General requirements

The Journal admits original academic papers (in Russian and English) that are in line with the Journal’s specialization and provide results of the authors’ theoretical and/or experimental research. The submitted material must be new, original, not published before in any other printed or electronic titles nor submitted for review and publication to any other journals.

By submitting a manuscript to the editorial board the author undertakes to abstain from publishing thereof, in whole or in part, in any other journal without the editors’ written consent.

Articles that disagree with the journal’s topic or are prepared with violation of the established rules is not admitted for consideration.

The Journal publishes only peer-reviewed articles.

The editorial board checks the article for borrowings using the Antiplagiat system. In case of detection of the publication ethics violations, namely: plagiarism (borrowings without references to the source), original text percentage less than 90%, duplicate publication, improper author attribution, the article is not admitted for consideration. In case the fact of the publication ethics violation has been revealed upon the Journal release, the article is retracted, the author(s) is(are) informed thereof, and a written notification is published on the Journal’s website and in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI). When considering questionable cases, the Journal is governed by the COPE and ASEP guidelines.

Articles are published as available. The only reason for unscheduled publication (the appropriate decision is made by the editorial board) is an exclusive importance of the report. A Journal issue may contain no more than one article of one author (co-author). The number of publications of one author in the Journal must not exceed two during a calendar year.

The article should be supported by:

• A referral of the institution where the work has been performed
• An expert report as to possibility of publication specifying the title and name of the person approved the report and, if needed, with a permit issued by an appropriate department

After the editorial board has accepted the article for publishing, each author/co-author signs an agreement and personal data processing consent form.

Along with an article manuscript it is required to provide its electronic version represented by a file containing the article text in full in .doc or .docx format and files containing figures in .png or .tiff format to the editorial board’s email address: ecology-safety@mhi-ras.ru.

Styleguide

An academic paper should be concise and clear and include the following content items:

• Statement of the problem in general and its relation to the most important scientific or practical issues
• Analysis of the latest advances and publications where solving of the problem has been commenced and which the author refers to. The parts of the general problem that have not been solved previously should be highlighted
• Research objectives statement (tasking)
• Description of used materials and study methods
• Presentation of the main material and with complete justification of the obtained study results
• Conclusions made in this study and prospects for further research in this direction

The author is fully responsible for accuracy and validity of the data provided in the article manuscript submitted to the editorial board.

Submission of materials to the editorial board for publication implies the author’s consent with the above requirements as well as consent with publication of the article in Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal.

Text formating requirements

The full length of an original article (including the abstract, keywords and references) should not exceed 15 pages, that of a review — 20 pages, that of a report — 6 pages. The number of coloured figures should not exceed 3, two figures constitute one page of the text.

The article text, including that in formulas, figures and tables, should be in Times New Roman font of 11 pt. The line interval is 1.0. Page margins: top 5 cm, left 5 cm, bottom 3.5 cm, right 3.25. Pages should be numbered continuously. Not allowed: two or more spaces; indentation made up with spaces; auto-numbering when making numbered and bullet lists (all the numbers should be put manually).

The fractional part of decimal fractions is separated by a period (0.25).

Formulas are produced using Microsoft Equation editor allowing editing. Numbered formulas are always included in the indentation, the formula number in brackets is placed at the right-hand margin. Number only the formulas referenced in the article.

Figures should be clear and photos should be sharp. The number of coloured figures should not exceed 3, whereas the number of black-and-white figures is not limited. Figures are accepted only in TIFF and PNG formats with resolution at least 300 dpi. Parts of the figure are lettered in italics (a, b, c, d), without brackets and periods. All figures should be numbered, with the author’s name and/or article title specified. Figure files should be named, for example: John_Doe_1.tiff, John_Doe_2.tiff etc., and combined in the “John Doe Figures” folder. Each figure should be referenced in the article. Figure size: max. 13 cm wide, 19 cm high.

Tables should be named and numbered in order, titles should correspond entirely to the column content. Tables are made up using the Word table editor (menu “Insert” → “Insert Table”). Each table item has its own cell. Table size: max. 13 cm wide, 19 cm high.

Article structure

The front page should contain the following:

• Universal Decimal classification (UDC) index
• DOI
• Article title
• Authors information:
  • Each author’s name, surname and patronymic name (if appropriate)
  • Information of the author the editorial board may communicate with (contact name*): name, surname and patronymic name (if appropriate), e-mail
  • Full name and address (city, country) of the organization where each author works
• Abstract.
• Key words (6–10)
• Acknowledgements
• About the authors
• Contribution of the authors

All this information is provided both in English and Russian. For articles submitted in English such items as the abstract, key words, authors information and the like are translated by the Journal editors free of charge.

