Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Studia Theologica Transsylvaniensia (StThTr) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and to preserving the integrity of the scholarly record. The journal follows the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expects all participants in the publication process—including authors, peer reviewers, editors, members of the Editorial Board and the International Advisory Board, and the publisher—to act in accordance with these standards.
This statement sets out the principles governing the journal’s professional and ethical practice, as well as the rules applicable to peer review, authorship, research integrity, conflicts of interest, ethical compliance, the accessibility and verifiability of data and sources, intellectual property, the handling of complaints and appeals, post-publication scholarly discussion, corrections and retractions, and the use of generative artificial intelligence and AI-assisted tools.
PEER REVIEW AND EDITORIAL ROLES
The journal operates a double-anonymous peer-review system, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from one another throughout the review process. The journal is committed to ensuring that peer review is fair, objective, confidential, and free from conflicts of interest. Manuscripts are normally reviewed by at least two independent experts with appropriate subject expertise.
⮕ A detailed description of the peer-review process is available here.
Responsibilities relating to the editorial assessment of manuscripts are allocated as follows:
- The Editor-in-Chief conducts or oversees the preliminary editorial assessment of submitted manuscripts, decides whether a submission is suitable to proceed to peer review, directs the scholarly evaluation of the manuscript, and makes the final decision on acceptance, further revision, or rejection.
- The Senior Editor supports the scholarly and strategic development of the journal and may, on a case-by-case basis, assist the Editor-in-Chief in the preliminary assessment of manuscripts, their scholarly evaluation, the recommendation of suitable reviewers, and the performance of other editorial tasks assigned to them.
- The Executive Editor is responsible for the administrative and organisational coordination of the peer-review process, including communication with authors and reviewers, manuscript handling, the monitoring of deadlines, the processing of revised versions, the communication of editorial decisions, and the preparation of materials supporting the Editor-in-Chief’s decision-making.
- Members of the Editorial Board support the work of the journal through scholarly advice, reviewer recommendations, and subject-specific expertise. At the request of the Editor-in-Chief, the Senior Editor, or another editor designated for the case, they may also contribute to the assessment of manuscripts within their own fields of expertise.
- Members of the International Advisory Board do not participate in the routine handling of individual manuscripts or in the operational management of peer review. Their role is advisory and strategic in nature.
All persons involved in the peer-review and editorial process are required to preserve the confidentiality of manuscripts and review reports and to refrain from participating in the handling or evaluation of any manuscript in respect of which an actual, potential, or reasonably perceived conflict of interest exists.
⮕ Further information on the journal’s editorial bodies is available here.
AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Criteria for authorship and contributorship
Authorship must be limited to those who have made a substantial scholarly contribution to the design of the research, the collection, analysis, or interpretation of sources or data, and/or the writing of the manuscript or its substantive revision. All authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission. Authors share collective responsibility for the content of the manuscript and must ensure that the work submitted is accurate, original, and ethically sound.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all those who meet the criteria for authorship are listed as authors, that no person who does not meet those criteria is included as an author, and that all authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and its submission.
The journal may require the submission of an authorship or contributorship statement specifying the contribution made by each author. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship may be acknowledged appropriately, with their consent. The journal does not accept honorary, gift, or ghost authorship.
Any request made after submission to add or remove an author, or to alter the order of authors, may be accepted only if supported by a written justification, approved by all listed authors, and authorised by the editorial office. Before accepting such a change, the journal may also request further explanation or documentation.
Authors’ duties
Authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript is original, has not been published previously, and is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.
All sources used must be properly acknowledged. Quotations, paraphrases, translations, and borrowed ideas must be clearly identified and appropriately referenced.
Plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, the fabrication or falsification of data, the manipulation of evidence, the deliberate distortion of citations, and the misleading presentation of sources are unacceptable.
Authors must disclose all relevant financial, institutional, project-based, or grant support, as well as any conflict of interest that could reasonably be perceived as having influenced the research or its interpretation.
Authors must also ensure that their research complies with all applicable ethical and legal requirements and that all necessary permissions, approvals, and consents have been obtained. Where research involves human participants, interviews, questionnaires, pastoral counselling materials, sensitive personal data, private correspondence, unpublished archival materials, or other ethically sensitive sources, authors must indicate whether ethical approval was obtained and, where relevant, identify the body that granted it. If formal ethical approval was not required, this must be stated clearly together with a brief explanation.
Where research involves identifiable persons, sensitive personal information, or materials that could reasonably affect the privacy, dignity, reputation, or safety of those concerned, authors must ensure that publication is ethically justified and that all necessary consent or permission to publish has been obtained.
