Journal Policies

AXIS Journal of Social Sciences (AJSS) follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME), and the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Contents: Peer Review Process · Publication Ethics · Authorship · Artificial Intelligence · Plagiarism and Misconduct · Conflicts of Interest · Research Involving Humans · Data Sharing · Corrections and Retractions · Complaints and Appeals · Open Access, Copyright and Licensing · Fees · Self-Archiving · Archiving and Identifiers · Editorial Independence · Advertising and Marketing · Editorial Appointments

1. Peer Review Process

AJSS uses double-blind peer review: the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other.

Initial screening (1–2 weeks): the editor checks scope, originality, anonymisation, formatting and similarity. Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements may be rejected without review (desk rejection) or returned for correction.
External review (normally 4–6 weeks): each manuscript is sent to at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise, who are not from the authors' institutions and have no conflict of interest.
Decision: based on the reviewers' reports, the editor decides to accept, request minor or major revisions, or reject. Where reviewers disagree, the editor may seek a third review.
Revision: authors submit a revised manuscript with a point-by-point response. Major revisions are normally returned to the reviewers.
Final decision: the final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief.

Submissions by editors or editorial board members are handled by another editor, and the author has no access to or influence over the review. Such papers are subject to the same review process. Articles by members of the editorial board will not exceed 25% of any issue. Any special issue will be subject to the same standards, overseen by the Editor-in-Chief, and clearly labelled.

2. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Authors must submit original work, cite sources accurately, report data honestly, disclose funding and conflicts of interest, and promptly notify the journal of any significant error in their published work.

Reviewers must keep manuscripts confidential, review objectively, declare conflicts of interest, and alert the editor to any suspected misconduct.

Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on their academic merit, without regard to the authors' race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, institution or political views. Editors keep submissions confidential, declare conflicts of interest, and investigate ethical concerns in accordance with COPE flowcharts.

The publisher (IASRD) supports the editorial team's independence and is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no influence on editorial decisions.

3. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of the work, have drafted or critically revised it, have approved the final version, and agree to be accountable for it. Others who contributed should be listed in the Acknowledgements. Contributions are described using the CRediT taxonomy. Guest, gift and ghost authorship are not acceptable. Changes to authorship after submission require the written consent of all authors and the editor's approval.

4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Authors: AI tools may be used only to improve language and readability, under human oversight, and this use must be disclosed in the Declarations. AI must not be used to generate text, analysis, data, images, references, findings or conclusions. AI tools cannot be credited as authors. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their work.

Reviewers: reviewers must not upload manuscripts or any part of them to generative AI tools, as this breaches confidentiality, and must not use AI to write review reports.

Editors: editors must not upload submissions or reviews to generative AI tools. Automated tools (such as similarity checking) are used only to support, not replace, human editorial judgement.

5. Plagiarism and Research Misconduct

All manuscripts are screened using similarity-detection software before review. Similarity reports are interpreted by the editors in context, not on the basis of a percentage alone. Plagiarism (including self-plagiarism and text recycling), duplicate or redundant publication, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, citation manipulation and undisclosed AI-generated content are considered misconduct. Suspected cases will be investigated following COPE guidance and may result in rejection, correction, retraction, and notification of the authors' institutions.

6. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers and editors must disclose any financial, personal, professional or institutional interests that could influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. Reviewers and editors with a conflict of interest must decline to handle the manuscript.

7. Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board, and the committee name and reference number must be stated. Informed consent must be obtained from all participants (and from parents or guardians for minors), and participants' privacy and anonymity must be protected. Where formal approval was not required, authors must explain why.

8. Data Sharing and Reproducibility

Authors are encouraged to make the data supporting their findings available in a public repository, or on reasonable request, and must include a Data Availability Statement. Methods should be described in enough detail to allow replication.

9. Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Discussion

AJSS follows COPE's Retraction Guidelines. Honest errors that affect the article are corrected through a published correction. Articles with seriously unreliable findings or evidence of misconduct are retracted; the retracted article remains online, clearly marked, with a retraction notice explaining the reason. Where an investigation is ongoing, an expression of concern may be published. Readers may raise concerns about published articles by contacting the Editorial Office.

10. Complaints and Appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the Editorial Office within 30 days, explaining clearly why they believe the decision was wrong. Appeals are considered by the Editor-in-Chief, or by another editor not involved in the original decision, and the outcome is final. Complaints about the journal's processes, staff or published content can be sent to the Editorial Office and will be acknowledged within 7 working days and handled following COPE guidance.