Authorship criteria:

1. Significant contribution to the article concept, idea, analysis and data interpretation; research management; article writing.
2. Considerable amendments made during a manuscript version revision, work on the draft version.
3. Consent with the final manuscript version, written consent to submit the article to a certain journal for publication.
4. Consent to take responsibility for all the work stages and manuscript sections.

Not counted as article authors:

• consultants
• translators
• individuals performed general control/management
• individuals collected data/performed laboratory work, technical staff, engineers
• individuals provided the materials for research
• individuals performed single analyses
• individuals obtained financial support for the research
• individuals provided in-house control
• individuals provided facilities for research conduction
• individuals participated only in manuscript preparation and not engaged with conduct of the research and analysis of its findings

These parties are thanked in the “Acknowledgements” section.

Abstract

An abstract is a summary of the work, a precise presentation of the content of the article, including the main factual information and conclusions, without further interpretation or criticism of the author of the article. It is an independent text that allows to get information about the main results of the work without referring to the article. The abstract repeats the structure of the article.

The abstract should be

• informative (do not contain general words);
• original (not a copy of the Russian-language abstract);
• meaningful (reflect the main content of the article and research results);
• structured (follow the logic of description of the results in the article);
• compact (150 to 250 words).

The abstract includes:

• the study problem, subject, theme, purpose of the work, main thesis;
• the method or methodology of the work;
• the results of the work - very precise and informative;
• conclusions;
• the field of application of the results / direction for further study of the problem.

The abstract should not be divided into paragraphs. The abstract should not contain abbreviations. References to literature, figures, tables are not used. Recommended length of the abstract is 150-250 words.

Text should be coherent with the use of words "consequently", "moreover", "for example", "as a result", etc., otherwise disjointed statements should logically follow from one another.

Graphic abstract

This is a single, clear visual representation of the main conclusions of an article in the form of a figure specifically designed for this purpose, which provides the reader with an overview of the article's content.

The graphic abstract will appear in the lists of online search results, on the online page of the journal article, but will not appear in the PDF of the article or in printed form. It will draw attention to the article when posted on social media, blogs, press releases, etc.

The graphic abstract is a single image file in .jpeg, .jpg, tiff or .png format. The resolution is 300 dpi. The figure may contain diagrams, graphs, drawings, charts, infographics, presentation elements, etc. Do not include in the graphic abstract information about the authors, the title of the article and the words "graphic abstract".

When compiling graphic abstracts it is recommended to stick to the following rules: avoid excessive explanatory text (the abstract should reflect the main results of the work, not duplicate it); avoid small graphic details. For ease of viewing, the graphic abstract should have a clear beginning and end. It is preferably to "read" it from top to bottom or from left to right.

The graphic abstract should be original, unique, not borrowed, simple but informative.

Examples of graphical abstracts can be seen here, here and here.

Graphic abstracts should be created by the author in any program that allows you to create graphic images. The editors recommend that the authors consider the following tools for data visualisation and iconography creation:

• Mind the graph - a programme for creating a graphical abstract for a scientific presentation;
• Piktochart - a web-based tool for creating simple graphics;
• Easel.ly - an online service suitable for visualising ideas and stories;
• Infogr.am - an online tool to create tables based on real data;
• Visual.ly - a free tool that integrates with social media.

Video abstract

This is a short video overview of a scientific article, a 3-5 minute trailer. Video abstract creators can choose from a wide range of options to visualise their stories, from simple drawings on a blackboard to screen recordings, videos, slideshows and talking heads.

Its purpose is to quickly identify the purpose and results of a given study.

Video abstract can be used to describe dynamic phenomena that are too complex, unusual to be described by text and pictures in an article.

Like the graphic abstract, it is not intended to replace the original scientific article, but rather to draw attention to it and broaden the audience.

Key words

Key words are the main concepts and categories, the anchor fragments of the text, which carry the meaningful load of the entire statement. They should reflect the discipline (the field of science in which the article is written), the topic, purpose, object of the study.

Keywords allow the user to find the article in search engines. Use the relevant databases of RSCI, Scopus, etc. to check the correctness of the wording and frequency of keywords. It is not recommended to use abbreviations in keywords, overly complex word combinations. The use of inverted commas and phrases with commas should be avoided. The required number of keywords (phrases) is 6-10, words within a keyword phrase - no more than 3.

