Community Standards & Editorial Policy

Our Commitment to Scientific Excellence

Life Conflux's editorial policy is meticulously aligned with internationally recognized best practices endorsed by leading scientific organizations and academic associations that champion research integrity in the life sciences. Our comprehensive framework ensures that every published work meets the highest standards of scientific rigor, ethical conduct, and methodological excellence.

We provide direct access to the full text of all guiding principles that inform our editorial decisions, promoting transparency and enabling authors to understand our expectations fully. This approach fosters a collaborative environment where scientific integrity and innovation thrive.

Life Conflux strictly adheres to the comprehensive guidelines established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meticulously outline the responsibilities, contributions, and expectations for all authors and research participants involved in scientific publications.

Redundant Publication

We follow the COPE guidelines on redundant publication. Such publications are considered unethical, and manuscripts found to contain redundant content will not be considered for publication in Life Conflux.

Plagiarism

In line with COPE guidelines, Life Conflux expects all original wording taken directly from other sources to appear in quotation marks with proper citations. This rule applies equally to an author's own previous work.

Life Conflux upholds COPE's standards for ethical peer review. Should evidence arise of peer review manipulation, we will take necessary actions, including retracting the affected publication or revoking acceptance if the manuscript is still under review.

Concerns and Allegations

All concerns and allegations are investigated according to COPE guidelines. For more information on raising a concern about unethical practices in peer review, see our complaints procedure.

Authors are strongly encouraged to adhere to internationally recognized reporting guidelines. Relevant checklists should accompany submissions as supplementary materials. Reporting guidelines for various study designs can be accessed through the Equator Network website, which provides a comprehensive searchable database of guidelines and resources to enhance the quality of research reporting.

Study-Specific Guidelines

• Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs): Follow the CONSORT guidelines including flowchart and structured abstract checklist.
• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: Adhere to the PRISMA guidelines including flowchart and structured abstract checklist.
• Observational Studies in Epidemiology: Use the STROBE guidelines; refer also to RECORD for studies using routinely collected health data and MOOSE guidelines.
• Animal Pre-Clinical Studies: Follow the ARRIVE guidelines.
• Web-Based Surveys: Apply the CHERRIES guidelines.
• Studies Using Data from Electronic Health Records: Refer to the CODE-EHR guidelines.
• Reporting Sex and Gender Information: Use the SAGER guidelines.

Clinical Trial Definition

Life Conflux follows the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a clinical trial: any research study that prospectively assigns human participants to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate effects on health outcomes.

Trial Registration

According to recommendations from the ICMJE, WHO, and the Declaration of Helsinki, all clinical trials submitted to Life Conflux must be registered in a WHO Registry Network Primary Registry or an ICMJE-approved registry at or before the recruitment of the first participant. Retrospectively registered trials will be rejected.

Reporting Standards

Clinical trial registration details must be included in the abstract, along with the Clinical Trials Unique Identifier, Registry Name, and URL. Changes made since registration should be reported following the CONSERVE guidelines. Unreported discrepancies may lead to manuscript rejection.

• Randomized Trials: Comply with the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 25-item checklist and include a CONSORT flow diagram.
• Clinical Trials and Artificial Intelligence (AI): Adhere to the CONSORT-AI extension.
• N-of-1 Trials: Follow the CONSORT extension for N-of-1.
• Clinical Study Protocols: Register protocols publicly and follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines.
• Clinical Study Protocols and AI: Conform to the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials–Artificial Intelligence (SPIRIT-AI) extension.

For Clinical Protocols

All submissions must adhere to the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines and checklist. For clinical trial study protocols that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) components, authors should follow the SPIRIT-AI extension. The abstract must include the registry name, unique identifier, and URL.

Life Conflux promotes open science and open data policies, advocating for the free accessibility and transparency of research outputs. Authors are encouraged to acquaint themselves with our policies aimed at achieving high standards of data availability, transparency, and reproducibility in published articles. These policies are informed by community-driven standards such as the Transparency and Openness (TOP) guidelines and the joint declaration of data citation principles from FORCE11.

Resource Identification Initiative

Authors participating in the FORCE11 Resource Identification Initiative should cite resources like antibodies, genetically modified organisms, software tools, data, databases, and services using their corresponding catalog numbers and Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) within their manuscript.

All research submitted to Life Conflux must comply with our guidelines on study ethics. In line with COPE guidelines, we reserve the right to reject any manuscript that does not uphold high ethical standards, regardless of whether ethical approval has been obtained or is required. We recommend authors follow the ARRIVE guidelines for conducting and reporting scientific research involving animals.

Studies Involving Animal Subjects

Research involving regulated animals must be approved by an ethics committee before the study begins and must comply with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. Life Conflux adheres to the AVMA guidelines for studies including animal research. Studies involving non-routine interventions require ethics committee oversight. Authors must provide ethics approval information upon submission, which will generate an ethics statement included in the reviewer file and final manuscript:

"The animal study was reviewed and approved by [Full name and affiliation of ethics committee]. Written informed consent was obtained from the owners for the participation of their animals in this study."

Studies involving animals should adhere to the three Rs principle and the ARRIVE guidelines. Editors may request additional documentation if experimental details deviate from common practice. Manuscripts involving unethical protocols can be rejected even with ethics committee approval. Authors should consult the AVMA guidelines for best practices regarding anesthesia and euthanasia procedures.

Studies Involving Human Participants

Human participant research must comply with the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki and receive prior approval from the appropriate ethics committee. Written informed consent for participation and publication of results must be obtained from all participants. The ethics committee information must be provided upon submission, generating a statement for inclusion in the manuscript:

"The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by [Full name and affiliation of ethics committee]. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study."

If the study is exempt from ethics approval or consent procedures, authors must clearly state the reasons. Life Conflux may request a letter from an ethics committee if full review and approval have been waived. Identifying information should be omitted unless necessary for scientific purposes and explicit approval has been granted.

Inclusion of Identifiable Human Data

Life Conflux follows ICMJE recommendations on protecting research participants' privacy. Nonessential identifiable details should be omitted from manuscripts, and written informed consent is required if there is any doubt about maintaining anonymity.

Editorial Board Quality

Only leading experts and established members of the research community are appointed to the Life Conflux Editorial Boards. Chief Editors, Associate Editors, and Review Editors are all listed with their names and affiliations on the Journal pages and are encouraged to publicly list their publication credentials.

Associate Editor Assignment Quality

Associate Editors oversee the peer-review process and make final acceptance decisions on manuscripts. Editorial decision power is distributed within Life Conflux because we believe that many experts within a community should be able to shape the direction of science for the benefit of society.

Submitting authors can choose a preferred Associate Editor to handle their manuscript, based on their judgment of who would be an appropriate expert. However, there is no guarantee for this preference; Associate Editors can decline invitations at any time, and the assigned Associate Editor can also be overridden by the Chief Editor before or during the review process.

Associate Editors are required to accept only those manuscripts they have no conflicts of interest with (as stated in their review invitation and assignment emails). If it becomes clear that the Associate Editor has a conflict of interest or cannot perform the peer-review adequately and timely, a new Associate Editor can be assigned by the Chief Editor, who has full control over the peer-review process.

Reviewer Assignment Quality

Associate Editors personally select and invite the most suitable reviewers for the peer-review of the manuscript, including Review Editors from the board or external reviewers. They are aided by the Collaborative Review Forum software, which suggests relevant Review Editors based on matching expertise with the manuscript topic. However, Associate Editors can choose any reviewer they deem adequate.

Should no reviewers be assigned within a certain timeframe, the Life Conflux platform intervenes and invites the most appropriate Review Editors using algorithms that match reviewer expertise with the submitted manuscript. Reviewers are mandated to only accept to review a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest (as specified in their review invitation and assignment emails).

Independent Review Stage Quality

During the Independent Review Stage, assigned reviewers conduct an in-depth review of the article independently to ensure complete freedom of opinion. Reviewers are assisted by an online standardized review questionnaire tailored to different article types, designed to facilitate rigorous evaluation according to objective criteria and the Life Conflux Review Guidelines.

