The Urban Studies and Practices editorial office conforms to the following academic publication ethical guidelines:

Professional ethical principles for editors and publishers

The editor is professionally responsible for bringing works of authorship to the public, which requires that they adhere to the following basic principles:

• In the process of making a decision on publication, the academic journal editor ensures that the presented data is authentic and that the paper is scholarly important.
• The editor must evaluate the intellectual contents of the papers without respect to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ancestry, nationality, social background, or political views.
• Unpublished data received from submitted papers must not be used for personal purposes or be communicated to third parties without written consent from the author. Information or ideas received in the process of editing and related to possible advantages must be kept confidential and not be used for personal benefit.
• An editor must not allow information to be published if there is enough reason to believe it is the result of plagiarism.
• Together with the publisher, the editor must not leave claims and inquiries related to submitted papers or published materials unanswered. In cases of conflict, they must take all necessary measures to restore any rights that have been violated.

Ethical principles in the work of reviewers

Reviewers are responsible for academic expertise of copyrighted materials, so their work should be impartial and adhere to the following principles:

• A paper received for review must be considered as a confidential document that cannot be transferred for information or discussion to third parties that are not authorized by the editorial office.
• A reviewer must provide an objective and substantiated evaluation of a study’s described results. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.
• Unpublished data received from submitted papers must not be used for personal purposes by the reviewer.
• Reviewers who believe that they do not have sufficient qualification to be objective, or who cannot be, for example due to a conflict of interests with the author or the institution, should inform the editor and ask to be excluded from a paper’s review.

Guidelines for authors of academic publications

The author (or team of authors) understands that they are primarily responsible for the academic novelty and authenticity of the results of the academic research; this means that they must comply with the following principles:

• Authors must submit authentic results of the research they carried out. Deliberately falsified or fraudulent arguments are unacceptable.
• The authors must guarantee that the results of research presented in the submitted paper are fully original. Borrowed fragments or arguments must include references to the author and the source. Excessive quotation, as well as plagiarism in any form, including citations without quotes, rephrasing, or usurpation of rights for other people’s research are unethical and unacceptable.
• The contribution of everyone who in one way or another influenced the process of research must be acknowledged; in particular, the paper must include references to papers that were considered in the study.
• Authors must not submit to the journal papers that are currently under review at another journal, as well as papers that have already been published in a different journal.
• Everyone who made a substantial contribution to the research must be listed as co-authors. People who have not participated in the research cannot be included in the list of co-authors.
• If authors find serious errors or mistakes in the paper in the stage of its review or after publication, they must inform the editorial office as soon as possible.

The journal reserves the right to reject any paper submitted for publication that does not comply with the principles listed above.