Acknowledgements

This section should mention those who helped the author to prepare the article, funding sources, organizations that provided financial support. It is a good courtesy to express your gratitude to anonymous peer reviewers.

Article text

The text should be concise, thoroughly edited and signed by all the authors. Repetition of the same data in the text, tables and drawings is unacceptable.

When describing a research method, the author should limit their narration to its original part only; when presenting an elemental analysis, it is required to give only averaged data.

When using abbreviations in the text, it is required to expand them when used for the first time. It is necessary to confine oneself to generally accepted abbreviations and avoid new ones without good reason.

Geographical names should be given according to the current edition of the “Atlas of the World”. Surnames and geographical names of foreign origin are given in their original spelling.

When choosing units of measurements, it is recommended to adhere to the International System of Units.

It is recommended to avoid proving theorems, lemmas, etc.

References

Lists of references are an essential part of academic papers, and international reference databases’ requirements thereto are getting increasingly restrictive.

Therefore, the editorial board checks the accuracy and conformity of reference lists of submitted articles.

Important: one of the reasons to reject a manuscript for further consideration may be a poor quality of its reference list, namely:

• description errors, e. g. omission of any author or their name miswritten; inaccurate title of an article/book; incomplete or wrongful imprint (volume, issue, pages, year of publication, omitted DOI),
• predominance of references to obscure sources not mentioned in international research databases, to unavailable sources or the author’s own works (over 30%).

All citations in the article should be aligned with their sources, stating the page (e. g. [5, p. 17]).

Moreover, all bibliographic data (author(s) name(s), article/book title, volume, journal number, pages, publishers, year of publication, DOI, URL where the article/book can be found, date of the website access) should also be thoroughly checked. The reference list should include only sources used for the article preparation. All the sources mentioned in the text should be referenced.

Each source is given in the reference list only once. One number in the reference list should correspond to one source only.

Prior to writing an article, we recommend to find out what new has been written recently (last 10–15 years) in journals with a good publishing and scientific record indexed in leading bibliographical databases. To do this one may perform a key word search in databases of abstracts (e. g. SCOPUS, WEB of SCIENCE). It is also recommended to browse reference lists in the found works related to your topic. These sources may be given in the reference list to your article. Their presence will display your awareness of the modern science state in your field.

It is desirable to mention at least 15–25 sources for an original academic paper and at least 50 sources for a scientific review.

According to the scientific publication ethics, it is recommended that the author's own works constitute no more than 30% of the total number of sources.

We do not recommend to include in the reference list the following:

• doctorate theses and abstracts thereof (instead, it is recommended to give articles published during preparation of the thesis and comprising materials from there),
• retracted articles, articles from non-peer-reviewed journals as well as journals with tarnished reputation (excluded from the list of State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles, RSCI, SCOPUS databases),
• web-pages,
• non-digitalized, old study guides, collected papers, monographs unavailable on the Internet (in case the references are necessary, it is recommended to give these as foot references),
• conference proceedings that are not indexed by WoS, Scopus and are not publicly available,
• standards, manuals, patents and the like.

A bibliographical reference in the article text is given in square brackets according to the reference list numeration, e. g. [1], [2, p. 34].

References are numbered as cited, not in alphabetical order.

If available, it is required to specify DOI (e. g. doi:10.1029/2002JC001530) at the end of a bibliographic reference. No period after DOI is needed.

Read more (PDF)

Please, be aware that in compliance with requirements of international databases unique DOI (digital object identifier) numbers are purchased and assigned to all articles published in the Journal.

About the authors

The following information is given:

• Position
• Place of employment
• Academic degree (if any)
• Academic rank (if any)
• ORCID ID, ResearcherID, Scopus Author ID (whatever)
• E-mail

Contribution of the authors

It is required to specify what contribution each of the co-authors has made to the research conduct and article writing, for example:

• concept development
• task formulation and statement
• mathematical model development
• methods development and experimental research conduct
• mathematical model correction and performance of calculations
• formalized data analysis
• qualitative analysis of findings and their interpretation
• processing and description of research findings
• drawing conclusions
• critical analysis of materials related to...
• review of literature related to the research subject, etc.

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

Academic publication ethics is a system of standards of professional conduct in relationships of authors, peer reviewers, editors, publishers and readers during creation, distribution and use of academic papers.

