Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Statement

The human population has reached 8 billion (more than double what it was in 1970) and is expected to exceed 10 billion by 2050. The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over the coming decades. This leads to more food insecurity, climate change, loss of farms and wildlands, the unfortunate link between pollution and poverty, and biodiversity loss, which are but a subset of the earth and human interactions that are an active part of the most important issues that will determine the future of human beings this century.

Journal of Human, Earth, and Future is a multidisciplinary, an open-access, internationally double-blind peer-reviewed journal with a focus on practical applications of theory, research, and experience. 

Special Issues deal with more focused topics with high current interest falling within the scope of the journal in which they are published. Special Issue proposals are welcome at any time during the year.

Publishing Schedule

HEF has been publishing four issues per year (Quarterly) since 2020. The exact schedule of publication for each issue is as the following:

1. March

2. June

3. September

4. December

Aim & Scope

Journal of Human, Earth, and Future is a unique platform for researchers from all over the world to provide the knowledge required to support transformations towards global sustainability. Our main focus is on advanced research that uses systems-based approaches seek to deepen our understanding of complex earth systems and human dynamics across different disciplines. The vision of the Journal of Human, Earth, and Future is of a sustainable, fair, and impartial world for all, where societal decisions are informed by openly-accessible and shared knowledge. The Journal of Human, Earth, and Future will consider multidisciplinary and significant original research submissions in the following areas:

  • Sustainability, Energy, and Clean Technologies;
  • The Future of Technology and Innovation;
  • Livelihoods, Food Security, and Supply Chains Management;
  • Ecosystems, Environment, and Climate Change;
  • Green Engineering and Biotechnology;
  • Societal Resilience and Sustainable Communities.

Section Policies

Research Articles

This is the most common type of journal manuscript used to publish full reports of data from research. It may be called an Original Article, Research Article, Research, or just Article, depending on the journal. The Original Research format is suitable for many different fields and different types of studies. It includes full Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections.

  • Checked Open Submissions
  • Checked Indexed
  • Checked Peer Reviewed

Review Articles

Review Articles provide a comprehensive summary of research on a certain topic, and a perspective on the state of the field and where it is heading. They are often written by leaders in a particular discipline after an invitation from the editors of a journal. Reviews are often widely read (for example, by researchers looking for a full introduction to a field) and highly cited. 

  • Checked Open Submissions
  • Checked Indexed
  • Checked Peer Reviewed

Technical Note

Technical notes are brief articles focused on a new technique, method, or procedure. These should describe important modifications or unique applications for the described method. Technical notes can also be used for describing a new software tool or computational method. The structure should include an Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions, with a suggested minimum word count of 3000 words.

  • Checked Open Submissions
  • Checked Indexed
  • Checked Peer Reviewed

Special Issue "Current Status and Future Trends in BioScience and BioTechnology"

Recent social requests for new industry creation in the biotechnology field have been increasing rapidly. The Division of Bioscience and Biotechnology for Future Bioindustries was newly founded in order to meet these social needs by conducting frontier research directed to bioindustrial applications on the basis of microbiology, food science, bioorganic chemistry, genomics, and bioinformatics. This division also provides education and training to the students, allowing them to be expected as scientific research leaders with entrepreneurial skills in new bioindustrial areas.

This Special Issue aims to collect both original research and review articles regarding applications of experimental or methodological and theoretical approaches in revealing the BioScience and BioTechnology.

  • Checked Open Submissions
  • Checked Indexed
  • Checked Peer Reviewed

Letter to the Editor

The Letter to the Editor for Journal of Human, Earth, and Future should start with "To the Editor", and contain the body of the article of not longer than 1000 words which may be broken into subsections with short, informative headings. Letters to the Editor may be edited for clarity or length and may be subject to peer review at the editors' discretion.

  • Checked Open Submissions
  • Checked Indexed
  • Checked Peer Reviewed

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Everyone has a right to "download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy" the published papers.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

Abstracting, Indexing and Membership

Allegations of Misconduct

Plagiarism

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

  • Directly copying text from other sources without attribution
  • Copying ideas, images, or data from other sources without attribution
  • Reusing text from your own previous publications without attribution or agreement of the editor
    • Exception: Reusing text from the Methods section in the author’s previous publications, with attribution to the source, is acceptable.

  • Using an idea from another source with slightly modified language without attribution.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may issue a correction or retract the paper, as appropriate.

All manuscripts under review or published with the Journal of Human, Earth, and Future are subject to screening using "iThenticate" software

ithenticate


Data fabrication 

This concerns the making up of research findings


Data falsification 

Manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc.

 

Duplicate submissions

Duplicate submission is a situation whereby an author submits the same or similar manuscripts to two different journals at the same time either within Academic Journals or any other publisher. This includes the submission of manuscripts derived from the same data in such a manner that there are no substantial differences in the manuscripts. Duplicate submission also includes the submission of the same/similar manuscript in different languages to different journals.

 

Authorship Issues

Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements for authorship and contributorship as well as processes for managing potential disputes.

Here is some advice by COPE on how to spot potential authorship problems. Journal of Human, Earth, and Future strives to follow these guidelines.


Citation Manipulation

Citation Manipulation is including excessive citations, in the submitted manuscript, that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and have been included solely for the purpose of increasing citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal. This leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears and is thus a form of scientific misconduct.

 

Suspected Manipulation of Peer Review/Bias of Peer Reviews

Journal of Human, Earth, and Future selects the reviewers on any manuscript with due care so as to avoid any conflict of interest between the reviewers and the authors. HEF's peer review policy is adequately explained here. Our policy is compliant with COPE Guidelines on peer review.

 

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The ethical policy of Journal of Human, Earth, and Future is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of HEF Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with HEF. The ethical policy of HEF is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines please visit http://publicationethics.org

 

Principles of Transparency and Publication Ethics

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Principles_of_Transparency_and_Best_Practice_in_Scholarly_Publishingv3_0.pdf)

Peer review process: HEF is a double-blind peer-reviewed electronic quarterly publication concerned with all aspects of Medical Sciences. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, is clearly described on the journal’s Web site (https://www.hefjournal.org/index.php/HEF/about/editorialPolicies#custom-5).

Governing Body: HEF has a very strong editorial board, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors are provided on the journal’s Web site (https://wwww.hefjournal.org/index.php/HEF/about/editorialTeam).

Identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others.

Website: A journal’s Website (https://www.hefjournal.org/) contains that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.

Contact information: Journal is provided the contact information for the editorial office of HEF (https://www.hefjournal.org/index.php/HEF/about/contact).

Name of journal: The Journal name of Journal of Human, Earth, and Future (HEF) has unique and not be one that is easily confused with another journal.

Conflicts of interest: Authors are requested to evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist while submitting their articles to HEF through the Conflict of Interest Disclosure form (https://www.hefjournal.org/Guideline/Conflict%20of%20Interest.docx).

Declaration of Competing Interests: The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers, which she/he has written him/herself or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Further, any such submission must be subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, peer review must be handled independently of the relevant author/editor and their research groups, and there must be a clear statement to this effect on any such paper that is published.

Acknowledgments: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Disclosure of Funding Sources: HEF authors are required to declare what support they received to carry out their research. Declaring funding sources acknowledges funders’ contributions, fulfills funding requirements and promote greater transparency in the research process.

* Note: HEF will not consider for publication manuscripts in which any of the research costs or authors' salaries have been funded, in whole or in part, by a tobacco company.


Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

(http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)

  • The Editors of the journal should have the full authority to reject/accept a manuscript.
  • The Editors of the journal should maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts under review or until they are published.
  • The Editor-in-Chief should make a decision on submitted manuscripts, whether to be published or not with other editors and reviewers
  • The Editors of the journal should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
  • The Editors of the journal should disclose and try to avoid any conflict of interest.
  • The Editors of the journal should maintain academic integrity and strive to meet the needs of readers and authors.
  • The Editors of the journal should be willing to investigate plagiarism and fraudulent data issues and be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
  • The Editors of the journal should limit themselves only to the intellectual content.
  • The Editors of the journal must not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
  • Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
  • Guest editors play a vital role in acquiring content and leading the review process for special issue publications.
  • Associate editors play a key role in peer-reviewed publishing, supporting the journal editor as subject experts on various topics. Associate editors oversee assigned manuscripts, moving these papers through review and revision. AEs are responsible for assessing manuscript quality, obtaining peer reviews, requesting revisions where appropriate, and making recommendations to the journal editor about the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript.


Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

  • The Reviewers of the journal should assist the Editors in taking the decision for publishing the submitted manuscripts.
  • The Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts, which they are invited to review.
  • The Reviewers should provide comments in time that will help editors to make a decision on whether the submitted manuscript is to be published or not.
  • The Reviewers are bound to treat the manuscript received for peer reviewing as confidential, and must not use the information obtained through peer review for personal advantage.
  • The Reviewers comments against each invited manuscript should be technical, professional and objective.
  • The Reviewers should not review the manuscripts in which they have found conflicts of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions.
  • The Reviewers should disclose and try to avoid any conflict of interest.


Authors of Journal of Human, Earth, and Future must confirm the following:

  • Submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s),
  • The submitting corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the manuscript article's publication has been approved by all the other coauthors.
  • Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted,
  • All authors have agreed to allow the corresponding author to serve as the correspondent with the editorial office, to review the edited manuscript and proof,
  • Acknowledge the sources of data used in the development of the manuscript,
  • All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims,
  • All errors discovered in the manuscript after submission must be swiftly communicated to the Editor,
  • All authors must know that the submitted manuscripts under review or published with HEF are subject to screening using Plagiarism Prevention Software. Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics.

Ethical Guidelines

Ethical Oversight

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices. The Journal of Human, Earth, and Future is committed to considering appeals concerning the non-observance of ethical principles by our authors.


Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013, and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1975 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Ethical Approval’ of the article.

Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

 

Use of Animals in Research

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

Journal of Human, Earth, and Future endorse the ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/arrive-guidelines) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at: https://arriveguidelines.org/resources/author-checklists.

 

Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Example of an ethical statement: "The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXX."


Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild) including collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the CBD (https://www.cbd.int/convention/) and the  (https://cites.org/eng).

For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.

Example of an ethical statement: "Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country)."

 

Clinical Trials Registration

Registration: Journal of Human, Earth, and Future follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which require and recommend registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication.

Purely observational studies do not require registration. A clinical trial not only refers to studies that take place in a hospital or involve pharmaceuticals, but also refer to all studies which involve participant randomization and group classification in the context of the intervention under assessment.

Authors are strongly encouraged to pre-register clinical trials with an international clinical trial register and cite a reference to the registration in the abstract and Methods section. Suitable databases include clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register and those listed by the World Health Organisation International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Approval to conduct a study from an independent local, regional, or national review body is not equivalent to prospective clinical trial registration. Journal of Human, Earth, and Future reserves the right to decline any paper without trial registration for further peer-review. However, if the study protocol has been published before the enrolment, the registration can be waived with the correct citation of the published protocol.

CONSORT Statement: Journal of Human, Earth, and Future requires a completed CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram as a condition of submission when reporting the results of a randomized trial. Templates for these can be found here or on the CONSORT website (http://www.consort-statement.org) which also describes several CONSORT checklist extensions for different designs and types of data beyond two group parallel trials. At minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each item of the checklist.

 

  • Authors are expected to comply with standard reporting guidelines for study designs. Check the EQUATOR Network for reporting instructions and supporting documentation. Documentation for specific studies should be uploaded as supporting information during manuscript submission. Read the Author Guidelines.

