Ethics & Policies

PUBLICATION ETHICS

The Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute (JILTI) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all possible measures against publication malpractice. The journal adheres to the guidelines and core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (a joint statement by COPE, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)), and the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated January 2026). The journal also observes the recommendations of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the US National Library of Medicine (NLM), the World Medical Association (WMA) and the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).

Medical research involving human participants must comply with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki (last updated October 2024, Helsinki, Finland), ensuring informed consent, privacy protection, and participant safety. The journal also follows WAME's Recommendations on Publication Ethics for Medical Journals, addressing conflicts of interest, research misconduct, and the peer-review process to maintain integrity and transparency.

All parties involved in the act of publishing — the editors, the peer reviewers, the authors and the publisher — are expected to observe these standards of ethical behaviour. Where an ethical concern arises, JILTI follows the relevant COPE flowcharts and guidance and the COPE Core Practices in reaching a decision.

Responsibilities of Editors

The Editor-in-Chief holds full authority and responsibility for the editorial content and for deciding which submissions are published, and exercises this authority independently of commercial or political considerations. Editorial decisions are based solely on the scientific merit, originality, validity, clarity and relevance of the work to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief or political philosophy. Editors ensure a fair, timely and confidential double-blind peer-review process, guard against conflicts of interest among authors, reviewers and editors, and act promptly and transparently when misconduct is alleged or identified.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers assist the Editor-in-Chief in editorial decisions and support authors in improving their manuscripts. Reviews must be objective, constructive and completed within the agreed time. Reviewers must treat every manuscript as a confidential and privileged document, must not use or disclose any information obtained through peer review for personal advantage, and must declare any competing interests before accepting a review. A reviewer who feels unqualified, or who cannot review promptly, should decline and notify the editor. Reviewers must report to the editor any suspicion of plagiarism, redundant publication, data irregularity or ethical breach.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must ensure that their work is original, has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal. Data must be accurate; fabrication, falsification, manipulation, plagiarism (including self-plagiarism), image manipulation, salami-slicing and citation manipulation are unacceptable and will result in rejection or retraction. All persons who meet the ICMJE authorship criteria must be listed as authors, and all listed authors must meet those criteria; sources of support and all relevant conflicts of interest must be disclosed. Authors must retain sufficient access to the primary data to take responsibility for its integrity and accuracy, and must cooperate fully with any editorial enquiry.

Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher supports the editors in maintaining editorial independence and integrity, ensures that the peer-review process is protected from commercial influence, and cooperates with the editors to correct, retract or otherwise address the scientific record when necessary.

Further detail on each of these areas is provided in the dedicated sections below (Authorship, Peer Review, Plagiarism, Generative AI Use, Corrections, Retraction, and Complaint and Appeal).

RESEARCH ETHICS

The Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute adheres to national and international standards of research and publication ethics. All submitted and published studies must be conducted in full compliance with the established principles of research ethics. In this context, compliance with national and international ethical standards is mandatory for research involving human and animal participants. For studies involving human participants, informed consent must be obtained.

For studies requiring ethics committee approval, details of the approval must be included in the text (committee name, date, and reference number). Authors must adhere to the principles of scientific integrity when collecting, analysing, and reporting data. Plagiarism, data fabrication, data manipulation and other ethical violations will not be tolerated.

ADVERTISEMENT POLICY

• All advertisements are subject to the approval of the Publisher or Editor.
• Scientific content and editorial decisions are not influenced by advertisements.
• Advertisements are separate from scientific content.
• The sale and marketing of products within accepted advertisements are not allowed.
• The Editor or Publisher of the journal is not responsible for advertisements and their content. This responsibility entirely belongs to the advertiser.
• Accepted advertisements may be placed on any page approved by the Editor or Publisher.
• Advertising is conducted in accordance with the contract between the advertising company and the journal management.
• Advertising content must not include any discrimination based on language, religion, race, gender, age, disability, etc.
• Advertisements that are contrary to societal and publication ethics must not be published.
• Only advertisements that comply with national regulations and fulfill legal requirements, such as licensing, are accepted for publication.
• Advertisements must adhere to competition laws and other relevant regulations.
• The journal management shall not be liable for any financial loss due to errors in advertising content.

AUTHORSHIP POLICY

Each individual listed as an author should fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for their own work, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors, and each author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for other parts of the work.
All of those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who provided a contribution but do not meet all four criteria should be recognized separately on the title page and in the Acknowledgements section at the conclusion of the manuscript.

In accordance with the January 2026 ICMJE Recommendations, authors must have had sufficient access to the data underlying the work to take public responsibility for its integrity and accuracy. Artificial intelligence tools do not qualify for authorship, as they cannot approve the final version of the work or be accountable for it; any use of AI must instead be disclosed as described in the Generative AI & AI Use Policy.

The Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute requires that corresponding authors submit a signed and scanned version of the authorship contribution form (available for download during the initial submission process) in order to appropriately indicate and observe authorship rights and to prevent ghost or honorary authorship. Please note that the list of authors on the final manuscript will be presented in the order provided on this form. If the editorial board suspects a case of "gift authorship," the submission will be rejected without further review. As part of the submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author should also send a short statement declaring that they accept all responsibility for authorship during the submission and review stages of the manuscript.