"Misconduct" means forgery, falsification or plagiarism in the preparation, conduction or peer reviewing of studies, or in the presentation of study results, but does not include honest mistakes or difference of opinions.

The editors of Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal are governed by the ethical rules and regulations Core practices and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), given in the Declaration of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers “Ethical Principles for Academic Papers” (in Russian) and adopted by the majority of academic journals. Authors, editors, peer reviewers and publishers are required to comply with these rules.

Plagiarism and Falsification

The Editorial Board handles the texts of articles in good faith preventing unfair scientific publications containing plagiarism, manipulation of references, falsification, and fabrication of data from appearing on the pages of its journal. Original manuscripts that have not been published before and meet all the requirements of the editorial policy are accepted for peer reviewing. All manuscripts are checked for borrowings using Antiplagiat program. All borrowed fragments of the work should have a properly formatted reference (and, if necessary, written permission for use from the authors or copyright holders). In case of finding improperly attributed borrowings, the authors finalize the manuscript and attribute borrowings according to the Journal's rules. Plagiarism in any form, including self-plagiarism, unattributed citations, paraphrasing, or appropriation of rights to the results of others' research, is unacceptable. Artificially increased scientometric indices, excessive self-citation, friendly citation, and irrelevant references mislead readers and are interpreted as fraud. When a case of dishonest behavior (i. e. duplication of an article (republishing), unlawful voluminous borrowings, submission of a translated version of an already published article, falsification of data, fraud, etc.) is detected, the editorial board acts under the COPE flowcharts, contacts the authors and requests an explanation from them. In this case, the editorial reserves the right to reject the article and reports the fact to the management of the authors' organization, and imposes a publication ban on the author for one year. If falsification, republishing, plagiarism, copyright infringement, or other dishonest behavior are discovered after publication, the editorial board contacts the author and discusses the problem. If the author's explanations are not satisfactory, the editorial board acts under the COPE Retraction Guidelines and the ASEP Article Retraction Rules. Namely, the case is considered at the meeting of the editorial board, its decision is drawn up in minutes, the article is retracted, and the information thereof is submitted to RSCI and the ASEP Retracted Articles Database.

Authorship

Those individuals are listed as article authors, who:

• Made contribution to the work concept, development, implementation, interpretation, or to analysis and data interpretation.
• Took part in the manuscript preparation or version revision and made valuable amendments.
• Approved the final version of the article to be submitted for publication.
• Are ready to take responsibility for all the work stages and ensure that the issues relating to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work will be properly investigated and resolved.

These individuals are listed as co-authors. Other participants, who do not meet the authorship criteria, are listed in the “Acknowledgements” section subject to their consent.

The designation of persons who did not participate in the study as authors (so-called "gift" or "guest" authorship), as well as the omission of persons who have made a significant contribution to the work and meet the criteria for authorship, is a gross violation of publication ethics and, if found, will lead to action according to the COPE guidelines), including investigation of its circumstances and reasons with notification of the management of the authors’ organization.

Statement of author contribution

Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal promotes research transparency by publishing authors' statements of contribution. Authors are required to include a statement in the manuscript, including review articles, indicating each author's contribution. Authors' statements of contribution are included in the published work.

Copyright

The copyright to this web-site and its content belongs to Federal State Budget Scientific Institution Federal Research Centre “Marine Hydrophysical Institute of RAS”.

Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal publishes articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. The materials may be used for non-commercial purposes only.

Conflict of interests

The editorial board of Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal informs that all authors and peer reviewers should disclose any conflicts of interests that may arise in relation to the submitted materials.

During article preparation to publication, a conflict of interests may arise when a publication process participant (author, reviewer or editor) is involved in an activity that may improperly influence their opinion whether this activity has actually influenced their opinion or not. Among the most significant conflicts of interest usually are financial activities related to production, e. g. consulting, shareholding, fee obtaining and expert opinion giving.

Conflicts may also arise out of a number of other reasons, i. e. personal relationships, scientific competition. Trust to the expert evaluation process and validity of published articles depends to some extent on how the conflict of interests is connected with the submitted materials, expert evaluation and editors’ decisions. Prejudice can often be revealed and removed by thorough consideration of scientific methods and results of research. Financial interest and its influence are much harder to detect than any other types of conflict of interests. Peer reviewers and other publication participants should inform about an existing conflict of interests, and this information should be publicly available for other participants to estimate the influence of conflict of interests on the publication process.

