The editorial board of Foreign Affairs is guided in its work by the international ethical rules of scientific publications, including the rules of decency, confidentiality, supervision of publications, consideration of possible conflicts of interest, etc.

In its activities, the editorial board follows the recommendations of the (Committee on Publication Ethics) and, in particular, "Publishing Ethics Resource Kit" by Elsevier.

The editorial board of the journal adheres to the following rules for supporting publication ethics:

• observance of the fundamental principles of publication: scientificity, objectivity, professionalism, informational support of the most significant innovative research
• unconditional loyalty to all subjects of the creative process who take part in the creation of the journal;
• widespread use of double-blind peer review, the involvement of objective competent reviewers;
• implementation of constant consultative work with authors aimed at meeting the requirements of international databases for the design and content of materials submitted for publication.

Deciding on publications

The editor decides on the publication of the submitted articles. It is guided by a journal policy based solely on academic value and the conclusions of the reviewers. The editor adheres to modern rules regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

The editor should not use the published information in their research without the written consent of the author. Editors should make appropriate decisions to address ethical complaints regarding submitted manuscripts or published articles.

The journal editor evaluates the intellectual content of the manuscripts regardless of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, origin, citizenship, or political preferences of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and editorial board do not disclose information about the submitted manuscripts (authors, topics, texts, etc.). Any manuscript received for review is considered a confidential document. The editor and the editorial board undertake not to disclose information about the accepted manuscripts unnecessarily to all persons, with the exception of authors, reviewers, other scientific consultants and the publisher.

Resolution of conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials should not be used in any research by the editor, reviewers, or others without the written consent of the authors.

Editors, reviewers, and scientific consultants undertake to recuse themselves from consideration of manuscripts in the presence of conflicts of interest as a result of competitive, joint, and other interactions and relations with authors, companies and, possibly, other organisations associated with the manuscript.

The editorial board undertakes to take adequate retaliatory measures in case of conflict situations and claims regarding the reviewed manuscripts or published materials.

Foreign Affairs may address claims or concerns about research or publication misconduct raised by readers, reviewers, or others. Furthermore, the journal reserves the right to inform readers about the resolution of conflict situations.

Duties of the editorial board:

• observe a respectful and correct attitude towards the author and his scientific orientation, keep editorial secrets, and prevent bad faith during processing;
• not to correct the author's text on his own, to agree with the authors the final version of the text after making an editorial revision;
• do not allow materials to be published if they do not have scientific value, do not correspond to the profile of the journal, contradict its editorial policy and there are good reasons to believe that they contain plagiarism or were previously published in other publications;
• ensure the involvement of objective and competent reviewers, apply the practice of double (blind) review.

Responsibilities of Reviewers:

• to consider all manuscripts submitted for publication without prejudice, evaluating each properly, regardless of race, religion, nationality, as well as the status or place of work of the author;
• to observe the period of reviewing established by the editorial board;
• treat the manuscript received for review as a confidential document, not to provide it to others for review; written reviews must be confidential;
• not to use unpublished data from the manuscript;
• to provide an objective, reasoned, and correct assessment of the stated research results.

Obligations of the authors of articles:

• to ensure the novelty, reliability, and originality of the research results, to draw up all materials of other authors with an exact indication of the primary sources;
• to avoid excessive borrowing and plagiarism in any form; to prevent auto-plagiarism;
• to ensure that the article is exclusive material and has not been previously published or proposed to another publication.

By submitting materials for publication in Foreign Affairs, the authors agree that, if materials are accepted for publication, the latter can be placed in electronic databases with the obligatory indication of authorship and copyright retention in full for the authors.

In the text of the work itself, sources of external information should be presented in full – in the form of lists of used literature (including personal previously published works of the authors). Authors are obliged to properly draw up borrowings in the form of citations or links.

The authors undertake to submit an article for consideration only to Foreign Affairs. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time is perceived as unethical behaviour and gives rise to the removal of the article from consideration.

If the author reveals significant errors or inaccuracies in the publication, the author must inform the editor of the journal about this and interact with them to remove the publication or correct errors as soon as possible.

If the editor has received information from a third party that the publication contains material errors, the author shall be obliged to remove the article or correct the errors as soon as possible.

Originality and plagiarism

The manuscripts received by the editorial office of Foreign Affairs are verified for originality.

The authors are solely responsible for the authenticity of the content of the articles. To avoid incorrect borrowing or use of the research results of third parties, the authors are to adhere to the ethics of scientific citation.

Authors of articles should provide reliable results of the work done and an objective discussion of the significance of the study. At the request of the editor, authors must provide all data concerning the manuscript.

Authors undertake to provide their own, new (unpublished in other publications), original articles and, in the case of using articles or statements of other authors, must provide appropriate bibliographic references or extracts.

Plagiarism in all forms is unacceptable and is considered a violation of publication ethics. More about this in the Anti-plagiarism Policy.