Errata and Corrigenda

Changes/additions to accepted articles

All content of published articles is subject to the editorial review process, organized by and under the auspices of the editor. Should the authors wish to add to their article after acceptance, they must submit a request to the editor and the new content will be reviewed.

  • If the new material is added to the accepted article, it must be submitted for peer review as a new manuscript, referring back to the original;
  • If the new material should replace the original content of the accepted article, the editor may consider the publication of an erratum or a corrigendum.
Erratum

An erratum refers to a correction of errors introduced to the article by the publisher.

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication.

Corrigendum

A corrigendum refers to a change to their article that the author wishes to publish at any time after acceptance. Authors should contact the editor of the journal, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action.

Peer Review Policy

This journal uses double-blind peer-review, which means that the reviewers of the paper won’t get to know the identity of the author(s), and the author(s) won’t get to know the identity of the reviewer. The idea is that everyone should get a similar and unbiased review.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

If HEF’s Editor has invited you to review a manuscript, please consider the following items:

  • Reviewing the manuscript critically but constructively and preparing detailed comments about the manuscript to help authors improve their research;
  • Reviewing multiple versions of a manuscript as necessary;
  • Providing all required information within established deadlines;
  • Making recommendations to the editor regarding the suitability of the manuscript for publication in the journal;
  • Declaring to the editor any potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authors or the content of a manuscript they are asked to review;
  • Reporting possible research misconducts;
  • Suggesting alternative reviewers in case they cannot review the manuscript for any reasons;
  • Treating the manuscript as a confidential document;
  • Not making any use of the work described in the manuscript;
  • Not communicating directly with authors, if somehow they identify the authors;
  • Not identifying themselves to authors;
  • Not passing on the assigned manuscript to another reviewer;
  • Ensuring that the manuscript is of high quality and original research;
  • Informing the editor if he/she finds the assigned manuscript is under consideration in any other publication to his/her knowledge;
  • Writing a review report in English only;
  • Authoring a commentary for publication related to the reviewed manuscript.

What should be checked while reviewing a manuscript?

  • Novelty;
  • Originality;
  • Scientific reliability;
  • A valuable contribution to science;
  • Adding new aspects to the existed field of study;
  • Ethical aspects;
  • Structure of the article submitted and its relevance to authors’ guidelines;
  • References provided to substantiate the content;
  • Grammar, punctuation, and spelling;
  • Scientific misconduct.

The detailed Journal peer review process is based on the following chart:

Informed Consent Policy

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper. Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published.

Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws. We decide that patient confidentiality is better guarded by having the author archive the consent and instead of providing the journal with a written statement that attests that they have received and archived written patient consent. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article.

Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are de-identified, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such changes do not distort scientific meaning.

Patient identifiers will not be published in Journal of Human, Earth, and Future, unless written informed consent is given and the content is essential for the scientific purpose and merit of the manuscript. Photographs of subjects showing any recognizable features must be accompanied by their signed release authorizing publication, as must case reports that provide enough unique identification of a person (other than name) to make recognition possible. Failure to obtain informed consent of patient prior to submission would result in manuscript rejection.

Complaints Policy

We aim to respond to and resolve all complaints quickly and constructively. The procedures to investigate and resolve complaints followed by the Journal of Human, Earth, and Future aims to be fair and balanced for those making complaints and for those being complained about. The complaint can be made by writing an email.

All complaints will be acknowledged within three working days.

Please email to: office@hefjournal.org

Advertising Policy

At present, we do not publish any advertisements in Journal of Human, Earth, and Future.

Data Repository

As the Journal of Human, Earth, and Future does not itself host data, we ask authors to submit datasets to an appropriate public data repository. Repositories may be either subject-specific repositories that accept specific types of structured datasets or cross-disciplinary generalist repositories that accept multiple types of datasets.