When submitting an original text (article or letter), the authors are responsible for identifying and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that may have affected their work. In the original text, the authors are also obliged to mention all financial and personal connections that are relevant to the submitted work. Any conflicts of interest that might influence the external reviewer's opinion of the original text must be reported to the editorial board. Reviewers should not use the information contained in the work for personal purposes before it is published.

Click here to download a conflict of interests statement form that should be filled out and attached along with the files containing the article text and figures.

Research data policy

Data sharing and data citation are encouraged.

Responsibility

The editorial board does its best to comply with the ethical standards accepted by the international scientific community and to prevent any violations of these standards both in its own work and in relations with all the participants of the scientific publication process: authors, peer reviewers, editors, and publishers. Therefore, the editorial board considers it necessary to establish standards of ethical behaviour for all parties of the publishing process, namely authors, editors of the Journal, and peer reviewers.

Responsibility of author(s)

1. The author takes the responsibility for the novelty and validity of the research results. The article should contain objective results of scientific research. Submitted materials should be the result of the authors’ work. Deliberately erroneous or fabricated statements are unacceptable. The submissions should not violate any third party rights. The author ensures authenticity of the research results presented in the submitted article. The author ensures compliance with all requirements the Journal sets to submitted materials.

2. The authors ensure that no confidential information will be disclosed as the result of publication.

3. By submitting an article to the editorial board, the authors confirm that this article is not being considering by the editorial board of any other journal nor has been published before. It is unacceptable to publish articles with the same content in different journals except for special occasions (e. g. articles translated from another language) provided that the repeated publication has been agreed with the authors and editors of the journals concerned.

4. The authors are required to list any funding sources of the project, results of which are described in the article, as well as to list those contributed to research conduction. The editorial board encourages authors to disclose their relationships with industrial and financial organizations that can result in a conflict of interests.

5. The authors should take an active part in the manuscript review process through timely providing well-reasoned feedback to reviews and making appropriate changes at the peer reviewers’ and editors’ request.

Responsibility of editors

1. The Journal’s editorial board (editor) is governed by the principles of scientificity, objectiveness, competencies, impartiality and is guided by current requirements of the Russian Federation legislation concerning author's rights, plagiarism and ethical standards supported by the community of leading academic journal publishers. The editorial board is also responsible for decision making as to publication of submitted articles.

2. Interaction with the authors is based on the principles of fairness, courtesy, objectiveness, integrity, and transparency.

3. When making a decision as to article publication or rejection, the editorial board (editor) is governed by the following main assessment criteria:

• The submitted article complies with the topic and manuscript requirements of Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal.
• The research is novel, relevant and original.
• The performed work provides valid results and is of scholarly importance.
• Contribution of other researchers in the given field is acknowledged and bibliographical references to used works are present.
• All participants who made a significant contribution to the conducted research are listed as co-authors, and the paper submitted to publication is accepted by all co-authors.
• Measures to correct significant mistakes and inaccuracies revealed by the author or editorial board are promptly taken.

4. Unpublished data obtained from manuscripts submitted for consideration should not be used or transferred to any third parties without the author's prior written consent. Measures should be taken to ensure confidentiality of information or ideas learned during editing.

5.The editorial board (editor) considers claims concerning reviewed manuscripts or published materials as well as complaints about violation of ethical standards during assessment, editing and publication of manuscripts. If necessary, the editorial board (editor) publishes corrections, refinements and apologies to the readers. If a conflict has been revealed, the editorial board takes all necessary measures to restore violated rights and further inform the authors and all related parties about the decision they have made.

6. The editors should assess articles only by their scientific content regardless of the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs, ethnicity and nationality.

7. The Journal editors and editorial board members cannot disclose information about the submitted articles, except to those who are directly related to the article and its publication preparation.

8. When assessing articles, the Journal editors have to get aware of the original information contained in the articles, however, they are not authorized to use it for their own research or other purposes. The editor should withdraw from the manuscript in case of a conflict of interest resulting from competition, collaboration or other relationships with any of the authors, companies and institutions associated with the articles.

9. The editorial board agrees with the author on all changes to the article and the final version to be published. Publication of a text not agreed with the author is an infringement of copyright.

Responsibility of peer reviewers

1. Peer review of articles in the Journal is anonymous. Peer review is performed by external experts specialized in the fields of knowledge which the reviewed article belongs to. If the peer reviewer does not have a sufficient expertise level to evaluate the manuscript, they should inform the editorial board.

