The Journal of Policy and Governance Inquiry (JPGI) is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, scholarly integrity, and editorial rigor. Our policies adhere to the best practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and major indexers including Scopus and Web of Science.

1. OPEN ACCESS & LICENSING POLICY

• Open Access Statement: JPGI is a fully open-access journal. All published articles are immediately and permanently free for anyone to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts without financial or technical barriers.
• Creative Commons Licensing: Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright of their work while granting the journal a license to publish and distribute the article.
• Article Processing Charges (APCs): JPGI is committed to equitable publishing. Detailed information regarding any APCs or fee waivers is transparently stated on our journal homepage. No hidden submission or publication fees apply.

2. PEER REVIEW & EDITORIAL INTEGRITY

• Double-Blind Peer Review: To eliminate potential bias, all original research submissions undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process where both the reviewers' and authors' identities remain anonymous throughout the evaluation.
• Editorial Independence: Decisions to accept or reject a manuscript are based solely on the paper's scientific importance, original contribution, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope. Editorial decisions are entirely independent of commercial interests, institutional affiliations, or political considerations.
• Reviewer Conduct: Peer reviewers must treat all manuscripts as confidential documents. Reviewers with competing interests (financial, institutional, collaborative, or personal) regarding a manuscript must immediately declare their conflict and decline to review.

3. RESEARCH INTEGRITY & MISCONDUCT

JPGI rigorously screens manuscripts to prevent scientific misconduct and adheres to COPE guidelines when addressing ethical concerns:

• Plagiarism Policy: All submissions are automatically screened using industry-standard anti-plagiarism software prior to peer review. Manuscripts containing plagiarized text, redundant publication (self-plagiarism), or uncredited source materials will be summarily rejected.
• Data Fabrication & Manipulation: Fabricating data, manipulating empirical statistics, falsifying survey responses, or deliberately misinterpreting research findings constitutes severe scientific misconduct and will result in immediate rejection or article retraction.
• AI & Generative AI Tools: Authorship requires human accountability. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. If AI tools were used to assist in data collection, coding, or text generation, their usage must be explicitly disclosed in the Methods or Acknowledgments section.

4. AUTHORSHIP & CONTRIBUTORSHIP

• Authorship Criteria: Authorship must be limited to individuals who made a substantial intellectual contribution to the concept, design, execution, data collection, or theoretical analysis of the study.
• Corresponding Author Responsibilities: The designated Corresponding Author is responsible for ensuring all listed co-authors have approved the final manuscript version and agree to its submission.
• ORCID Identifier Requirement: To ensure accurate author attribution across indexing databases, all co-authors are strongly encouraged to provide their 16-digit ORCID iDs during submission.

5. DISCLOSURES, FUNDING, & CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

• Conflict of Interest Declaration: Authors must disclose any financial, professional, or personal affiliations that could be perceived as influencing the objectivity or interpretations presented in the research. If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly state: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
• Funding Statement: Authors must disclose all financial support received for the research, detailing specific grant numbers and funding agency names under an explicit "Funding Information" section.
• Data Availability Statement: In support of open science, authors are encouraged to provide a Data Availability Statement explaining where the underlying data supporting their empirical findings can be accessed (e.g., public repositories, open archives, or upon reasonable request).

6. POST-PUBLICATION CORRECTIONS, RETRACTIONS, & ARCHIVING

• Corrections & Corrigenda: If genuine errors are discovered post-publication that do not invalidate the scientific integrity of the work, JPGI will issue an official Correction notice linked directly to the original article.
• Retractions: Articles containing fatal scientific errors, clear evidence of data fabrication, severe plagiarism, or unethical research conduct will be retracted in accordance with COPE Retraction Guidelines.
• Digital Archiving & Preservation: To guarantee permanent accessibility, all published content is assigned a persistent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and archived in long-term digital preservation repositories, including Zenodo.