Policies on publishing ethics

federalismi.it is a Journal of Italian, Comparative and European public law, founded by Prof. Beniamino Caravita di Toritto and available at the internet address www.federalismi.it and registered, since April 18, 2003, at the Court of Rome (Registration number 202/18/04/2003 - ISSN 1826-3534) as a fortnightly scientific periodical.

The first issue of the magazine was published on May 15, 2003, almost 20 years ago. Since then, the Journal, with a regular index numbered by number and year, available online, has always been published regularly every fifteen days, also sending an update newsletter in the intermediate week. For editorial reasons, newsletters are not sent out with every update of the Review and, with very rare exceptions dictated by strict requirements of topicality, contributions are included only in the biweekly issue or in the intermediate weekly newsletter.

The editorial line of the Review, inspired by pluralism and the comparison between the different opinions and methodological, cultural and political options, as well as the dialogue between the academic reflection and the more operational one that is carried out in the forum and in the constitutional and administrative institutions, is that outlined in the editorial of n. 1/2003 (May 15, 2003) and in the subsequent editorial of n. 10/2006 (May 15, 2006), also signed by the Director.

At its meeting of December 1, 2010 the Board of Directors of the Italian Association of Constitutionalists (AIC) placed the Review in the A category, the highest in the classification of scientific journals in the sector. This evaluation was confirmed by the AIC in the meeting of January 11, 2012 and subsequently communicated to ANVUR; this choice was confirmed in the meeting of the AIC Board of Directors of February 14, 2012. By resolution of December 28, 2012, ANVUR confirmed the ranking of the Journal in band A for the VQR 2004-2010.

According to Art. 10 of Regolamento per la Classificazione delle riviste non bibliometriche (adopted by ANVUR thruogh Delibera del Consiglio Direttivo n. 42, 20 February 2019), the peer review journal federalismi.it complies with current guidelines approved by the “Committee on Publication Ethics” (COPE).

Pursuant to the abovementioned documents, all organs of the Journal (Director, Board of Direction, Chief Editor and all staff members) are committed themselves to following this ethical guideline.

Ethical rules on manuscripts evaluation and publication – peer review.

-       Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the Director according to Art. 9, Comma 1, Reg. ANVUR, it will then be peer reviewed by at least one independent, anonymous expert referees (single blind peer review).

-       The Journal adopt and is committed to the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

-       All contributions of the Journal are open-access, Creative Commons licence on the website www.federalismi.it (see duties of Authors). Contributions are in html format on the website and it is possible to download the pdf format.

-       The Direction is tasked to the respect of current rules on defamation, copyright violation and plagiarism.

-       The task of the Editorial Board of the Journal is to monitor the originality of the submitted manuscripts with the aid of antiplagiarism programs. Any form of plagiarism is unacceptable. The Editorial Board takes any kind of action against cases of plagiarism. To this regards the Journal holds a list of Authors who submitted not original manuscripts. If a given Author submit an additional not original manuscript the Director may exclude future manuscripts of that Author, without any other reason.

-       Submitted articles will be reviewed on the basis of their scientific values and content, without any distinction of gender, sexual orientation, cultural behaviour, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, age and political ideology or inclination of Authors. The violation of this disposition entails the exclusion of the referee from the Journal and the list of the reviewers.

-       Following a complaint made by an Author for a rejected paper, the Director, alongside the Direction and Staff member may appoint an additional referee. The confirmation of the rejection (except cases of plagiarism – see above) does not preclude future paper submissions form the Author.  

-       All organs and members of the Journal are obliged to not to disclose information related to the content and peer review process. Similarly for all members of the Journal is forbidden the utilisation of part of the manuscripts not published for their own purposes or personal advantage of research without the consent of the Author.

-       Without prejudice to anonymous referee and Author, any kind of information not strictly connected to the evaluation of the manuscript might be forwarded to the Publisher exclusively after the Author consent.