2. The peer reviewer should assess the article within the period established by the Journal editorial board (up to one month). If for any reason the peer reviewer cannot perform a review within the established period, they should inform the editorial board.

3. The peer reviewer should not disclose to any third parties information from the articles submitted for reviewing.

4. When assessing articles, the reviewers should seek to be as objective as possible and provide a well-grounded opinion. Personal criticism, derogatory remarks, or slander against the author are unacceptable. The reviewer must withdraw from reviewing if for any reason they cannot evaluate the manuscript fairly and impartially.

5. The reviewer should consider the ethical aspects of the article. If a manuscript is found to contain borrowed material not accompanied by references to the source, as well as if it is similar to another manuscript or a previously published article, if signs of falsification of data, fraud, or other ethical violations are detected, the reviewer should report it to the editorial board.

6. Before publication, the reviewer is not authorized to use the information they obtained during the review process for their personal purposes. In case of conflict of interests arising out of competition, cooperation, or any other relations with any authors, companies, and institutions related to the articles, the reviewer must inform the editorial board and withdraw from work with the manuscript.

We recommend to get aware of case studies and known best practices as described in Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective published in International Journal of Clinical Practice, Graf C., Wager E., Bowman A., et al. Int. J. Clin. Pract., 2007; 61 (s152):126.

Policy on submission of preprints and the final published version of the article

When submitting an article, the author should confirm that the article has not been published or accepted for publication in other scientific journals. Articles previously posted by the authors on personal or public web-sites, in repositories of preprints not related to other publishers, are accepted for consideration. In this case, the article should give information about this preprint and link to the resource. The author can post their article (pdf) published in the Journal on personal, popular science, scientific, educational web-sites, repositories, archives, scientific platforms (ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Academia.edu, etc.), social networks with a link to the Journal.

Archiving

Russian State Library

Error correction

If the author discovers significant errors or inaccuracies in the publication, the author should inform the journal editor and work with the editor to correct the errors or, if the errors affect the conclusions of the study, retract the publication as soon as possible. If the editor or publisher has been advised by a third party that the publication contains material errors affecting the scientific integrity of the work, the author must withdraw the article or correct the errors as soon as possible. If the publisher has identified errors related to the publishing process, it shall correct them as soon as possible.

Complaint and statement handling

The authors have the right to appeal against editorial decisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles.

1. If the author disagrees with the decision of the editorial board regarding the acceptance or rejection of an article, the author shall apply to the responsible secretary with a written statement, stating the reasons for disagreement with the decision of the editorial board.

2. The responsible secretary considers the application of the author.

3. The decision of the editorial board on the article can be changed in cases where:

• The author has provided additional data, materials, and factual results that were not considered during the initial review of the article.
• The author has provided information about a conflict of interest that was not known to the editorial board.
• The author pointed to a biased reviewer's opinion and unethical behavior in the reviewing process.

4. If there are sufficient grounds, the executive secretary proposes the meeting of the editorial board to modify or uphold the original decision on the publication of the article.

5. If necessary, the editorial board may engage an additional reviewer to make the final decision.

6. The decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the article based on the results of the review of the preliminary decision is made by the editorial board of the Journal.

7. The decision of the editorial board on the results of the revision of the preliminary decision is final and not subject to re-appeal.

The Journal publishes original research results, review articles (at the editorial board's request) and brief reports.

The Journal may publish materials of any author (irrespective of their place of residence, ethnic, racial, gender and national background and academic degree availability) who has submitted a paper that has not been published before and meets the Journal’s requirements.

Articles for publication are admitted on an ongoing basis.

At admission to the editorial board:

1. The article is registered by the executive secretary of the Journal's editorial board.

2. The article is checked using the Antiplagiat system. The check report can be sent to the reviewer together with the article materials in case of incorrect and/or illegal borrowings in a significant volume. If the review reveals that the article is a duplicate publication, its text has already been published in another journal (including translated version) or the article reveals a significant proportion of unformatted borrowings (including from the author's previous works), the chief editor decides on the further passage of the manuscript being governed by the ethical rules and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), stated in the Declaration “Ethical Principles for Academic Papers” (in Russian) of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP) and adopted by the majority of academic journals according to the Article Retraction Procedure. In such cases, the editorial board reserves the right to send a request to the author for clarification of the situation and if the response is unsatisfactory or the request is ignored, to reject the article and forward the information to the management of the author's organisation.

