Academic Integrity

LATE is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity, responsible publishing, editorial independence, transparency, and ethical scholarly communication. LATE recognizes that the integrity of the scholarly record is fundamental to scientific advancement, evidence-based policymaking, public trust, and the global academic community. LATE follows internationally recognized principles and guidance established by:

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Council of Science Editors (CSE)
Applicable institutional, national, and international ethical and legal frameworks

Principles of Integrity

All participants in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, editorial board members, and publisher representatives, are expected to uphold the following principles:

Honesty and accuracy in research and reporting
Transparency in methodology, funding, and authorship
Originality and proper attribution
Accountability for published work
Fairness and impartiality in editorial evaluation
Confidentiality in peer review
Respect for intellectual property rights
Ethical treatment of human participants and animals
Compliance with legal and regulatory obligations
Responsible communication of scholarly findings to avoid misinformation or deceptive interpretation.

LATE recognizes that misinformation and disinformation can undermine scholarly communication, distort scientific understanding, damage public trust, and negatively affect public policy and professional practice. Researcher Publishers specifically emphasizes that publishers, researchers, editors, and the wider academic community have a shared responsibility to combat misinformation and disinformation in research communication.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors submitting manuscripts to LATE must ensure that:

The submitted work is original and accurately reported.
Data, analyses, methods, and findings are presented honestly and transparently.
The manuscript must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal or publication outlet.
All sources, quotations, figures, datasets, and third-party materials are properly cited and permissions obtained where necessary.
All listed authors meet accepted authorship criteria.
Funding sources, sponsor involvement, and competing interests are fully disclosed.
Research involving humans or animals has received appropriate ethics approval.
Informed consent has been obtained where required.
The manuscript does not intentionally or negligently contain false, fabricated, manipulated, misleading, or deceptive information.
Conclusions are supported by evidence and are not presented in a misleading manner likely to contribute to misinformation or public misunderstanding.
Authors cooperate fully with editorial investigations and requests for documentation.

LATE reserves the right to request raw data, ethics approvals, consent forms, image files, or institutional confirmations during editorial review or investigation processes.

Editorial Independence and Editorial Responsibility

Editors are responsible for safeguarding the quality, integrity, and ethical standing of the journal. Editorial decisions are based exclusively on:

Scholarly merit
Originality and significance
Methodological rigor
Ethical compliance
Evidentiary reliability
Relevance to the aims and scope of the journal.

Editors must:

Act fairly and without discrimination
Maintain confidentiality
Avoid conflicts of interest
Recuse themselves where impartiality may be compromised
Ensure the integrity of peer review
Address ethical concerns promptly and transparently
Cooperate with publishers and institutions in resolving integrity concerns.

LATE does not permit commercial, institutional, political, ideological, or personal influence over editorial decision-making. Researcher Publishers identifies editorial independence as a fundamental requirement of responsible academic publishing.

Peer Review Integrity

LATE operates a confidential, fair, and independent peer-review process designed to maintain scholarly quality and research integrity. Reviewers are expected to:

Provide objective and constructive evaluations
Maintain confidentiality
Disclose competing interests
Avoid personal criticism or discriminatory language
Refrain from using unpublished material for personal advantage
Report suspected ethical concerns promptly.

The Journal strictly prohibits peer-review manipulation, including fraudulent reviewer identities, fabricated reviewer accounts, review rings, or manipulation of editorial recommendations.

Declaration Requirements

Every submission must include a separate Declaration file, completed using the journal template. Authors must complete all six sections:

Ethics Approval and Informed Consent
AI Tool Use
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
Data Availability
Author Contributions

Select and adapt the statements that accurately describe the work. Remove unused scenarios and instructional text, replace all placeholders, and explain when a declaration is not applicable.

For research involving human participants, provide the applicable ethics approval and informed consent information. If formal approval or consent was not required, explain the basis under the relevant institutional requirements or determination. Authors must not claim approval, exemption, or consent without supporting grounds.

Disclose funding sources and relevant financial or non-financial conflicts of interest, including editorial roles with the journal or publisher. State explicitly when no funding or conflicts apply. Explain where supporting data can be accessed and any restrictions on sharing. Describe each author’s actual contribution.

Keep author-identifying declaration details in the separate Declaration file. The manuscript intended for double-blind review must retain the information needed to evaluate the research while anonymising details that could reveal author identities. Follow the Author Guidelines when preparing these files.

Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools

LATE follows the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools policy of Researcher Publishers.

AI tools may support technical and linguistic manuscript preparation, including grammar checking, translation assistance, formatting, and improving the clarity and organisation of author-generated content. Such assistance must preserve the authors’ meaning and scholarly contribution.

AI tools must not replace the authors’ intellectual contribution, analysis, interpretation, arguments, or conclusions. They must not be used to fabricate research data, findings, citations, or references. Authors must independently check citations and references against their original sources.

Legitimate use of AI as part of a research methodology must be academically justified and described in the Methods section. Include sufficient information about the tools, versions where available, procedures, validation, and human oversight for readers to evaluate their use.

Every submission must include an AI Tool Use statement in the separate Declaration file. Where AI-assisted tools were used in manuscript preparation, identify the tools and versions where available, explain their purpose and extent of use, identify the affected sections or materials, and confirm that the authors reviewed and verified the output.

Where no AI or AI-assisted tools were used in manuscript preparation, state:

No AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.

AI systems cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and ethical compliance of all submitted content.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must protect confidential information, personal data, and intellectual property when using external tools. Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts, unpublished data, or confidential review materials to external AI systems where confidentiality and data protection cannot be assured.

Suspected misuse or failure to disclose material AI use will be assessed under the Malpractice Policy.

Misinformation and Disinformation

LATE is committed to combating misinformation, disinformation, manipulated scholarship, and deceptive research communication. Misinformation refers to inaccurate or misleading information shared without deliberate intent to deceive. Disinformation refers to intentionally false, manipulated, or deceptive information created or disseminated to mislead readers, researchers, institutions, policymakers, or the public. LATE recognizes that misinformation and disinformation may arise through:

Fabricated or falsified research findings
Manipulated statistics or images
Deceptive interpretation of results
Misuse of AI-generated content
Fraudulent citations or references
Selective reporting of evidence
Distorted public communication of research findings
Deliberate suppression of contradictory evidence.

The Journal therefore requires:

Rigorous peer review
Editorial scrutiny of evidentiary claims
Transparency in methodology and data reporting
Correction of inaccurate records
Responsible use of AI tools
Prompt investigation of integrity concerns.

Researcher Publishers acknowledges that publishers, editors, researchers, science communicators, librarians, and policymakers share a collective duty to address misinformation and disinformation and to preserve trust in scholarly communication.

Ethics Approval and Informed Consent

Research involving human participants, personal data, animals, clinical materials, or vulnerable populations must comply with applicable ethical and legal standards. Authors must clearly state: