Maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record is central to MDPI’s publishing mission.

Sustaining the quality and credibility of the scientific literature rests on adherence to rigorous policies and practices which support the highest ethical standards within academic publishing.

Research and publication ethics encompass a vast range of principles, which all must be equally considered to safeguard the integrity of the scholarly record. Understanding these concepts is therefore an essential step towards maintaining ethical conduct.

In this article, we provide an overview of key topics in research integrity and publication ethics, along with how MDPI addresses these challenges and any best practices for authors to follow.

You can click on the individual topics below to be taken directly to its corresponding section:

• Plagiarism
• Image manipulation
• Conflicts of interest
• Data falsification
• Informed Consent
• Retractions
• Paper Mills
• Redundant Publications
• Citation Cartels
• Salami Slicing

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism refers to copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without permission or giving credit to the original source.

Understanding what counts as plagiarism and how to prevent it is essential for maintaining the highest ethical standards.

How MDPI addresses plagiarism

Plagiarism is not acceptable in MDPI journals and constitutes a serious violation of our Research and Publication Ethics guidelines.

All manuscripts submitted to MDPI journals are subject to a rigorous and transparent peer review process. As part of this, submissions are screened using the industry standard software iThenticate.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected.

Best practices

Plagiarism can be easily avoided by maintaining proper citation practices. These include:

• Placing copied text between quotation marks and cite the source
• Cite the original source even when paraphrasing
• Obtain permission to reproduce material

If you suspect plagiarism, alert the publisher and provide supporting evidence.

See MDPI’s policies on plagiarism.

What is image manipulation?

Image manipulation represents a serious threat to the integrity of scholarly research.

“Image manipulation is the selective editing or any changes to original images (e.g., photographic microscopy illustrations)”- Committee on Publication Ethics

It is imperative that image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to the misinterpretation of the image and in turn damage the accuracy of the study.

Inappropriate image manipulation may include:

• Cloning
• Splicing
• Erasing
• Duplication

Importantly, this applies in the presence or absence of additional alterations such as over-contrasting or cropping.

How MDPI addresses image manipulation

One of MDPI’s core publication ethics principles is prevention, focused on the early detection of potential ethics issues.

By complementing human expertise with new AI tools, MDPI continues to enhance efficiency, quality, and consistency across its editorial process.

MDPI has partnered with Proofig AI, an image proofing tool that helps screen manuscripts and flag individual instances of image duplication, manipulation or plagiarism.

Learn more about how Proofig AI helps maintain efficiency and consistency across selected journals.

What is a conflict of interest?

Conflicts of interest are any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of the reported research.

Perceptions of conflict can erode trust in science as much as actual conflicts of interest.

How MDPI addresses conflicts of interest

Every submission made to an MDPI journal must be accompanied with a completed Conflicts of Interest statements as part of the article back matter.

MDPI provides standard disclosure forms that can be downloaded, completed and easily uploaded during submission and added to the back matter conflicts of interest statement.

Best practices

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. In the case of conflicts of interest, transparency and honesty is essential.

As part of their conflicts of interest statements, authors should:

• Declare any financial interests
• Consider non-financial interests
• Ensure transparency by declaring anything that may influence your research

Financial interests may include membership, employment, consultancy, stocks/shares ownership, or receiving an honoraria or other funding.

Alternatively, non-financial interests may include personal or professional relationships, competing interests tied to the research or even personal beliefs that may influence the research.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides detailed guidance on how to disclose conflicts of interest. If no potential perceived conflicts exist, the authors should clearly state this within their disclosure form.

If you suspect a potential conflict of interest in somebody else’s work, MDPI encourages readers to notify the publisher with any appropriate supporting evidence.

Learn more about MDPI’s approach to potential conflicts of interest.

What is data falsification?

It is imperative that all presented data within a research article must be original and not inappropriately manipulated.

Data falsification refers to inappropriately altering, enhancing or fabricating data with the intention of giving a false impression. It also extends to excluding data points, cherry picking or deliberately selecting specific statistical methods to support a particular conclusion.

How MDPI addresses data falsification

All articles published with MDPI require a data availability statement.

MDPI encourages authors to retain unprocessed data and metadata files by archiving their datasets on institutional servers or in public, community-supported repositories.

Best practices

By adopting open data practices, authors can build trust in their research and enhance the impact and value of their data.

Best practices for avoiding data falsification include:

• Preregister your research plan before data collection
• Keep a detailed record of all data collection processes
• Be transparent and describe any alterations

For information on how to manage and preserve your data, authors can access the guidelines provided by OpenAIRE.

Also, our article ‘Why Open Data is Important’ explores the FAIR Data Principles and provides additional information on how to ensure your data are open.

What is informed consent?

The Declaration of Helsinki states that “free and informed consent is an essential component of respect for individual autonomy”.

Informed consent requires that individuals agree to participate only after fully understanding what participation in the study involves, such as its risks, benefits, and protection of their rights.

How MDPI confirms informed consent

MDPI requires that all submissions involving human participants, their data or tissue samples must include a statement of informed consent for participation.

Additionally, the blank form used to obtain permission should be provided upon submission.

Best practices

Research participants, or their legal representatives, must be informed about:

• The aim and methods of the research
• Any incentives, benefits and risks
• Protection of their privacy and confidentiality
• Sources of funding
• Any potential conflicts of interest
• Their right to withdraw at any time

In cases where identifiable patient information must be shared due to relevance to the research, consent for publication must also be obtained.

Learn more about obtaining consent for human studies.

What is a retraction?

Retractions are a vital part of science’s self-correcting process. They reinforce honesty, resilience, and trust in research.

