Retraction & Withdrawal Policy

This policy applies to:

• submitted manuscripts;
• accepted manuscripts awaiting publication;
• published Versions of Record;
• supplementary files;
• editorials and other scholarly content;
• corrections and addenda;
• Expressions of Concern;
• retraction notices; and
• other formal updates to the scholarly record.

The appropriate action depends on the publication stage, seriousness of the problem, reliability of the affected work, available evidence, and whether the issue can be corrected without invalidating the work as a whole.

Withdrawal

Withdrawal ordinarily refers to removal of a manuscript from the editorial process before formal publication.

Correction

A correction addresses a material error in a published article where the article remains sufficiently reliable overall.

Expression of Concern

An Expression of Concern alerts readers to a serious unresolved issue where available evidence is insufficient for a final determination or an investigation remains incomplete.

Retraction

Retraction indicates that a publication, or a substantial part of it, should no longer be relied upon because of serious error, misconduct, compromised publication process, or another fundamental problem.

Removal

Removal of the full article from public access is reserved for exceptional circumstances where retaining the full content would create a serious legal, privacy, confidentiality, safety, or other compelling risk.

The corresponding author should ordinarily submit the withdrawal request on behalf of all authors.

The request should identify:

• the manuscript title;
• the manuscript identification number;
• the reason for withdrawal;
• confirmation that the co-authors are aware of the request where appropriate; and
• any relevant circumstances requiring urgent action.

The manuscript should not be treated as formally withdrawn until the journal confirms closure of the submission.

Because JPMHR's APC is payable only after formal acceptance, a manuscript withdrawn before acceptance does not ordinarily incur an Article Processing Charge.

Authors should not submit the manuscript to another journal until JPMHR has confirmed that the manuscript has been withdrawn from its active editorial process.

Withdrawal must not be used to:

• conceal duplicate or simultaneous submission;
• avoid responding to a credible misconduct concern;
• prevent investigation of fabricated or falsified data;
• avoid an authorship investigation; or
• erase relevant editorial evidence.

Where a material ethics or integrity concern has already been identified, JPMHR may preserve relevant records and continue the appropriate assessment even after the manuscript is withdrawn.

JPMHR may consider withdrawal after acceptance where there is a legitimate reason such as:

• discovery of a major scientific error;
• an unresolved authorship problem;
• a serious ethical concern;
• a legal or confidentiality issue;
• duplicate publication discovered before publication; or
• another material circumstance making publication inappropriate.

A request made solely to transfer an accepted manuscript to another journal may be declined where publication processing is already substantially advanced.

If an accepted manuscript has already been formally published online, it is no longer handled as an ordinary withdrawal. Any subsequent action must follow the post-publication scholarly-record process.

Corrections may be appropriate for:

• important numerical errors;
• incorrect labels or units;
• errors in author information;
• omitted or inaccurate funding disclosures;
• competing-interest disclosure errors;
• incorrect figures or tables that do not invalidate the central findings;
• metadata errors;
• important methodological clarification; or
• other material errors that can be corrected without invalidating the work.

Minor typographical or stylistic errors that do not affect meaning, interpretation, attribution, indexing, or scientific validity may not require a formal correction notice.

Material corrections should be documented rather than silently replacing substantive content.

An addendum may be appropriate where important information becomes available after publication but the original article remains reliable.

Addenda should not be used to conceal a substantial error that would more appropriately require correction, Expression of Concern, or retraction.

Circumstances may include:

• a serious unresolved data-integrity concern;
• an institutional investigation that is ongoing;
• uncertainty concerning ethical approval or consent;
• credible evidence of possible peer-review manipulation;
• a major authorship or provenance dispute affecting reliability;
• significant concern about image or data authenticity;
• an investigation experiencing substantial delay; or
• other circumstances in which readers should be alerted while the matter remains unresolved.

An Expression of Concern is not a finding of misconduct.

It should describe the concern sufficiently to inform readers without presenting an unresolved allegation as established fact.

Grounds may include:

• fabricated data;
• falsified data or analyses;
• major image manipulation;
• plagiarism materially affecting the publication;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• unethical research;
• fabricated or materially misrepresented ethics approval;
• absence of required consent where the violation is serious;
• compromised or manipulated peer review;
• serious authorship misconduct affecting accountability or provenance;
• a major error rendering the findings unreliable;
• fabricated participants, references, or research records;
• materially unreliable results generated through defective analysis;
• serious undisclosed conflicts that undermine the integrity of the work; or
• another fundamental problem that cannot adequately be corrected.

Retraction may result from honest error as well as misconduct. Establishing deliberate wrongdoing is not always necessary when the primary issue is that the article can no longer be relied upon.

Retraction is not automatically required because of:

• scientific disagreement;
• failure of another group to replicate a result;
• publication of negative follow-up evidence;
• a controversial conclusion;
• criticism of methodology that does not establish unreliability;
• a minor reporting error;
• a correctable authorship or affiliation issue;
• a minor undisclosed competing interest;
• an author's later change of opinion; or
• reputational inconvenience to an author, institution, journal, or publisher.

The appropriate response depends on whether the reliability or integrity of the published record is materially affected.

1. Concern Identified

A concern may arise from an author, reader, reviewer, editor, institution, funder, publisher, or another credible source.

2. Preliminary Assessment

JPMHR determines whether the issue appears credible and whether immediate protective action is required.

3. Evidence Preservation

Relevant manuscript versions, peer-review records, correspondence, data, images, declarations, and other records may be preserved.