If authors make use of preprints, prior public dissemination, or closely related publications, this must be disclosed to the editorial office at the time of submission. Authors must also declare any publication or submission that may substantially overlap with the manuscript so that the editors may assess whether redundant publication, text recycling, or duplicate submission is at issue.
If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a submitted, accepted, or published manuscript, the author must promptly notify the journal and cooperate in the publication of a correction or, where necessary, the retraction of the work.
EDITORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Editors are responsible for safeguarding the scholarly standards, professional credibility, and ethical integrity of the journal. They must ensure that the journal operates in accordance with accepted norms of academic publishing, the principles of COPE, and the requirements of fairness, impartiality, transparency, and confidentiality.
Editorial decisions must be based solely on scholarly considerations. In the assessment of manuscripts, no discrimination may be made on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, institutional affiliation, or political conviction.
Editors are responsible for ensuring the proper handling of ethical issues relating to manuscripts, authorship, contributorship, conflicts of interest, research integrity, and the correction or retraction of published work.
All editors and members of editorial bodies must treat manuscripts, peer-review reports, and editorial correspondence as confidential. Information or ideas obtained through the editorial process may not be used for personal advantage or for an editor’s own research without the author’s explicit written consent.
Editors must not handle any manuscript, complaint, or appeal in a case where a conflict of interest exists. In such circumstances, the matter must be reassigned to another suitably independent and qualified editor or senior editorial representative.
Members of the Editorial Board and the International Advisory Board may publish in the journal only if they are entirely excluded from the handling of their own manuscript, the coordination of peer review, the decision-making process, and any appeal procedure relating to their submission. If the author of a submitted manuscript is the Editor-in-Chief, responsibility for handling the manuscript and making the publication decision must be entrusted to another suitably independent editor, on the basis of independent external peer review.
Responsibilities attached to the individual editorial roles:
- The Editor-in-Chief bears final responsibility for the journal’s scholarly standards, editorial integrity, and professional direction. The Editor-in-Chief ensures that the journal’s editorial practice remains consistent with the applicable ethical norms and that any necessary correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other post-publication editorial measure is implemented. The Editor-in-Chief is also responsible for safeguarding the journal’s editorial independence against any improper external influence.
- The Senior Editor supports the Editor-in-Chief in maintaining the journal’s scholarly profile, editorial quality, and strategic development. The Senior Editor may assist in the preliminary assessment of manuscripts, their scholarly evaluation, and any other editorial tasks assigned by the Editor-in-Chief.
- The Executive Editor is responsible for the administrative and organisational continuity of the journal’s editorial operations. This includes coordinating editorial workflows, supporting the consistent application of procedures, and maintaining effective communication with authors, reviewers, and editors. The Executive Editor helps ensure that the journal operates in an orderly, transparent, and efficient manner.
- Members of the Editorial Board contribute to the journal’s professional quality, credibility, and development through their scholarly advice. They support the implementation of editorial policies and scholarly standards, strengthen the journal’s disciplinary standing, and contribute within their respective fields to the maintenance of academic quality.
- Members of the International Advisory Board support the journal’s international visibility, scholarly networks, and long-term development through strategic and academic advice. They may make recommendations concerning scholarly directions, thematic priorities, and opportunities for further development.
PEER REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Peer reviewers assist the editors in determining whether a manuscript is suitable for publication. Their comments may also help authors improve the manuscript.
Peer-review reports must be objective, fair, academically well grounded, and constructive. Reviewers must evaluate manuscripts on the basis of originality, scholarly quality, clarity of argument, methodological or interpretative soundness, and relevance to the journal’s scope.
A reviewer must decline an invitation to review if they do not possess the necessary expertise, cannot complete the review within the requested timeframe, or have a conflict of interest that may affect—or may reasonably appear to affect—their impartial judgement.
Manuscripts sent for review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not disclose them, discuss them with others, copy them, or use unpublished material contained in them for personal advantage. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, in whole or in part, to generative AI tools, nor may they use such tools to create, formulate, or substantially revise peer-review reports.
Reviewers should, where possible, draw the editors’ attention to relevant publications not cited in the manuscript, as well as to any substantial similarity, overlap, suspected plagiarism, suspected manipulation of data or sources, or other ethical concern of which they have personal knowledge.
PUBLISHER’S RESPONSIBILITIES
The publisher supports the ethical and professionally sound operation of the journal and fully respects its editorial independence.
The publisher does not influence editorial decisions, the outcome of peer review, or decisions regarding the acceptance, revision, correction, retraction, or rejection of manuscripts. Final responsibility for editorial decisions rests with the Editor-in-Chief, in accordance with the journal’s policies and ethical standards.