ETHICS POLICY

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute and the Publisher adhere to the principles of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the US National Library of Medicine (NLM), the World Medical Association (WMA) and the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).
In accordance with the journal's policy, approval of research protocols by an ethics committee in accordance with international agreements — the WMA Declaration of Helsinki — Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Participants (last updated October 2024, Helsinki, Finland), the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (8th edition, 2011) and/or the International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals (2012), is required for all research studies. If the submitted manuscript does not include ethics committee approval, it will be reviewed according to COPE's guideline (Guidance for Editors: Research, Audit and Service Evaluations). If the study should have ethical approval, authors will be asked to provide it in order to proceed with the review process. If they cannot provide ethical approval, their manuscript will be rejected, and their institutions and, when needed, the related bodies in their country will be informed that such studies must have ethics committee approval. If they provide approval, review of the manuscript will continue.

For articles concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. The journal may request a copy of the Ethics Committee Approval received from the relevant authority. Informed consent must also be obtained for case reports and clinical images.

Studies using human or animal subjects should be approved by the appropriate institutional and local Ministry of Health ethics committees. Ethics approval of research protocols in accordance with international agreements is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies, as well as for some case reports. Ethics committee reports or an equivalent official document may be requested from the authors. For manuscripts involving experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows that written, informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained. For studies carried out on animals, the measures taken to prevent pain and suffering of the animals should be stated clearly. A statement regarding patient consent, and the name of the ethics committee, the ethics committee approval date, and number should be stated in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript. It is the authors' responsibility to carefully protect patients' anonymity.
For clinical trials, prospective registration in a publicly accessible registry that meets WHO or ICMJE standards is required at or before the time of first participant consent for enrolment, as a condition of consideration for publication, in accordance with the ICMJE clinical trial registration policy.

GENERATIVE AI AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) USE POLICY

In line with the ICMJE Recommendations, Section V — Use of Artificial Intelligence in Publishing (introduced in the January 2026 update) and the COPE position on authorship and AI tools, JILTI has adopted the following policy.

1. Use of AI by Authors

Authors must disclose whether, where and how generative AI or AI-assisted tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) were used in the conduct of the study or the preparation of the manuscript, specifying the tool's name, version/model and purpose. Use for language or readability improvement should be described in the Acknowledgments; use as part of the study methodology or data analysis should be described in the Methods. AI tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot be cited as authors, because authorship entails responsibilities — approving the final version, guaranteeing originality, and accepting accountability — that only humans can meet. Authors remain fully and solely responsible for the entire content of their work, including any material produced with AI assistance, and for ensuring the absence of plagiarism and copyright infringement. See ICMJE: Use of AI by Authors.

2. Use of AI in Figures and Visual Content

AI-generated or AI-altered images and figures are generally not permitted, except where AI is an intrinsic part of the research methodology (e.g., AI-assisted medical imaging). In such cases full transparency is required in the Methods section, including the tool's name, version and technical parameters, and any AI-generated visual content must be clearly labelled as such.

3. Use of AI by Reviewers

To protect confidentiality, reviewers must not upload manuscripts, or any part of them, to generative AI tools, as doing so may breach the authors' confidentiality and intellectual property rights. Reviewers remain responsible for the content and accuracy of their reviews; if AI is used in any permitted, confidentiality-preserving manner, this must be disclosed to the editor. See ICMJE: Use of AI by Reviewers.

4. Use of AI by Editors

Editors must likewise preserve the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not upload them to AI tools that do not guarantee confidentiality. Editors are responsible for any AI-assisted step in the editorial process, must disclose such use, and oversee the responsible use of AI throughout evaluation and decision-making. See ICMJE: Editors' Role in Ensuring Responsible Use of AI.

PLAGIARISM POLICY

All submissions are screened using similarity detection software at least two times: on submission and after completing revisions. In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct — e.g., plagiarism, citation manipulation, or data falsification/fabrication — the editorial board will follow and act in accordance with COPE guidelines. Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, that is identified at any stage will result in rejection of the manuscript.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

The Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute supports the Budapest Open Access Initiative statement of principles that promotes free access to research literature. The declaration defines open access to academic literature as free availability on the internet, permitting users to read, record, copy, print, search, or link to the full text, examine them for indexing, use them as data for software or other lawful purposes without financial, legal, or technical barriers. Information sharing represents a public good and is essential to the advancement of science. Therefore, articles published in this journal are available for use by researchers and other readers without permission from the author or the publisher, provided that the author and the original source are cited. The articles in the Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute are accessible through search engines, websites, blogs, and other digital platforms. Additional details on the Budapest Open Access Initiative and their guidelines are available at budapestopenaccessinitiative.org.