11. Open Access, Copyright and Licensing

AJSS is fully open access. All content is freely available immediately on publication without embargo or registration. Articles are published under the CC BY 4.0 licence, and authors retain copyright of their work.

12. Fees (Article Processing Charges)

Submission and peer review: free. No fee is charged at any stage before acceptance.
Inaugural issues (2026): no charge.
From 1 January 2027: an Article Processing Charge (APC) is payable for accepted articles only. It covers editorial management, typesetting, DOI registration, online hosting and long-term preservation.
There are no page, colour, fast-track or withdrawal charges.

APC rates (from 1 January 2027)

Country income group (World Bank)	APC
High-income economies	USD 150
Upper-middle-income economies	USD 100
Lower-middle-income economies	USD 60
Low-income economies	USD 30 (full waiver available on request)

The rate is determined by the country of the corresponding author's institutional affiliation (not nationality), using the World Bank country classification in force on the date of invoice.

Waiver policy

Low-income economies: a full waiver will be granted on request.
Authors without funding (including students and early-career researchers) from any country may request a partial or full waiver by writing to the Editorial Office at the time of submission, giving a brief reason.
Waiver requests are handled by the Editorial Office separately from peer review. Editors and reviewers are not informed of authors' ability to pay, and payment or waiver status plays no part in editorial decisions.

13. Self-Archiving (Repository) Policy

Authors may deposit the submitted version (preprint), the accepted manuscript and the published version of their article in institutional or subject repositories, or on personal websites, at any time and without embargo, with a link to the published article.

14. Archiving and Persistent Identifiers

The journal is preparing long-term preservation through the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN); deposits will begin once the journal's ISSN has been assigned. IASRD is a Crossref member, and DOI registration for AXIS articles is being set up. This section will be updated when these arrangements are active.

15. Editorial Independence and Journal Management

Editorial decisions are made independently by the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial team, free from interference by the publisher, owner or funders. The journal is owned and published by the International Association for Social Research Dynamics (IASRD), a UK-registered charity (No. 1217292).

16. Advertising and Direct Marketing

AJSS does not display advertising. Any communication promoting the journal is accurate and not misleading, and the journal does not send unsolicited bulk emails to researchers.

17. Editorial Appointments: Reviewers and Editors

AXIS Journal of Social Sciences appoints reviewers and editors on the basis of qualifications, subject expertise and demonstrated commitment to the journal, through a transparent process overseen by the Editor-in-Chief. No one is appointed or listed without their written consent.

Reviewers

Eligibility: a completed postgraduate degree (MPhil/MS or above), current doctoral study, or substantial research or professional experience in a relevant field.
Selection: reviewers are invited by the editors or may volunteer by registering on the journal website. Volunteers are added to the reviewer pool only after the editors have verified their qualifications and expertise.
Public listing: reviewers are listed on the website only with their consent, and normally after completing at least one review for the journal.
Review: reviewers who repeatedly decline without response, miss deadlines, or do not follow the journal's ethical guidelines may be removed from the reviewer pool.

Editorial Board members

Eligibility: a doctoral degree (PhD or equivalent), a relevant publication record and an institutional or professional affiliation. The board aims for international and institutional diversity.
Term: members are appointed for a three-year term, renewable by mutual agreement.
Activity: members are expected to review manuscripts, advise on the journal's development and promote the journal. Membership is reviewed annually, and inactive members may be thanked and retired from the board.

Associate and Section Editors

Normally appointed from among board members or reviewers who have worked with the journal for at least six to twelve months and have completed several high-quality, timely reviews.
Appointed for a renewable three-year term by the Editor-in-Chief.

Editor-in-Chief

Must hold a doctoral degree and have a recognised publication record and editorial experience.
Appointed by the publisher, IASRD, following consultation with the editorial board, for a renewable term of three years. Changes to the editorial leadership are announced publicly on the journal website.
Editorial decisions remain independent of the publisher.

Conflicts of interest and records

Editors and reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and may not handle manuscripts in which they have a conflict. Manuscripts submitted by an editor are handled by another editor.
The journal keeps records of review activity, which are used when renewing or changing appointments.

For any questions about these policies, please contact the Editorial Office (see Contact page).