The publisher supports the editorial office in preserving the integrity of the scholarly record, including the implementation of corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, and other appropriate post-publication measures.
The publisher is also responsible for supporting the production, dissemination, metadata management, and long-term accessibility of published content. These responsibilities, however, do not extend to any interference in the scholarly evaluation of manuscripts.
COMPLAINTS, APPEALS, AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Complaints and appeals
The journal is committed to handling complaints and appeals fairly, consistently, confidentially, and transparently, in accordance with the principles of COPE and the relevant standards of professional practice.
Complaints and appeals must be submitted in writing to the editorial office at: office@stthtr.com. Submissions relating to editorial procedures, scholarly peer review, publication ethics, post-publication matters, or the conduct of editors, reviewers, members of editorial bodies, editorial staff, or the publisher will be registered and examined within a reasonable period of time in a confidential, impartial, and transparent manner.
Appeals against editorial decisions will be reviewed by a senior editor or by an ad hoc appeal panel appointed for the case, independent of the Editor-in-Chief, the original decision-making process, and the prior handling of the manuscript. No person may participate in the procedure who has previously been involved in the editorial handling, peer review, or evaluation of the manuscript, or in whose case a relevant institutional, personal, or professional conflict of interest exists.
The submission of an appeal does not in itself imply that the original decision will be overturned. Depending on the nature of the case, the journal may uphold the original decision, request further independent scholarly evaluation, initiate a new editorial review, invite revision, or take any other appropriate measure. Where a complaint or appeal raises concerns relating to research integrity or serious breaches of publication ethics, the journal may, in accordance with COPE guidance, refer the matter to the relevant institution or another competent authority.
Conflicts of interest
Authors, reviewers, editors, and members of editorial and advisory bodies must disclose any interest or circumstance that may influence—or may reasonably appear to influence—their professional judgement or conduct.
Conflicts of interest may include, among other things, financial interests, institutional affiliations, personal relationships, scholarly rivalry, prior or ongoing professional collaboration, ideological commitments, or any other circumstance capable of compromising impartiality.
Where a conflict of interest exists, the person concerned must disclose it without delay and, where necessary, refrain from participating in the submission, review, editorial handling, evaluation, complaint, or appeal concerned.
DATA SHARING, ETHICAL COMPLIANCE, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Data sharing and verifiability
The journal supports transparency in research and encourages authors, where possible and appropriate, to make the materials underlying their research accessible and open to verification. Authors must describe their sources, methods, and research procedures in sufficient detail to enable readers to understand, assess, and, where relevant, verify the scholarly argument.
Depending on the nature of the manuscript, the journal may require the submission of a data availability statement or another statement concerning the accessibility of sources, research materials, interview transcripts, datasets, or other evidentiary materials relevant to the article.
If data or source materials cannot be made available because of confidentiality obligations, copyright restrictions, legal obstacles, contractual constraints, or ethical considerations, this must be clearly indicated in the manuscript, together, where possible, with the reason for the restriction.
Ethical compliance
The journal expects all research published in its pages to comply with the relevant ethical norms and legal requirements. Authors are responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions and consents and for ensuring that their research respects privacy, human dignity, confidentiality, and data-protection requirements.
The editors reserve the right to request, prior to publication, documentation relating to ethical approval, permissions, consents, or the lawful use of research materials.
Intellectual property and licensing
Authors are responsible for ensuring that any third-party material protected by copyright and included in their manuscript is used with the necessary permission and proper acknowledgement.
Authors of works submitted to Studia Theologica Transsylvaniensia retain full copyright in their work. By submitting a manuscript, however, they grant the publisher, L’Harmattan Könyvkiadó, a non-exclusive licence to publish, archive, reproduce, distribute, preserve, and make the work available in digital and print form.
Articles published in the journal may be used by third parties under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). The rights granted to the publisher are non-exclusive, which means that authors remain entitled to reuse, republish, or distribute their work elsewhere, provided that they appropriately acknowledge the journal as the place of first publication.
⮕ Further information on copyright is available here, and further information on the licensing terms is available here.
RESEARCH MISCONDUCT, CORRECTIONS, AND POST-PUBLICATION SCHOLARLY DISCUSSION
Research misconduct
The journal takes seriously all indications of research misconduct or conduct contrary to publication ethics. Such conduct may include, among other things, plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, citation manipulation, the fabrication or falsification of data, the distortion of evidence, unethical authorship practices, undisclosed conflicts of interest, manipulation of the peer-review process, breach of reviewer confidentiality, improper use of AI tools, and unethical research involving human participants or sensitive materials.