-       The Journal during the peer review process aims to make sure that the manuscript remains confidential. The Director with the support of the Direction and staff members appoint a highly qualified referee. Similarly, the appointment of the referee is grounded on trust and willing participation to comply with Journal rules for the best evaluation of manuscripts. The Director and staff members have the duty to avoid all potential competing, or conflicting, interests.

-       All evaluations are stored by Staff Member.

-       The Journal takes into consideration for publication juridical articles, especially related to Italian public law, comparative law and European law. Nevertheles, the Journal might pubish contributions also of different scientific areas but only strictly connected to public and constitutional law area.

Ethical behaviour of Authors for manuscripts forthicoming on federalism.it

-       Authors ensure that manuscripts and essays are entirely original and not submitted to other peer review journals, unless explicitly authorised by the Director. Articles may be published in other collective volumes or journals only after the consent of the Director. In this last case that given paper shall contain the reference to the publication on federalismi.it.

-       Authors shall follow the style guidelines of the Journal in order to publish the manuscript.

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-       Author shall provide all relevant information requested by the submission policy, above all the authorship of the work. Authors shall ensure that their work is original entirely. In the case of two or more Authors, it shall be clearly indicated which part of the manuscript has been written by each author.

-       The Director mght ask Authors all needed corrections and integrations after the peer review process.

-       Contributions are granted free of charge for Authors. They have the Creative Commons license “Attribuzione - Non commerciale 3.0” Italia (CC BY-NC 3.0 IT). This is without prejudice, for aspects not regulated by this license, to guarantees in matter of copyright according to Law n. 633/1941.

-       Upon the Author/s request, the Direction might forward the anonymous review. Author may express his/her critics to the referee evaluation, but the last decision is at the complete scrutiny of the Direction.

-       Editors are reserved to proceed on modifications for editorial purposes after the reception of the first page proofs.

-       Author shall avoid all potential competing, or conflicting, interests related to his/her research and thoughts. It shall be acknowledged funding institutions and/or the source of funds in sunstain of the research project connected to the manuscript.

-       In the case of mistakes ascertained by Author after the online-publication, Author shall contact as fast as possible the Journal in order to remove them. Moreover, in such a cases Author is tasked to cooperate for fixing issues arised. The Direction may deny the access to that publication until the issue is solved.

Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

-       Referee who feels him/herself not properly qualified for the review of a manuscript or in the case of unforeseen commitments or for any kind of reason and cannot fulfil the review in the agreed time frame, he/she shall contact the Direction of the Review. The evaluation shall be sent back in fifteen (15) days.

-       Referees shall not accept for review papers where there may be competing or conflicting interest, especially in the case of scientific cooperation with the Author or for connection with institutions connected to the manuscript. This is the case when referees understand the Authorship of the manuscript on their own with a reasonable probability.

-       The evaluation of essays and manuscripts shall be conducted without personal and ideological consideration. It is not accepted offensive, denigration or false accusation in the review.

-       Review shall be conducted in a fair, objective and constructive manner in the evaluation format sent by the Editor. The review shall be objective and shall provide specific feedback in order to help Author to improve the manuscript. For example, the critique shall be supported by evidence and appropriate references to substantiate statements or judgements. This kind of review helps both the Author and the Journal.

-       In the case of rejection or negative evaluation, Referee is requested to highlight missing bibliography by Author. Moreover, where there are similarities of the manuscript under his/her review, he/she has the duty to contact the Direction of the Journal.

-       Referee cannot disseminate and discuss the manuscript received for the evaluation with other subjects than those autorised by the Direction of the Journal. Lastly, any kind of reserved information cannot be used for personal and/or scientific advantage.

Storage and archive

-       The owners of the Journal and the Director are committed to the open access policy of Journal as well as in the case of cessation of the Journal activity. All articles are archived, stored and available on a cloud platform. Those interested may ask also in case of cassation of the Journal activity.