Publishing and Editorial Policies

Article Processing Charges

Our open access model requires Article Processing Charges (APCs) to cover operational costs, including evaluation, production, indexing and archiving, and website maintenance. APCs are due upon acceptance. 

The APC for this journal is US $500.

Waiver and Discount Policy

To eliminate knowledge dissemination barriers, Lumina Press offers APC waivers/discounts to authors from low-income countries and those with special circumstances. Applications should be sent to the journal’s Editorial Office for case-by-case evaluation.

Publishing Ethics

Lumina Press is dedicated to the highest ethical standards, aligning with our mission to inherit academic classics, publish high-quality original research, and foster global scientific exchange. We follow the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adhere to:

  1. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, jointly developed by COPE, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
  2. ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

We protect contributors’ privacy and do not disclose personal information without permission, except as necessary for publication or required by law (check our Privacy Policy for more details).

Allegations of misconduct (check our Misconduct Policy) are investigated promptly by a dedicated group. Decisions are evidence-based, and authors are notified. Appeals must be made to the publisher within 14 days. If no appeal is filed within the aforementioned timeframe, it will be assumed that the outcome is accepted and the corresponding action will be taken. Decisions on appeals are final.

Complaints and appeals can be directed to the publisher at editorial_office@luminapress.co.uk, handled per COPE guidelines.

Research Involving Human Subjects

Research involving humans must comply with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki, receive ethics committee approval prior to commencement, and be monitored. Submission must include a statement with the ethics committee name and approval code.

Informed consent is required from all participants or guardians, with a statement included upon submission. If waived, the ethics committee name and reason must be provided.

Participant privacy is paramount. Identifying information of participants (e.g., name, contact information, and medical record numbers) must not be disclosed unless essential for research interpretation. Written informed consent for publication is required, including for identifiable images. For deceased individuals or vulnerable participants, consent from next of kin or legal representative is necessary.

Research Involving Animal Subjects

Animal studies require prior ethics committee approval. If exemption applies under national law, authors must provide the committee’s name and reason during submission.

Helpful guidelines include:

Lumina Press uses The ARRIVE Essential 10: Compliance Questionnaire to evaluate animal studies. Authors are encouraged to use it as a checklist before submission.

Ethical Oversight

The Editor-in-Chief of each journal is entrusted with overseeing the entire publication process to uphold the highest standards of scientific integrity, ensuring editorial impartiality and maintaining the academic quality of the journal. The Editor-in-Chief is committed to preventing any form of malpractice.

Submission of a manuscript implies that all authors have reviewed and approved the final version and consent to its publication. Formal approval from all co-authors is required prior to acceptance.

For research involving human participants, authors must comply with our patient anonymity and privacy policy, affirming that studies have been conducted ethically. Submissions reporting experimental procedures that contravene established animal welfare standards will not be considered for publication.

All personal data provided by authors is treated as strictly confidential, and is collected and used solely for the purposes of the publication process and will not be utilised for commercial marketing or disclosed to third parties without explicit consent.

All authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial or non-financial competing interests that could be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation.

Authorship

Definition

In accordance with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship must meet all four criteria:

  1. Making substantial contributions to conception, design, data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation; AND
  2. Drafting or critically revising the manuscript for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Giving final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. Agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Those not meeting all criteria should be acknowledged. Authors must disclose the use of AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation and describe their use in the Materials and Methods or Acknowledgments section. AI must not be used for tasks requiring human intellectual analysis, such as data interpretation and conclusion summarization.

Changes to Authorship

Changes in authorship (additions, deletions, rearrangements) require confirmation from all involved authors (including those being added/removed) and must be approved by the journal’s Editorial Office before manuscript acceptance.

Conflict of Interest

Authors: must declare all potential financial and non-financial conflicts of interest. Agreements with sponsors that restrict data access, analysis, interpretation, or independent publication should be avoided entirely.

Reviewers and Editors: must declare any potential non-financial conflicts, unpaid roles, or relationships that could influence decisions, including personal or professional associations with authors or presence on an author’s avoidance list.

Misconduct Policy

Following COPE guidelines, Lumina Press upholds the highest standards of publishing ethics and academic integrity and rejects any misconduct that misleads the research community.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of presenting the words, ideas, data, or original work of others as one’s own or reusing one’s own work without appropriate attribution or permission. Lumina Press uses Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) to identify potential plagiarism.

Fabrication and Falsification

Inventing or manipulating data, images, processes, or results undermines the scientific record and constitutes severe ethical breaches, thus is strongly opposed. Submissions suspected of such misconduct will be rejected outright. Upon reliable evidence, Lumina Press may reject all submissions from that author.

Duplicate Submission

Simultaneous submission to multiple journals, or submission of already published work, wastes the resources of editors and reviewers and is considered an unethical practice. Lumina Press will reject such a submission directly and may propose even harsher penalties.

Manipulation of Peer Review

Any attempt to manipulate the independent and impartial peer review process is unacceptable. This may include:

  • Suggesting reviewer details with fabricated or misleading email addresses to control the review process.
  • Submitting fake peer review reports.
  • Recommending to cite references that are not related to the topic of the article.

Correction, Retraction, and Withdrawal

Lumina Press is committed to preserving the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record. We recognize the responsibility to correct the record when necessary.

Correction

We encourage readers, authors, and editors to report errors to the journal’s Editorial Office. For post-publication errors not affecting conclusions, a correction/erratum will be issued by the Editorial Office.

Retraction

Per COPE’s retraction guidelines, retraction occurs for:

  • Unreliable findings
  • Major authorship disputes
  • Plagiarism
  • Redundant publication without attribution, disclosure, permission, or justification
  • Unauthorized use of material/data
  • Copyright infringement, privacy violation, or other legal issues
  • Unethical research
  • Compromised peer review
  • Undisclosed major competing interests
  • Conclusions of a review piece rely on material that has been corrected or retracted

Confirmed misconduct results in a retraction notice, with the retracted PDF watermarked “Retracted”. Article Processing Charges (APCs) are not refunded upon retraction.

Lumina Press exercises prudence in corrections and retractions. Any such action requires joint deliberation by the Editor-in-Chief and relevant Editorial Board members, followed by a detailed public statement.

Withdrawal

Authors may withdraw submissions pre-acceptance by formally submitting a request with a reason. Upon approval, the submission will be archived in the system, and no further processing will be taken. A penalty fee of US $200 applies for withdrawal during peer review due to resource expenditure.

Post-acceptance withdrawals may occur for ethical breaches (similar to retraction grounds).

Preprint Policy

Authors may post original research preprints on community-recognized servers (e.g., arXiv, bioRxiv, SSRN) before or during submission to Lumina Press. Authors retain preprint copyright.

Authors are required to attach a cover letter disclosing the preprint version and provide accession numbers/DOIs. Peer-reviewed, revised versions and accepted manuscripts must not be posted as preprints.

Upon publication in our journals, authors should update the preprint with a direct link to the final published article, using its DOI. The link text should clearly state: “This manuscript has been published in [Journal Name] at [DOI Link]”.

Research Data Policy

Lumina Press is dedicated to promoting research integrity, transparency, and reproducibility. In line with data and reproducibility of COPE, we actively encourage authors to share the data, code, and materials that support their research findings. This practice strengthens the credibility of research, enables validation, and increases trust in scientific outcomes. Authors who deposit datasets in a data repository must incorporate a comprehensive data availability statement within the manuscript. This declaration shall delineate access protocols for supporting datasets or provide a substantiated rationale for any access restrictions, encompassing ethical or legal constraints.

Data Sharing

For shared data, the FAIR Data Principles shall be adhered to, which stipulate that (meta)data be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Collaborative practices should be implemented across journals and institutions to monitor and uphold the scientific validity and credibility of overall research practices. Authors are encouraged to prioritise the use of primary data from their investigations and provide supporting data, such as accessible data sources, at the earliest opportunity.

Regarding data involving confidentiality, privacy, or personal sensitive information, authors shall make every reasonable effort to anonymise identifiable sensitive information and share data in strict compliance with disciplinary mandatory guidelines.

In accordance with COPE guidelines concerning unpublished data, the journal Editorial Office shall initiate correspondence with data providers regarding concerns about the scientific rigour of an unpublished dataset. The corresponding author will be contacted and requested to provide comments on the raised concerns, supporting documentation where necessary, and information pertaining to any other affected content. Following COPE guidelines relating to published data, where the scientific rigour of a published dataset associated with a manuscript is called into question, the journal Editorial Office shall notify all implicated journals that have published results derived from the disputed dataset, summarising the issues and actions taken to date. Authors must respond with satisfactory updates. Should major issues be identified that affect the manuscript’s conclusions, the submission should either be withdrawn by the author or rejected by the journal’s Editorial Office.

Data Citation

Authors are encouraged to cite any datasets deposited in external repositories that are referenced in their manuscript within the references section. For previously published datasets, authors should cite both the research article and the original data source. In-house editors will verify and enforce proper data citation prior to publication.

Data citations shall include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

  • Author(s)
  • Dataset title
  • Year of publication/release
  • Publisher/Repository or archive name
  • Persistent identifier (e.g., DOI)

Data Repository

Authors are encouraged to deposit datasets in relevant community-specific data repositories, or may select general data repositories (including any institutional repositories provided by universities, funders, or research institutions for their affiliated researchers) that align with their discipline’s specifications and requirements. Lumina Press recommends that authors select repositories employing DOIs to ensure consistent linkage of referenced datasets.

Authors may consult online resources such as FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org for registries of certified data repositories. Examples: