AJRMG is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics. We follow the Core Practices and guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and apply them to every stage of the publishing process. This statement sets out the duties of everyone involved.

Duties of editors

Judge manuscripts only on their merit, originality, relevance and clarity, without regard to the authors' race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, political views or institution.
Keep all information about submitted manuscripts confidential.
Declare any conflict of interest and withdraw from handling manuscripts where one exists.
Ensure fair, timely and independent peer review.
Respond promptly to complaints and allegations of misconduct, and publish corrections, retractions or expressions of concern where needed.

Duties of reviewers

Review only manuscripts within their expertise and decline promptly if they cannot meet the deadline.
Keep the manuscript and its review confidential, and do not use unpublished material for their own work.
Declare any conflict of interest and decline the review where one exists.
Give objective, constructive and courteous comments, supported by reasons.
Alert the editor to any suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication or other concern.
Do not upload any part of a manuscript to a generative AI tool.

Duties of authors

Submit original work, cite the work of others accurately, and obtain permission for third-party material.
Do not submit the same work to more than one journal at a time.
Report data honestly and keep the underlying data available for editorial checks where possible.
Include as authors only those who made a substantial contribution, and acknowledge others who helped.
Declare all funding and competing interests.
Notify the editor promptly of any significant error found after submission or publication, and cooperate in correcting it.

Duties of the publisher

The Africa Institute of Resilience Studies Ltd/Gte supports the editors, protects editorial independence, maintains the journal's permanent archive, and works with the editors to handle ethical concerns in line with COPE guidance.

Authorship

Each author must have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of the work; drafted or critically revised it; approved the final version; and accepted responsibility for it. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors and a reason, sent to the editor.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest exists when a financial, professional, institutional or personal relationship could influence, or appear to influence, a person's judgement. Authors, reviewers and editors must declare any such interest. Declaring an interest does not prevent publication; it allows readers to judge the work in full knowledge.

Research with human participants and security-sensitive research

Research with human participants must have approval from an appropriate ethics committee, or a clear explanation of why approval was not needed, and must obtain informed consent. Authors must protect the identity and safety of participants, especially vulnerable people, informants, survivors of violence and security personnel. In security-sensitive research, authors must not publish operational details, locations or identities that could expose any person to harm. Editors may ask authors to remove or generalise such details.

Plagiarism and duplicate publication

AJRMG does not accept plagiarism in any form, including copying text, ideas or data without attribution, and reusing an author's own published text without acknowledgement. Authors must disclose any related publication, including conference papers and reports. Where we find plagiarism or duplicate publication, we act in line with the COPE flowcharts, which may include rejection, retraction and notification of the author's institution.

Data and reproducibility

We encourage authors to share the data, code and materials behind their findings in a trusted repository, subject to ethical and legal limits. Every research article must include a data availability statement.

Use of generative AI

Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot take responsibility for the work.
Authors who use such tools to analyse data, draft or edit text must disclose the tool and its purpose in the Declarations section. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy and originality of the content.
Authors must not use generative AI to create or alter images or data presented as research findings, unless this forms part of the research method and the authors describe it fully.
Editors and reviewers must not upload manuscripts or reports to generative AI tools, as this breaches confidentiality.

Citation practice

Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to cite their own work or the journal's articles unless the citation genuinely improves the manuscript. Authors must not engage in citation manipulation.

Handling allegations of misconduct

Anyone may raise a concern about a manuscript or published article by writing to ethics@ajrmg.org. The editors treat every concern seriously and confidentially, follow the relevant COPE flowchart, give the authors a chance to respond, and may consult the authors' institution. Possible outcomes include no action, a correction, an expression of concern, a retraction, or rejection of a manuscript under review.

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern

Correction: published when an error affects part of an article but not its overall findings. The correction links to the original article, and the article links to the correction.
Retraction: published when the findings are unreliable, or when the article involves plagiarism, duplicate publication or other serious misconduct. The retracted article remains online, clearly marked "Retracted", with a linked notice explaining the reason.
Expression of concern: published while an investigation is under way or when its outcome is inconclusive.

Complaints

Please send any complaint about the journal's processes or conduct to editor@ajrmg.org. We acknowledge complaints within five working days and aim to resolve them within 30 days. If the complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, write to the publisher at info@ajrmg.org.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement