Publication ethics and malpractice statement

The Canadian Journal of Regional Science (CJRS) is committed to publishing high-quality content. As such, the co-editors of the CJRS are dedicated to upholding the highest ethical standards for publication by following the Core Practices established in 2017 by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Responsibility of the co-editors

The CJRS’s editorial board and its leadership team (consisting of the co-editors in-chief) are responsible for defining the journal’s strategic directions and maintaining its ethical oversight. It does so by ensuring a well managed, transparent and honest peer review process, as well as by maintaining an inclusive and cooperative publication environment in which the co-editors, members of the editorial board, authors, reviewers and readers are welcomed.

The co-editors of the CJRS are responsible for determining which submissions will be published in the journal’s pages. Such decisions are made on the basis of the manuscript’s merit and originality, regardless of the author’s gender, race, ethnic origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs. The co-editors of the CJRS commit to providing an initial editorial decision within four weeks of the original submission. Papers that are to be further considered for publication in the CJRS will be subject to a double-anonymous peer review process. The co-editors commit to preserving the anonymity of reviewers and authors during this process. As such, the co-editors will not use generative AI or related technologies to assist in the review process. Should one of the co-editors have a conflict of interest with respect to a manuscript submitted for consideration in the journal, the other co-editor (or an alternate member of the editorial board with no conflict of interest) will be tasked with overseeing its peer review and decision-making process.

The co-editors of the CJRS are also responsible for handling allegations of misconduct or plagiarism following the latest guidelines established by COPE (this flowchart offers a useful breakdown of the steps to be followed in such cases).

Responsibility of the authors

Authors considering the CJRS as a research outlet should only submit work that is original, not submitted and/or under review in another journal. Authors are also responsible for submitting research that appropriately cites or quotes the work of others, acknowledges all appropriate sources, avoids plagiarism, is not based on falsified or fabricated data, and provides enough detail to ensure replicability. Authors are required to disclose any conflict of interest that may be construed as influencing the findings reported in their paper. As suggested by recent COPE guidelines on the subject, authors who use generative AI to support any aspect of their analysis or content production of their manuscript must clearly declare so as part of their methods discussion in order to maintain full transparency.

Finally, should authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their work, it is their responsibility to notify the co-editors in a timely manner. If corrections are needed in such cases, the CJRS will publish an erratum or proceed with a retraction of the paper, following CORE’s retraction’s guidelines.

Responsibility of the reviewers

Peer reviewers agree to provide their assessment in a timely fashion. They agree to respect the confidentiality of the review and to not reveal any details of the manuscript being considered with others (which also implies not uploading a manuscript – or part of it – into a generative AI tool). Peer reviewers should also disclose, up front, any potential conflict of interest to the co-editors of the CJRS and decline to review a paper if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased assessment. As such, reviewers are expected to be objective and to provide constructive assessments of the work being considered. To help with this process, the CJRS has developed the following guidelines for reviewers.