Papers submitted to PPP may report on research findings and should have received appropriate ethical approval from their institution. If you have any queries in relation to your paper, please contact the PPP Team prior to submission. For information relating to individual areas of misconduct, see below.

Plagiarism

Any reports of plagiarism in PPP articles are taken very seriously. Not only do we want to protect the rights of the authors but also the reputation of the journal, so if anything of this nature is brought to our attention it will be investigated. If an article is found to have plagiarised other work, then we will take action, whether that is in the form of publishing a correction, retracting the article or reporting it to the authors’ institution.

Research ethics and ethical oversight

Papers submitted to PPP that report on research involving human participants, personal data, or other activities requiring ethical review should have received appropriate ethical approval from the relevant institution or ethics committee prior to commencement of the research. Authors are responsible for ensuring that their research has been conducted in accordance with applicable ethical standards and that informed consent has been obtained where appropriate.

Research misconduct

If the research has not been conducted within an appropriate ethical framework/process, the article may be rejected. But if the article has been published then the article could be retracted in accord with the PPP Retraction Policy.

Authorship

Authors are required to provide a full list of authors and it should only contain names of those who have made a significant contribution to the work (author criteria includes: contribution to the conception, design, analysis, interpretation of data, writing and/or revision of the manuscript) as they are accountable for the content once it is in the public domain. Corresponding authors are expected to confirm with any co-authors to ensure that they approve the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Anyone who does not fit the criteria of an author, can be listed in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.

If an author discovers a significant error in their published article, they are under obligation to notify the PPP Team and assist them in retracting or correcting the paper. Similar cooperation is expected of the author if PPP contacts them regarding any issue reported to us by third parties.

Complaints and appeals

Any complaints, concerns, or appeals relating to editorial decisions, peer review, publication ethics, or other journal processes should be sent to ppp-online@shu.ac.uk. The Editorial Team will review and respond to all submissions in a fair, timely, and transparent manner. Where appropriate, matters may be referred to the Editorial Board for further consideration.