PROTECTION, under the renewed editorial policy.

The journal Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection publishes original papers that have not been published previously (review paper, scientific paper, short paper, technical papers, letters to the Editor, and errata.

Review paper is an overall presentation of a field of interest or problem on already published results, which are collected, analyzed and discussed.

Scientific paper includes original results of research and the scientific information should be presented in the paper in such a way to enable repeating the experiments and verifying the analyses and results on which conclusions are based.

Short paper is a concise report containing original findings or conclusions in term of research or technology. It must consist of previously unpublished work not currently considered for release in other scientific publications.

Technical paper represents material useful for spreading knowledge and adapting the original results to the needs of science and its applications.

Letter to the Editor is connected to queries, comments, proposals, etc, regarding papers published in the journal.

Errata includes corrections from the authors concerning to a published paper in the journal.

Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection is an open access journal.

Contributions to journal shall be submitted in English, with summaries in English and Serbian (only for the authors from Serbia).

The Journal is issued four times a year. The journal is indexed in Thompson Reuters products: Science Citation Index - Expanded - accessed via Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports. The journal is available for full download at National Library of Serbia - doiSerbia, Directory of open access journals - DOAJ, and Portal of open access e-journals - Open J-Gate.

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection will be published. Editor-in-Chief is guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. Editor-in-Chief must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. In case one or more members of the Editorial Staff hold a conflict of interest regarding a submitted manuscript, these members of the Editorial Staff shall withdraw from the selection of reviewers and all decisions related to the manuscript.

Editor-in-Chief shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process.

AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

 

Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal constitutes a misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection.

 

The Authors also warrant that the manuscript is not and will not be published elsewhere (after the publication in Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection) in any language without the consent of the Editorial Board.

 

In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided in Acknowledgements. A paper that has already been published in another journal cannot be reprinted in Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection.

 

It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

 

Reporting standards

A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards.

 

Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public.

 

Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

 

Authorship

Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.

 

Acknowledgment of Sources

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.

 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, where someone assumes another's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.

 

Plagiarism includes the following:

• Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author's work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);

• Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.

Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism.

 

Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and authors will be permanently or temporarily forbidden to publish in the journal.

 

In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy, and authors will be permanently or temporarily forbidden to publish in the journal.

 

Conflict of interest

Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

 

Fundamental errors in published works

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 cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.

 

By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection’s Editorial Policies.

REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

PEER REVIEW

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process (two reviewers with single-blind peer review). The purpose of peer review is to assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper.

All of the reviewers of a paper remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process. The reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chif may assign additional reviewers.

The Editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

The choice of reviewers is at the Editor-in-Chief's discretion. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors' own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR

Anyone may inform the Editor-in-Chief or the Editorial Staff at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.

Investigation

• Editor-in-Chief will consult with the Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation. • During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
• The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
• If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.

Minor misconduct
Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:

• Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
• A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.

Major misconduct
The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):

• Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
• Informing the author's (or reviewer's) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
• The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
• A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
• Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.

When dealing with unethical behaviour, the Editorial Staff will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): http://publicationethics.org/resources/.

RETRACTION POLICY

Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by the Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection‘s Editorial Board: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection is an open access Journal. All articles can be downloaded free of charge and used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Serbia.

The journal Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection is funded by Article Processing Charges that are paid by the authors of each scientific paper after a positive decision of the Editor-in-Chief (i.e. the acceptance of a paper for publication). The Article Processing charge is 150 Euros per paper. Bank fees and commissions are not included in the amount. Payment can be made only through the bank account of the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia. Upon receiving a positive decision on manuscript publishing, the author is going to receive a letter with payment instructions from the journal’s administrative office.

SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY

The journal Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection allows authors to deposit Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, or to publish it on Author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, etc.) and/or departmental website, at any time after publication. Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

COPYRIGHT

Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors shall transfer the copyright to the Publisher. If the submitted manuscript is not accepted for publication by the journal, all rights shall be retained by the author(s).

Authors grant to the Publisher the following rights to the manuscript, including any supplemental material, and any parts, extracts or elements thereof:

• the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript in printed form, including print-on-demand;
• the right to produce prepublications, reprints, and special editions of the Manuscript;
• the right to translate the Manuscript into other languages;
• the right to reproduce the Manuscript using photomechanical or similar means including, but not limited to photocopy, and the right to distribute these reproductions;
• the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript electronically or optically on any and all data carriers or storage media – especially in machine readable/digitalized form on data carriers such as hard drive, CD-Rom, DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD), Mini-Disk, data tape – and the right to reproduce and distribute the Article via these data carriers;
• the right to store the Manuscript in databases, including online databases, and the right of transmission of the Manuscript in all technical systems and modes;
• the right to make the Manuscript available to the public or to closed user groups on individual demand, for use on monitors or other readers (including e-books), and in printable form for the user, either via the internet, other online services, or via internal or external networks.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.