Concerns relating to possible misconduct may be raised both before and after publication. The journal will examine such concerns carefully, fairly, and confidentially, whether they are raised by a named or anonymous complainant, provided that sufficient information is available to permit a preliminary assessment.
Plagiarism screening
All submitted manuscripts are examined for originality by the editors and reviewers. In addition, the journal uses plagiarism-detection software, currently Turnitin.
Similarity reports are always assessed individually and in context; a similarity score does not in itself prove plagiarism. Although a limited degree of textual similarity may be legitimate, unattributed borrowing, substantial undisclosed overlap, the misleading reuse of one’s own previously published text, and other forms of plagiarism are unacceptable. In assessing suspected plagiarism and text recycling, the journal follows the relevant COPE guidance.
Editorial procedure and possible measures in cases of suspected misconduct
Where misconduct is suspected, the editorial office will carefully document and examine the matter as part of a preliminary inquiry. The author or other relevant party will be informed of the concerns raised and given an opportunity to respond, unless there are compelling reasons for departing from this in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
The editors may request clarification, further information, or additional documentation, and may consult the Editorial Board or independent experts. In cases involving research integrity or other serious publication misconduct, the journal may, in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance, contact the competent institution or another authority with appropriate jurisdiction.
Depending on the seriousness of the case, the journal may reject the manuscript, request correction or clarification, publish a correction, issue an expression of concern, retract the article, suspend the right to make future submissions for a defined period, or notify the relevant institution or another appropriate authority.
CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS
If a published article contains a minor but significant error that does not invalidate the results or the central argument, the journal may publish a correction.
If a published article is found to contain serious errors, significant ethical breaches, unreliable findings, plagiarism, fabricated or falsified material, or any other defect that substantially undermines the reliability or integrity of the publication, the journal may retract the article.
If a serious concern arises but the available evidence is inconclusive, or if an investigation is still ongoing, the journal may publish an expression of concern.
Every correction, retraction, or expression of concern must clearly state the reason for the editorial measure and must be unambiguously linked to the original publication.
Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern form a permanent part of the scholarly record, remain freely accessible, and, where appropriate, are reflected in the article’s metadata and in the information supplied to the relevant indexing and abstracting services.
POST-PUBLICATION SCHOLARLY DISCUSSION
The journal welcomes meaningful scholarly dialogue concerning published articles. Readers who wish to raise a substantial scholarly concern, propose a correction, or contribute to post-publication scholarly discussion may contact the editorial office at office@stthtr.com. At the editors’ discretion, such communication may lead to editorial correspondence, a published response, a correction, an expression of concern, or another appropriate editorial measure.
USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI-ASSISTED TOOLS
General principle
From the perspective of publication ethics, the journal permits the use of generative artificial intelligence and other AI-assisted tools only in a limited, transparent, and responsible manner. Such tools must not replace human intellectual responsibility, scholarly judgement, interpretative work, or ethical accountability.
Undisclosed or improper use of artificial intelligence may give rise to editorial action.
Rules for authors
Authors may use generative AI and other AI-assisted tools only for limited purposes, such as language editing, improving readability, or organising text. Any use that materially affects the content must be disclosed at the time of submission and, where appropriate, indicated in the published article. Authors bear full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their work. AI tools may not be listed as authors or co-authors.
Authors must not use generative AI tools to invent, falsify, distort, or otherwise improperly manipulate research data, evidence, citations, quotations, images, translations, or source descriptions. Authors are responsible for verifying that any content produced with the assistance of AI and incorporated into the manuscript is accurate, lawful, properly acknowledged where necessary, and does not infringe the rights of others.
Rules for reviewers and editors
Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, in whole or in part, to generative AI tools, nor may they use such tools to create, formulate, or substantially revise peer-review reports.
Editors must not upload manuscripts, peer-review reports, or editorial correspondence to generative AI systems, nor may they rely on such tools as a substitute for their own editorial judgement or decision-making.
PUBLICATION FEES, OPEN ACCESS, AND ARCHIVING
The journal does not charge submission fees, article processing charges, or publication fees.
All articles are published on an open-access basis and are freely available from the moment of publication.
⮕ Further information is available here.
The publisher is committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of published content and supports its archiving in institutional and disciplinary repositories as well as in digital preservation services.
⮕ Further information is available here.
CONTACT
Questions relating to publication ethics, editorial procedures, complaints, appeals, conflicts of interest, or post-publication concerns may be addressed to the editorial office at:
Formal complaints and appeals must likewise be submitted to this address. In accordance with the journal’s procedures, they will be referred to the appropriately independent senior editor or to an ad hoc appeal panel.
Last updated: 3 April 2026