COPE defines retractions as:

“a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to articles that contain such seriously flawed or erroneous content or data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon.”

Retractions should not be seen as a punishment for authors; instead, they represent a concerted effort to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Retractions can be issued for a multitude of reasons, including:

• Major scientific errors, or a result of data fabrication or falsification
• Plagiarism or redundant publication without proper attribution
• Copyright infringement
• Unethical research reported
• It has been published solely based on a compromised or manipulated peer review process
• Undisclosed major competing interest

How MDPI addresses retractions

Where any serious flaws have caused a body of work to be untrustworthy, MDPI conducts a transparent and thorough investigation according to COPE retraction guidelines.

As part of this, MDPI is committed to:

• Promptly publishing a retraction to minimize the spread of misinformation
• Clearly label the retracted article and link it to the corresponding retraction notice
• Outline why a retraction has been issued

MDPI reminds its readers that if they suspect an error, or have any concerns regarding an article, they should immediately notify the publisher and provide any supporting evidence so that further investigation can take place.

Learn more about how retractions are important for amending the scientific record.

What is a paper mill?

Paper mills continue to seriously threaten the ethical integrity of scientific research.

As defined by United2Act:

“Paper mills are organizations or individuals that aim to profit from the creation, sale, peer review and/or citation of manuscripts at scale which contain low value or fraudulent content and/or authorship, with the aim of publication in scholarly journals.”

Researchers from all fields can become a target for paper mills, especially if there is a huge pressure or are incentives to publish. In many cases, authors may be directly contacted by these actors with offers that appear too good to be true, including:

• Guaranteed publication
• Authorship or citations
• An already accepted manuscript

How MDPI addresses paper mills

MDPI is proud to join United2Act in the collective effort in addressing paper mills.

Importantly, overcoming the threat of paper mills requires collaboration and vigilance from researchers, publishers, and the wider academic community.

Therefore, MDPI reminds scholars that they can contribute to the fight against these dishonest actors by notifying the publisher named in the paper mill offer.

Alerting publishers as soon as possible helps fight these dishonest actors and maintain research integrity.

What is a redundant publication?

Redundant or duplicate publications are publications which overlap substantially with one already published elsewhere.

As explained by COPE, redundancy may occur when:

“…a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source, cross referencing, or justification, or without permission.”

Where authors may wish to reuse previous findings or publish a translation of their article, adherence to ethical practices remains essential.

How MDPI addresses redundant publications

In order to address the issue of redundant publications, MDPI understands the importance of providing authors and Editorial Board Members with rigorous guidelines to correctly identify redundant publications and maintain research integrity.

MDPI follows COPE’s guidance on redundant (duplicate) publications. MDPI’s research and publication ethics page also provides clear guidance regarding translations and use of preprints.

Best practices

Through transparency and correct referencing, authors must appropriately declare and justify the reuse of existing literature. MDPI encourages authors to:

• Declare and justify any overlap with previous publications
• Always reference the original source
• Check the copyright terms and ensure you have permission to reuse the text, figures, tables or data
• Clearly indicate if the submission is a translation

If you uncover a set of redundant publications, alert the publishers and provide any supporting evidence available.

What is a citation cartel?

COPE defines citation cartels as:

“Coordinated networks that cite each other, leading to citation stacking that artificially inflates citation scores, impact factors, and h‑indices, thereby misleading evaluation processes and undermining the integrity of scholarly publishing.”

It is important to remember that while some authors may voluntarily and intentionally participate in this practice, others may be coerced into including certain citations and not realise they have been targeted by a citation cartel.

Nonetheless, citation cartels represent a serious concern for scholarly publishing and scholars should endeavour to maintain proper citation practices.

How MDPI addresses citation cartels

MDPI continues to invest in its editorial process and created Cite Lens, an AI-powered tool which builds on human expertise by guiding editors towards potentially problematic references in papers. Cite Lens alerts human experts to potential issues within submitted manuscripts.

Before submitting, authors should make sure all their citations are relevant and accurate.

Best practices

Authors can take extra precautions to ensure they are not being manipulated by, or taking part in, citation cartels. This includes:

• Avoid including excessive citations from individuals or journals just to boost metrics
• Carefully consider all citations recommended by reviewers or editors
• Only include references that are relevant to their study

Always consult a journal’s citation policies and report any misconduct to the journal’s Publication Ethics Team.

Learn more about how MDPI approaches problematic citations here.

What is salami slicing?

Salami slicing serves to inflate an individual’s publication metrics and is defined by COPE as:

“segmenting one study into the smallest publishable units (slices) that typically share the same research question, hypothesis, population, and methods, but with each publication reporting only a part of the findings.”

Salami slicing constitutes an important issue for the scholarly record as it creates the false impression that the slices represent independent studies with different subject samples.

How MDPI addresses salami slicing

MDPI’s approach to handling redundant content is fully aligned with COPE guidelines. Depending on the degree of overlap between the text and data, a correction or retraction may be issued.

Best practices

Best practices for avoiding salami slicing includes:

• Prioritize reporting your work comprehensively and not break it up across several articles
• Disclose any overlap between published or planned papers to the editor
• Cite publications that use the same data, population, or methodology

MDPI’s commitment to research integrity and publication ethics

As a pioneering Open Access publisher for more than 30 years, MDPI understands the immense importance of maintaining the highest standards of research integrity and publication ethics.

To see our full Research and Publication Ethics policies, click here. Additionally, if you want to read more of our blogs on the topics discussed in this piece, you can find them here.

This article was written in collaboration with Tommy Lax, Content Specialist.