3. A primary expert evaluation is performed that includes review of covering documents and assessment of the article’s correspondence to the Journal’s specialization, submission requirements and rules set forth by the editorial board (available at the Journal’s website: general requirements, styleguide).

Main assessment criteria for decision-making as to publication or rejection of an article:

• Novelty, topicality and originality of the research
• Validity of results and scholarly importance of the performed work
• Acknowledgement of contribution of other researchers in the field under consideration and obligatory bibliographical references to all used sources
• Inclusion as co-authors of all participants who have made a significant contribution to the conducted research and acceptance of the paper submitted to publication by all the co-authors

The reasons to reject a manuscript before peer-reviewing include revealed violations of the publication ethics (plagiarism, duplicate publication, etc.), non-compliance with the Journal’s specialization, scientific topics and requirements. In case of non-compliance the article is rejected without further peer-reviewing.

4. All the articles submitted to the editorial board and complying with the Journal's specialization are peer-reviewed.

The peer review procedure in Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal is single blind (the reviewer knows who the authors are whereas the authors do not know who the reviewer is). The peer review period is one month. In case an expert refuses to review the article it is forwarded to another reviewer.

5. The reviewer may come to one of four decision options: to publish “as is”, publish after minor refinement, publish after refinement and a repeated review, and to reject publication.

In case a decision is made to publish the article after refinement it is forwarded to the authors for improvement, with the comments made in the review to be taken into account. Return of the manuscript for refinement does not mean it is accepted to print. The author is required to submit the refined text along with the original article and response to all the reviewer’s comments within a month. In case the author refuses to refine the article the latter is rejected.

6. The article refined by the author is forwarded to one of the editorial board member (an expert in the article topic) for expert evaluation. After that, the article is reviewed at an editorial board meeting where it is accepted to print or rejected. In case of discordance of opinions during the meeting with regard to whether to accept the article or not the latter may be forwarded to an additional review. The ultimate authority of decision as to rejection, forwarding to refinement or putting into print shall be reserved by the editor-in-chief. If the article refined by the author is submitted upon expiration of one month period it shall be considered newly submitted. The editorial board does not return manuscripts of rejected articles.

In case the editorial board decides to reject an article, within seven working days it notifies the author of rejection to publish, with reasons for non-acceptance specified.

In case of a corresponding request, the editors send copies of peer review reports to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

7. Articles accepted by the editorial board undergo scientific, stylistic and technical editing.

The editors send edited articles to the authors for review. All changes to the article are agreed upon by the authors. The final version of the article prepared for publication is approved by the author (if there are several authors, then by the author responsible for communication with the editorial board). The passage of the article through the editorial process is controlled by the editors.

If preferred, upon publication the author may be provided the published article in electronic format.

1. The editorial board admits articles for consideration only if they comply with the submission guidelines. The submission guidelines are established by the editorial board and approved by the editor-in-chief. If it does not fit the Journal’s topic, the article will not be accepted for consideration.

2. After admitted by the editorial board, all articles are always sent for external reviewing to qualified experts - recognized specialists in the subject of reviewed materials who have published on the subject of the reviewed article within the last three years. The reviewer must not be the author of the article, research supervisor or consultant of the work or project, must not be an employee of the organization where the work was done. The reviewer must not have co-authored the author(s)' previous publications. The reviewer's signature must be transcribed, the full name of the organization in which the reviewer works, position and title must be indicated. The period of reviewing is 1 month.

3. Peer reviewing in the Journal is single blind.

4. A peer reviewer is required to:

• Assess main merits and demerits of the manuscript bearing in mind the following: correspondence of the article’s content to the Journal's specialization, topicality of the chosen topic, scientific and methodical level, use of up-to-date methods, novelty and originality of main statements and conclusions and their theoretical and practical significance
• Clearly state their opinion as to whether it is practical to publish the manuscript (in part or in full), reject or refine it. The reviewer can make one of four decisions: publication without revision, publication after minor revision, publication after revision and re-review, rejection of the paper
• When recommending to shorten or refine the manuscript, clearly state what exactly should be shortened and corrected to help the author in the further work on the article
• In case of a negative review, give well-grounded reasons for rejection of the article

5. The Journal's editorial board ensures internal peer review to provide an additional expert review: a peer reviewer is appointed from the editorial board. The internal peer review period is up to three weeks.