4. Conflict Check

Persons with material competing interests are excluded from controlling the assessment.

5. Author Response

Affected authors are ordinarily given an opportunity to respond to material concerns.

6. External or Institutional Input

JPMHR may seek expert advice or communicate with an institution, ethics committee, funder, regulator, or another appropriate body where necessary.

7. Editorial Decision

The journal determines whether the article should remain unchanged, be corrected, carry an Expression of Concern, be retracted, or be subject to another appropriate action.

8. Notice and Metadata Update

Formal post-publication action is implemented transparently and associated metadata should be updated where technically possible.

Authors may:

• agree with the proposed retraction;
• request retraction themselves;
• disagree with the journal's conclusions;
• decline to respond; or
• be unreachable.

Where the evidence supports retraction, JPMHR may proceed even if one or more authors disagree or fail to respond.

The retraction notice should accurately state authors' involvement where this is relevant and supported by the record.

A retraction notice should, where appropriate:

• identify the retracted article;
• include its title and citation;
• link to the affected publication;
• state clearly that the article has been retracted;
• describe the principal reason for retraction;
• identify who initiated the retraction where appropriate;
• distinguish established findings from unresolved allegations;
• avoid defamatory or unnecessary personal statements;
• identify whether authors agree where materially relevant; and
• remain freely accessible.

Notices should be factual and proportionate. They should not contain unsupported allegations merely to provide a more dramatic explanation.

Retention helps preserve:

• citation history;
• publication chronology;
• transparency;
• research-integrity evidence;
• links from external databases; and
• the historical scholarly record.

Where technically possible, the article landing page, PDF or other full-text format, metadata, and associated notice should make the retracted status apparent.

Retraction should not normally be implemented by silently deleting the article and pretending that it was never published.

Possible grounds may include:

• a binding legal requirement;
• serious defamation risk established through appropriate review;
• unlawfully disclosed confidential information;
• serious participant privacy violation;
• publication of information creating a credible safety risk;
• material infringement that cannot reasonably be corrected by another method; or
• another exceptional circumstance where continued access itself causes serious harm.

Where full-text content must be removed, JPMHR should ordinarily preserve the article's bibliographic landing page and provide a notice explaining why the content is unavailable, to the extent legally and ethically permissible.

Where only a limited part of an article is affected and the remainder remains reliable, a substantial correction may be more appropriate than retraction of the entire publication.

Where the affected component is so central that readers cannot safely rely on the article as a whole, full retraction may be necessary.

The selected notice should make the status and reliability of the publication clear.

A correction is generally favoured where:

• the central findings remain reliable;
• the error is localised;
• the corrected result can be clearly communicated; and
• readers will not be materially misled after correction.

Retraction is generally favoured where:

• the main findings are unreliable;
• the underlying data cannot be trusted;
• the publication process was fundamentally compromised;
• unethical research materially undermines the article;
• duplicate publication substantially misrepresents the scholarly record; or
• correction cannot adequately resolve the problem.

An author request does not automatically determine the precise form of scholarly-record action. The journal will assess whether the circumstances require:

• correction;
• addendum;
• Expression of Concern;
• retraction; or
• another appropriate action.

Authors who voluntarily disclose an honest material error are not treated as having committed misconduct merely because retraction becomes necessary.

Where the scientific work remains reliable, an authorship problem may sometimes be resolved through a correction.

Institutional input may be required where the journal cannot independently determine legitimate authorship.

Retraction may be considered where authorship misconduct forms part of a broader integrity failure or makes responsibility for the work fundamentally unreliable.

Assessment considers:

• extent of duplicated data;
• similarity of conclusions;
• whether prior publication was disclosed;
• whether secondary publication was legitimate;
• whether copyright or licensing issues exist;
• publication chronology; and
• whether readers are misled concerning originality.

Examples may include:

• fabricated reviewer identities;
• author-controlled reviewer accounts;
• fraudulent reviewer recommendations;
• undisclosed conflicts fundamentally compromising review;
• editorial manipulation; or
• organised peer-review rings.

Where the article itself may still be scientifically reliable, JPMHR may consider independent post-publication reassessment. Where the publication cannot be validated adequately, retraction may be necessary.

An institutional finding may provide important evidence concerning:

• fabrication or falsification;
• ethical approval;
• authorship;
• research conduct;
• data provenance;
• consent;
• professional misconduct; or
• other matters beyond the journal's investigative powers.

JPMHR need not wait indefinitely for an external investigation where available evidence already demonstrates that urgent scholarly-record action is necessary.

An appeal should:

• identify the specific decision being challenged;
• state the substantive grounds;
• provide relevant supporting evidence; and
• explain the requested remedy.

Where reasonably possible, the appeal should be reviewed by a person not solely responsible for the original challenged decision.

Filing an appeal does not automatically suspend an urgent scholarly- record notice where continued delay would materially mislead readers.

JPMHR should seek to ensure that:

• the affected article remains identifiable by its original DOI;
• the correction or retraction notice has appropriate publication metadata;
• the article and notice are linked;
• article status is reflected on the journal website;
• relevant DOI metadata are updated where supported; and
• downstream indexing services can identify the changed publication status.

A DOI should not ordinarily be deleted merely because the associated article has been retracted.

JPMHR seeks to preserve:

• article metadata;
• formal notices;
• links between affected articles and notices;
• relevant editorial records; and
• publication-history information necessary to understand article status.

• COPE Guidance and Resources
• ICMJE Recommendations
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing

Reference to external guidance does not imply membership, certification, accreditation, or endorsement unless such status is independently established.