Open Access Statement

The journal is an open access journal and all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Except for commercial purposes, users are allowed to read, download, copy, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. The open access articles in the journal are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

Licenses and Copyright Policy

Authors publishing with the journal retain the copyright to their work licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0) and grant the Publisher non-exclusive commercial right to publish the work. The CC BY-NC 4.0 license permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PEER REVIEW POLICY

Only those manuscripts approved by every individual author, and that were not published before or sent to another journal, are accepted for evaluation.

Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate software. After the plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject covered, and compliance with the journal scope. The Editor-in-Chief evaluates manuscripts for their scientific content without regard to ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief or political philosophy of the authors, and ensures a fair double-blind peer review of the selected manuscripts.

The selected manuscripts are sent to at least two national/international referees for evaluation, and the publication decision is given by the Editor-in-Chief upon modification by the authors in accordance with the referees' claims.

The Editor-in-Chief does not allow any conflicts of interest between the authors, editors and reviewers, and is responsible for the final decision for publication of the manuscripts in the journal.

Reviewers' judgments must be objective. Reviewers' comments on the following aspects are expected while conducting the review:

• Does the manuscript contain new and significant information?
• Does the abstract clearly and accurately describe the content of the manuscript?
• Is the problem significant and concisely stated?
• Are the methods described comprehensively?
• Are the interpretations and conclusions justified by the results?
• Are adequate references made to other works in the field?
• Is the language acceptable?

Reviewers must ensure that all information related to submitted manuscripts is kept confidential and must report to the editor if they are aware of copyright infringement or plagiarism on the author's side.

A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript, or knows that its prompt review will be impossible, should notify the editor and excuse himself/herself from the review process.

The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. The reviewers and editorial board cannot discuss the manuscripts with other persons. The anonymity of the referees is important.

ARCHIVING POLICY

The content published by the Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute is electronically preserved using the Internet Archive.

FUNDING SOURCES POLICY

All authors are required to declare what support they received to carry out their research. Declaring funding sources acknowledges funders' contributions, fulfills funding requirements, and promotes greater transparency in the research process.
Each author must individually declare all sources of funding received for the research submitted to the journal. This information includes the name of granting agencies, grant numbers, and a description of each funder's role. If the funder has played no role in the research, this must be stated as well.

Authors are not required to provide the complete list of every single grant that supports them if the grant is not related to the research published. In line with the ICMJE guidance on sponsorship and partnership, any agreement with a sponsor must not interfere with the authors' access to the study data or with their right to analyse and interpret the data and to prepare and publish the manuscript independently. Authors should not enter into agreements that unreasonably restrict such access. Conflicts of interest are disclosed in accordance with the ICMJE policy on relationships and activities, using the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest form.

The Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute assesses no submission fees, publication fees, or page charges.

Authors may self-archive their published articles on institutional or personal websites and in open access repositories. When doing so, authors must acknowledge the original publication, include the DOI, and provide a link to the published version on the journal's website. The version published on the Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute website is the authoritative version of record.

The Journal of Inonu Liver Transplantation Institute encourages authors to share research data whenever possible, unless prevented by ethical, privacy, or confidentiality concerns. Authors may deposit data in publicly accessible repositories and include the DOI link in their manuscript.

Manuscripts reporting clinical trial results must include a data sharing statement that indicates:

• Whether participant data will be shared
• What data will be shared
• What additional documents will be available (protocol, analysis plan, etc.)
• When and for how long data will be available
• Who can access the data and how

Clinical trials that began enrolling participants after January 1, 2019, must include a data sharing plan in the trial registration. Any changes to this plan must be updated in both the manuscript and the title page.
The journal follows ICMJE data sharing recommendations.

POST-PUBLICATION CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS

All post-publication correction requests are reviewed by the Editorial Board, which evaluates the nature of the error, its impact, and supporting evidence. The board may consult with authors, reviewers, and experts before deciding. Approved corrections are published as erratum and implemented in the journal's archive.

Misconduct Allegations

The Editorial Board investigates misconduct allegations following ICMJE and COPE guidelines. When allegations arise from whistleblowers or social media, the board follows relevant COPE flowcharts. In complex cases, an ombudsperson may be assigned. The board may share information with other editors or institutions to facilitate investigations.

Retractions

Retraction corrects the scientific literature by alerting readers to articles with seriously flawed content that makes their findings unreliable. The purpose is to protect the integrity of science, not to punish authors.

If misconduct is confirmed, the Editor-in-Chief may issue a retraction notice. When there is insufficient information to determine reliability, an expression of concern may be published instead.

Retraction notices are published in the journal and all indexes are updated. Retracted articles remain in the archive but are clearly marked as retracted.

Authors may request withdrawal of their manuscript at any time before publication. Withdrawal requests must meet the following conditions:

• A formal written request must be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief providing clear justification for the withdrawal
• All co-authors must consent to the withdrawal without coercion

Once a withdrawal request is received and approved, the manuscript will be removed from the submission and review process. Authors will receive confirmation of the withdrawal.

The opinions and conclusions in published articles are those of the authors, not the journal, editors, or publisher. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their work. The journal, editors, and publisher are not responsible for the content or claims made in published articles.