- Case
The disgraced author
An editorial was commissioned from a distinguished doctor who was subsequently found guilty of research misconduct overseas. There was a lack of consensus in the journal’s country as to whether this judgment was correct. The author continues to work, but is awaiting a judgment from his regulatory body. - Should the editorial be published? - Should the editorial be published with a footnote refe… - News
COPE endorsement of TOP Guidelines
…recommendations not only for journals but also others involved in research (eg, funders). 1. Alter G, et al (24 October 2015). Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines. Retrieved from https://cos.io/top/… - Case
Duplication, revision and resubmission?
A manuscript was submitted which described the effect of a drug on cell turnover and apoptosis in a deletion mouse model of a common cancer. One of the reviewers noted that a very similar paper by the same authors had been published in another journal in the same specialty,and went to the trouble of underlining blocks of text that were identical in both papers. In one paper the authors had repo… - Event
Annual Scientific Congress of Iranian Society of Medical Editors in association with COPE
COPE is very pleased to announce that it will have its first international congress on publication ethics in Shiraz, Iran, 24–25 November 2011. The congress is in association with the Iranian Society of Medical Editors and is supported by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The meeting will be held in the five star Homa Hotel ( APAME 2013 Tokyo
…APAME 2013 Tokyo Asia Pacific Association of Medical Editors (APAME) Convention 2013, Tokyo, Japan Date: 2–4 August 2013 Venue: Japan Medical Association (JMA) Auditorium, 2-28-16, Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8621, Japan COPE will hold two 90 minute sessions on the afternoon of 3 August during the annual congress of the…- Event
ISMPP European Meeting 2018: COPE member discount
ISMPP will hold its 2018 European Meeting, Advancing Medical Publications in a Complex Evidence Ecosystem, on 23-24 January, in London, and is offering a 10% discount on the registration fee to COPE members. Access the registration page at, and enter EU18COPE10 in the “Discount Code” field. The 10% discount is available… - News
COPE Forum discussion: Preprints: continuing the conversation
…preprint platforms, journals, authors, funders and institutions. COPE has facilitated this discussion previously via an earlier forum discussion and with respect to - Seminars and webinars
Publication ethics in an open world
…4th World STM Journal Forum: Publication ethics Dan Kulp, COPE Chair, was invited to speak at the 4th World STM Journal Forum organised by the Chinese Association of Science & Technology (CAST), July 2021. Dan spoke about the some of the current issues around publication ethics in the industry such as: authorship issues; fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism; image… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Retractions, a publisher's perspective
…Fennell's presentation, listen from 24:08 The scientometrics of retractions and update of COPE's retraction guidelines During the session on retractions, we also heard from Howard Browman and Thed Van Leeuwen: an update on retraction guidelines from… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Ethical practice in research data publication - challenges, lessons and opportunities
… Over the past decade, we have seen a marked increase in the publication of research data, driven by journal, funder, and institutional policies. This has brought ethical challenges specific to datasets, which can affect the journal publication related to the… Sample Letters
…Before publication Download .doc (28 kb) After publicationDownload .doc (24 kb) Figure manipulation Download .doc (26 kb) Change of authorship Before publication- News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
Due to vacancies on Council, we are seeking nominations for two new candidates. These are voluntary positions. Council is responsible for COPE’s policy and management. Council members are required to attend four meetings a year (two of which will usually be in person in London; the others may be attended by phone or other media). There is also a strategy meeting every 18/24 months which… - Case
Invasive intervention without consent
A study was submitted on the safety and feasibility of treating patients with acute stroke with an invasive procedure that would cause them considerable discomfort. The editor did not want to publish the study because it had negative results, did not include a power calculation, and was almost certainly too small to detect a clinically useful difference. The study had obtained local ethics comm… - Case
Reviewer submitting for publication material that had been removed from a paper he had reviewed
The paper was sent to two reviewers and published after modification. Between acceptance and publication, some modelling that had been included in the original paper was removed. Some time after publication one of the people who had reviewed the study submitted a letter for publication that included this model. The original authors were rather surprised by this and they sent us a letter pointin… - Case
Submission of a paper by a reviewer
An editor sent out a paper to three reviewers. One of them, who gave the paper a favourable review, enclosed a research letter on the same topic, with, in his view, a better study design. He told the editor that the author of the paper had encouraged him to submit it during a meeting they both attended. He added that he thought its inclusion would make a good complementary pair of papers. The e… - Translated resources
Cómo reconocer la potencial manipulación del proceso de revisión por pares
…involucrados en el proceso se conducen con integridad (Ref 1), el proceso de revisión por pares es susceptible de manipulación (Ref 2-4) tal como se comentó en el Seminario COPE 2016 en América del Norte For the latest version (English language) of this guidance visit https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.15 Related resources … - Case
Author contacts editor-in-chief using personal phone number
We have received in the past several bribe attempts from authors from an Asian country trying to publish articles in our journal, which have always arrived by email. However, the editor-in-chief of our journal recently received a WhatsApp message on his personal phone number from an author of that same Asian country. The same message was also sent by email to the official email address of the j… - Case
Is ethics approval required?
The journal received a paper on an imaging technique which reported changes in a normal healthy volunteer. No adverse events were experienced. This study demonstrated the feasibility and safety of the imaging studies in a particular condition. The paper was rejected on methodological and priority grounds but during the review process it was noted that no specific mention was made of ethi… - Research
Authorship research project 2009
…professional, academic or research organizations or associations. These results are now being written up in a second manuscript. The results of this part of the research will be presented at the Second World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore, 21-24 July 2010, where we plan to start the Delphi process for discussing the definitions of… - Case
Change of author affiliation
The Journal received an article for possible publication with three coauthors listed. The article was initially reviewed and accepted by the editorial committee. Then it was processed under double-anonymous peer review policy. Minor changes were requested which the authors implemented, and the article was accepted for publication. Before final printing, one of the authors (third author, previou…