The journal “AQUATIC RESEARCH” adheres to the highest standards of publishing ethics guided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Council of Science Editors (CSE), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE), Open Access Scholarly and Publishers Association (OASPA), and  Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Manuscripts submitted should align with the journal’s purpose and scope and must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere. Changes to authorship (name, order, additions) require written consent from all declared authors.

The following actions constitute unethical behavior and result in rejection or retraction: plagiarism, duplication, false authorship, data fabrication, salami slicing, copyright infringement, and undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Journal Responsibilities

The “AQUATIC RESEARCH” journal is committed to preventing publication malpractice. Submitted works must represent original contributions free from plagiarism. Authors must disclose actual or potential conflicts of interest. The journal ensures objective and fair double-blind peer review to prevent conflicts between editorial staff, reviewers, and authors.
The journal provides an open platform for public discussion requiring registration for accountability. Reviewer identities remain confidential unless explicitly disclosed to the editors.

Publication Decisions

The editor of the “AQUATIC RESEARCH” journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
The journal submission and publication process involves manuscript submission, ethical checks, double-blind peer review, editorial decision-making (including potential conflict resolution), typesetting, author review, DOI assignment, online publication, and archiving, as detailed in the workflow diagram below.

Fair Play

An editor evaluates manuscripts at all times for their intellectual content, without regard to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Manuscripts submitted by editors, editorial board members, or the publisher are handled by an independent editor, and the author takes no part in the evaluation or decision.

Research Ethics

Approval of research protocols by an ethics committee, in accordance with international agreements (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Participants,” latest revision adopted in October 2024, www.wma.net), is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies. If required, ethics committee reports or an equivalent official document will be requested from the authors.
For manuscripts concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows the written informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. Information on patient consent, the name of the ethics committee, and the ethics committee approval number should also be stated in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript. It is the authors’ responsibility to carefully protect the patients’ anonymity. For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed releases of the patient or of their legal representative should be enclosed.
The “AQUATIC RESEARCH” journal requires experimental research studies on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates to comply with relevant institutional, national, and/or international guidelines. The journal supports the principles of the Basel Declaration (https://animalresearchtomorrow.org/en) and the guidelines published by the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) (https://iclas.org/). Authors are advised to clearly state their compliance with relevant guidelines.
Authors are advised to comply with the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora for research involving plants.

Originality and Similarity Screening

Submitted manuscripts that pass preflight are scanned for similarity using iThenticate software. Authors will be notified if plagiarism or self-plagiarism is detected. Manuscripts with an overall similarity index exceeding 20% are evaluated by the editor, who may return them to the authors for revision or reject them; in this assessment, the editor may exclude the reference list and properly quoted material. Editors may repeat the peer review or similarity check during production, if necessary.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

Aquatic Research follows a disclosure-based policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools (for example, large language models) in manuscript preparation.

• Disclosure: Authors who use generative AI or AI-assisted tools must declare this in the “Disclosure” section of the manuscript, stating the name of the tool or service, the purpose for which it was used, and that the authors reviewed and edited the content and take full responsibility for it. Basic spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks do not need to be declared; substantive changes to sentence structure, organization, or content do. If no AI tool was used, no statement is needed.
• Responsibility: AI tools cannot be listed as authors. The authors are solely accountable for the accuracy, originality, and references of the entire manuscript, including any material produced with AI assistance. AI tools must not be used to fabricate results or to create or alter data. Undisclosed use of AI tools is considered a breach of publication ethics.
• Research methods: If AI tools are part of the research itself (design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation), their use must be described in the Methods section in a reproducible way.
• Images: AI tools must not be used to create or alter images that represent primary research data. AI-assisted explanatory illustrations, such as schematics or flow charts, are allowed and must be disclosed in the figure caption.
• Reviewers and editors: Reviewers and editors must not upload unpublished manuscripts or review materials to generative AI tools, in order to protect confidentiality.

Data Availability

Authors are required to include a data availability statement in their manuscript (see the Author Guidelines). Where possible, authors are encouraged to deposit their data in a public repository and to cite it.

Double-Blind Referee Evaluation

After the similarity check, suitable manuscripts are evaluated by the editors in terms of originality, methodology, importance of the subject, and suitability to the scope of the journal. The editor directs the submitted articles to a fair double-blind peer review (submitting articles that comply with the journal’s rules to at least two national or international referees) and manages the processes for publication after the authors have revised the manuscript in accordance with the referees’ comments.

Correction, Withdrawal, Expression of Concern

If minor errors are detected that do not affect the results, comments, and conclusions of the published article, the editor accepts the correction. If major errors and/or abuses are detected that invalidate the results and conclusions, withdrawal (retraction) is considered.
If there is evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors, evidence that the findings are unreliable, and the authors’ institutions did not investigate the incident or the investigation seems unfair or inconclusive, the editor should consider issuing an expression of concern.
COPE and ICMJE guidelines are considered regarding correction, withdrawal, or expression of concern.

Complaints and Appeals 

Authors, reviewers, and readers who wish to file a complaint or appeal an editorial decision should contact the editorial office in writing, stating the manuscript title and the grounds for the complaint. Contact details are available on the Journal Contact page. Complaints and appeals are handled by the Editor in Chief and the Editorial Board in accordance with COPE guidelines. If the complaint concerns the Editor in Chief or a member of the editorial board, it is handled by an independent editor. Allegations of research or publication misconduct are investigated following the relevant COPE flowcharts, and the journal may contact the authors’ institution when necessary. The outcome is communicated to the complainant in writing.

Open Access Statement

The journal follows the principles of Diamond Open Access, and all its content is freely available to the user or institution. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, print, search, or link the full texts of articles in this journal without prior permission from the publisher or author. This conforms to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. Open access articles in the journal are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Copyright Notice

Authors publishing with the journal retain the copyright to their work, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Authors grant the journal the right of first publication. The CC BY 4.0 license permits unlimited distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

Article Processing Fee

All journal processes are free of charge. No article processing fee, submission fee, or publication fee is charged for submitted or accepted articles.

Revenue Sources, Advertising, and Direct Marketing

The journal charges no fees to authors or readers, and its operating costs are covered by its publisher. The journal does not carry advertising and does not accept paid promotional content. The journal does not solicit manuscripts through unsolicited mass e-mail; invitations to submit are limited to targeted invitations to authors whose work is relevant to the journal’s scope.

Archiving Policy

To preserve and permanently access all articles published in “Aquatic Research,” the papers are nationally archived on DergiPark (https://dergipark.org.tr) by the TÜBİTAK Turkish Academic Network and Information Center (ULAKBİM), affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Technology of Türkiye. The articles are stored with a system established for journal publishing activities that allows LOCKSS to collect, preserve, and present the content.
Additionally, authors are encouraged to self-archive the final PDF version of their articles in open electronic archives that conform to the standards of the Open Archives Initiative (https://www.openarchives.org/). Authors should provide a link from the deposited version to the URL of the journal website.