Interactive Review Stage Quality

The Associate Editor evaluates the reviews and activates the "Interactive Review," informing the authors of the extent of revisions required to address the reviewers' comments. This starts the Interactive Discussion Forum where authors and reviewers gain full access to all review reports.

At this stage, manuscript and review quality are enhanced by allowing direct real-time discussion between authors and reviewers until consensus is reached and a final version of the manuscript is endorsed by the reviewers. Reviewer identity is protected to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.

Decision Stage Quality

Acceptance decisions require unanimous agreement among all reviewers and the handling Associate Editor. The names of the Associate Editor and reviewers are disclosed on published articles to encourage thorough and rigorous reviews, acknowledge contributors, and promote transparency and accountability in peer review.

Associate Editors can recommend rejection to the Chief Editor, who ensures authors' rights were upheld during the peer-review process and can ultimately reject the article if it lacks quality, contains objective errors, or if the authors unreasonably refused to address raised points.

Safeguards against Financial Conflicts of Interest

Decisions on manuscript acceptance are made solely by leading researchers acting as Associate Editors, who are not part of Life Conflux staff. There is no financial incentive for accepting articles, as they are not paid for their roles as Associate or Review Editors, and any award scheme is not linked to manuscript acceptances.

Chief Editors receive an honorarium if their specialty section or field reaches certain submission levels. However, this honorarium is based on the total number of submitted articles during a calendar year, not on the number of accepted articles, ensuring no financial incentive exists for manuscript acceptance.

Post-Publication Stage Quality

The Life Conflux platform enables post-publication commenting and discussions on papers, providing the possibility to critically evaluate articles even after the peer-review process. Life Conflux has a community retraction protocol in place to retract papers when serious concerns have been raised and validated by the community, including ethical concerns, honest errors, or scientific misconduct.

The journals of Life Conflux strictly adhere to publication ethics and policies, conducting a legal audit if required. Below are the responsibilities of authors, reviewers, and editors. It is expected that all parties involved follow the best ethical practices outlined.

Editor's Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for overseeing the peer review process with fairness, timeliness, diligence, and respect:

• Ensure every submitted manuscript undergoes peer review by at least two experts in the relevant field.
• Evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit, originality, and relevance to the journal's scope without regard to the author's personal attributes or affiliations.
• The editorial board makes independent decisions regarding manuscript publication, free from external government agencies' influence.
• Maintain confidentiality regarding submitted manuscripts except when communicating with potential reviewers, corresponding authors, or publishers as appropriate.
• Do not use unpublished information from manuscripts for personal research or benefit without clear written consent from the authors.
• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have conflicts of interest and delegate handling to another editorial member.
• Take proactive measures in cases of suspected misconduct or unethical behavior concerning submitted or published articles, even if discovered years after publication.

Reviewer's Responsibilities

Reviewers assist editors in making informed decisions and help authors improve their manuscripts through the peer review process:

• Fulfill their role responsibly by conducting reviews impartially and providing clear, objective arguments to support comments.
• Decline invitations to review manuscripts when unavailable, indisposed, or lacking sufficient expertise.
• Do not share, store, or discuss manuscript-related information with outsiders without prior consent from the journal's Editorial Board.
• Report any overlapping manuscripts (published or unpublished) they are aware of to the editors.
• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have conflicts of interest and ensure unpublished manuscript information is not used inappropriately.

Author's Responsibilities

Authors are accountable for the data and information presented in their article, taking responsibility for the significance of their original research:

• Present authentic and original research; fraudulent, inaccurate statements, plagiarized content, or results are not tolerated.
• Submit raw materials or data along with the manuscript for review and be prepared to make this data publicly available if necessary.
• Avoid submitting identical research content or text to more than one journal and do not submit an article already published elsewhere.
• List only individuals who have made significant contributions to the article as authors, taking responsibility for the content.
• Disclose any conflict of interest that could bias the results or the manuscript and all sources of financial support for the research work.
• Clearly describe research involving chemical procedures or unusual hazards in the manuscript.
• Ensure studies involving animal or human participants comply with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and have approval from appropriate committees.
• Cooperate with the peer review process, including submitting required data, clarifications, ethics approval proofs, copyright permissions, participant or patient consents, and revising manuscripts as necessary.