The Editorial Board of the scientific collection Strength of Materials and Theory of Structures ensures that scientific, editorial, and ethical requirements are met for manuscripts submitted for publication. These requirements are determined by the collection’s scientific scope, subject areas, standards of research quality, and principles of academic integrity.

In developing its publication policy, the Editorial Board follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), generally accepted principles of research ethics, and the practices of Ukrainian and international scholarly publications.

These standards apply to editors, authors, reviewers, and other persons involved in the preparation and publication of research materials. Their purpose is to ensure objectivity in editorial decisions, the reliability of scientific results, the protection of intellectual property, confidentiality, and the prevention of violations of academic integrity.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Editorial Board

1. All submitted manuscripts undergo an initial editorial assessment and, if they meet the collection’s requirements, independent peer review. Publication decisions are based on scientific quality, relevance, methodological soundness, the reliability of the results, and reviewers’ recommendations.

2. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject a manuscript or return it to the author for revision if it does not fall within the collection’s scientific scope, fails to meet the established requirements, violates the principles of academic integrity, or shows signs of plagiarism or other breaches of publication ethics.

3. Editors must consider manuscripts impartially. Decisions must not be based on an author’s race, nationality, or religion, citizenship, political views, gender, position, or place of employment.

4. The Editorial Board seeks to ensure that manuscripts are processed within a reasonable timeframe and that authors are informed about the main stages of the editorial process.

5. Information about manuscripts under consideration is confidential. It may be disclosed only to persons directly involved in editorial processing, peer review, and decision-making.

6. If an editor or Editorial Board member is an author or co-author of a manuscript or has another potential conflict of interest, responsibility for its assessment and the publication decision must be transferred to another authorized person who has no such conflict.

7. Unpublished materials and ideas obtained during editorial processing or peer review must not be used in one’s own research without the permission of the respective authors.

8. If significant errors are identified in a published article, the Editorial Board considers whether corrections, an appropriate notice, or other measures are necessary, depending on the nature of the issue.

9. The Editorial Board considers reports of possible breaches of publication ethics and, where necessary, requests explanations from the authors and additional information required to reach an informed decision.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

1. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the information, scientific results, calculations, data, conclusions, and references presented in their articles. If significant errors are identified after submission, they must inform the Editorial Board.

2. A submitted manuscript must be original and must not be under consideration elsewhere as a primary publication at the same time, unless otherwise agreed in accordance with the established editorial rules.

3. Authors must inform the Editorial Board of their other publications or manuscripts that wholly or partially duplicate the results of the submitted work, where such information is necessary to assess the originality and novelty of the research.

4. A research paper must provide a sufficient description of the methods, source data, research conditions, and results obtained to enable specialists in the relevant field to assess the validity of the conclusions and, where possible, reproduce the research.

5. Authors must properly acknowledge the sources of information, scientific ideas, methods, data, quotations, and illustrations used. References to previous research must be accurate and sufficient to verify the statements made.

6. Appropriation of others’ results, ideas, or texts without proper attribution, data falsification or fabrication, and other violations of academic integrity are prohibited.

7. Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the research, manuscript preparation, or other aspects of the work that meet the criteria for authorship and who have agreed to take responsibility for the published material. Individuals whose contributions do not meet the authorship criteria may be acknowledged.

8. The author who submits the manuscript and communicates with the Editorial Board must ensure that all co-authors have approved the final version of the article and consented to its submission to the collection.

9. Authors must disclose potential conflicts of interest, including financial, professional, personal, or institutional relationships that may affect the conduct of the research, interpretation of the results, or editorial decisions.

10. Authors must comply with confidentiality requirements and must not use information received confidentially from other persons without appropriate permission.

11. If research involves specific risks to humans, animals, the environment, or safety, authors must provide relevant information and describe the necessary safety measures, where applicable to the nature of the work.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

1. Reviewers must objectively assess the quality of the manuscript, the results presented, their reporting, and compliance with high scientific and literary standards. Reviewers must respect the intellectual independence of authors.

2. Reviewers must decline to review a manuscript and inform the Editorial Board if their qualifications are insufficient for the level of research presented.

3. Reviewers must consider the possibility of a conflict of interest if a manuscript is closely related to their current or published work. If such a conflict exists, reviewers must promptly inform the editor and decline the review.

4. Reviewers must not assess a manuscript if its author or co-author has professional or personal ties with them that could affect the objectivity of the assessment.

5. Reviewers must treat manuscripts received for review as confidential documents. They must not share them with third parties or discuss their contents with others. An exception may be made for seeking specialist advice with the editor’s approval.

6. Reviewers must explain and substantiate their assessments so that editors and authors can understand the reasons for their comments. Any claim that material in a manuscript has been published previously must be supported by an appropriate reference.

7. Reviewers should identify insufficient citation of other researchers’ work directly relevant to the manuscript. They must also inform the editor of any substantial similarity between the manuscript under review and a published article or a manuscript submitted simultaneously to another publication.

8. Reviewers must submit their reports within the timeframe established by the Editorial Board. Reviews must be objective, reasoned, and impartial, focusing on scientific quality, novelty, methodology, reliability of results, and relevance to the collection’s scope.

9. Reviewers must decline a review if their expertise is insufficient to assess the manuscript properly or if they cannot complete the review within the required timeframe.

10. Reviewers must inform the editor of any potential conflict of interest, including personal, professional, financial, or scientific relationships with the authors that could affect the objectivity of the assessment.

11. A manuscript received for peer review is confidential. Reviewers must not share it with third parties or discuss its contents without the editor’s permission.

12. Reviewers must not use unpublished data, ideas, or results from a manuscript in their own research without the author’s explicit consent.

13. Comments on a manuscript must be clear, reasoned, and constructive. Criticism must address the scientific content of the work rather than the author personally.

14. If reviewers identify possible unattributed borrowing, substantial publication duplication, questionable results, or other signs of a breach of publication ethics, they must inform the editor and, where possible, provide relevant sources.

15. Reviewers must submit their reports within the agreed timeframe or notify the Editorial Board in advance if they are unable to meet the deadline.

Conflict of Interest Policy

All participants in the publication process (authors, reviewers, and editors) must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could affect the objectivity and impartiality of peer review or publication decisions. If such a conflict exists, the person concerned must refrain from participating in the review or editorial decision-making process. Publication decisions are made solely on the basis of the scientific quality of the material and its compliance with the collection’s criteria.

Plagiarism Screening

All manuscripts submitted to the collection are screened for plagiarism using specialized software. The screening aims to identify inappropriate borrowing, ensure the originality of scientific texts, and promote compliance with the principles of academic integrity and publication ethics. Evidence of plagiarism may lead to further examination by the Editorial Board and may result in rejection of the article.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Authors must inform the Editorial Board about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in preparing a manuscript, including for text editing, translation, data analysis, image generation, or other tasks that have influenced the preparation of the material. Information about such use must be included in the manuscript in accordance with the Editorial Board’s requirements.

Artificial intelligence must not be listed as an author of an article. Authors retain full responsibility for the scientific content, accuracy of data, correctness of references, interpretation of results, and conclusions presented in the manuscript, regardless of whether AI tools have been used.