6. If the reviewer concludes that refinement is required, the author is sent a copy of the review and given a deadline for refinement.

7. If the review concludes it is impossible/impractical to publish the article, a reasoned refusal of publication is sent to the author with an excerpt from the attached review.

8. In case of disagreement with the reviewer’s opinion, the author of the article has the right to submit a reasoned response to the editorial board. The article may be sent for a repeated review.

9. If the review does not contain an unambiguous conclusion about the quality of the scientific component of the manuscript, the editorial board sends the article to another reviewer to be re-reviewed. In case of a repeated negative peer review report, the author is provided a well-grounded refusal to print.

10. Peer review results are considered at the Journal's editorial board meeting. In case of a positive review, the article can be put into print by the decision of the editorial board. By a joint decision of the editorial board, articles are accepted for publication in the next issue of the journal. In the case of conflicting opinions about the manuscript under discussion, it is possible to send it for additional review to another specialist. The editor-in-chief reserves the ultimate authority of decision as to article’s rejection, forwarding to refinement or putting into print.

11. The editorial board is obliged to notify the author of its decision within no more than 3 months of receiving the manuscript. The name of the reviewer can only be communicated to the author with the reviewer's consent.

12. The author's corrected version of the manuscript, with significant changes made on the comments of the editorial board, is sent for a repeated review, and in case of a positive result it is again proposed to the Journal's editorial board for consideration. In case of a repeated negative peer review report, the author is provided a well-grounded refusal to print.

13. Original peer review reports are kept by the editorial board for 5 years of the date of the reviewed paper publication in the Journal.

14. When the article is published, the dates are specified of its admission by the editorial board, receipt a positive review, and accept for publication by the editorial board.

15. Unpublished manuscripts are not returned to the authors.

16. The editorial board undertakes to send copies of the reviews to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation when requested to do so.

Article retraction (according to the COPE and ASEP Retraction Rules).

Retraction is correction of published information and alerting readers to severe errors, inaccurate data, or violations of publication ethics in an article. It is applied when previously unknown facts are revealed.

Grounds for retraction:

• Inappropriate borrowing (plagiarism) in a published article
• Duplication of an article in several editions
• Self-plagiarism with a large amount of repetition of the study results and text already published in other publications
• Detection of falsification or fabrication (e. g., falsification of experimental data);
• Discovery of severe errors in a publication (e. g., misinterpretation of study results) that call into question its scientific value
• Inaccurate authorship (no one worthy of being an author; individuals not meeting the criteria for authorship are included)
• Implicit conflict of interest
• Republication of an article without the consent of the author
• Other violations

1. Authors, readers, reviewers, and members of the editorial board can initiate the article retraction by writing to the editorial board.

2. The executive secretary requests an explanation from the author.

3. The editorial board considers the application, the author's response, and other known facts and circumstances.

4. The decision to retract a published article is taken by the editorial board if there are sufficient facts in favour of retraction.

5. The executive secretary notifies the initiator of the article retraction and the author in writing of the results of the consideration of the application. It may be decided to send a notice of retraction to the author's organization.

6. In case the committee decides to retract the article, information is published in the Journal that the article is retracted with the indication of metadata of the article.

7. A letter is sent to the databases indexing the Journal stating that the article has been retracted and indicating the reasons therefor.

Environmental Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of the Sea Journal prepares, reviews, and publishes articles free of charge.

The copyright belongs to the authors of the articles. Non-exclusive rights to use materials of Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal belong to its founder and publisher FSBSI FRC MHI RAS.

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Reprinting of materials in whole or in part done for educational or research purposes is possible only with reference to the Journal’s imprint with obligatory indication of the copyright holder and the names of the article authors.

When creating new, creatively independent works on the basis of articles published in the journal, or when quoting texts in their original language or in translation, it is necessary to refer to the original sources in compliance with the rules of citation.

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Articles published on the website of Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea Journal are on open access. The open access principle adopted by the Journal entirely meets the conditions set forth in Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, 2003:

1. A complete paper version and all supplemental materials in a suitable standard electronic format (pdf) are deposited immediately upon publication at the Journal website that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term storage.
2. The author and copyright holder grant to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to use, copy, reproduce or distribute the academic paper, in part or in whole, in any format (provided that no significant changes are made to the article, authorship is properly attributed, citations are properly referenced and no bibliographical data are changed), as well as the right to print the article in small quantities for their personal use. If the article is reproduced or distributed in part this should be clearly and unambiguously stated.

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