Policies

IJCI aligns its editorial, authorship, disclosure, peer-review, research-integrity, trial-registration, and manuscript-preparation policies with recognized medical-journal standards, including the ICMJE Recommendations, COPE publication-ethics guidance, the COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, EQUATOR reporting guidelines, and NLM Citing Medicine / AMA-style reference conventions.

Alignment with these standards does not imply COPE membership, DOAJ indexing, MEDLINE/PubMed/PMC indexing, Scopus or Web of Science coverage, an issued ISSN, a DOI prefix, or third-party certification unless that status is separately listed as formally verified on the Journal Status page.

IJCI is fully open access. Scholarly articles are available immediately without subscription, reader registration, or embargo. Authors retain copyright and grant IJCI a non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive, preserve, index, and disseminate the Version of Record. Unless an article states otherwise, the Version of Record is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Under CC BY 4.0, readers may share and adapt published material, including for commercial purposes, provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the license is supplied, and changes are indicated. The article license applies only to material for which the authors or journal hold the necessary rights; authors are responsible for identifying and securing permission for third-party material that is excluded from the article's open license. Copyright in the journal website, branding, layout, and other non-article material is separate from article copyright.

Posting a manuscript on a recognized preprint server before submission does not, by itself, constitute prior publication for IJCI. Authors should disclose any preprint at submission and provide its persistent identifier or URL when available. The manuscript must not be simultaneously under formal consideration by another journal.

Authors may deposit the submitted manuscript, accepted manuscript, and published Version of Record in personal, institutional, subject, or funder repositories without embargo. The deposited version should be clearly identified; the Version of Record should include the final journal citation and link to the published article.

International Journal of Clinical Innovation (IJCI) is owned and independently self-published by Juan Pablo Dugarte. It is not an official publication of the University of Southern California or any other academic institution. Editorial management is led by the Editor-in-Chief and the IJCI Editorial Board. Editorial decisions are governed by the journal's peer-review, publication-ethics, conflict-of-interest, and editorial-independence policies.

Institutional affiliations of editors are provided for identification purposes only. IJCI is an independent journal and is not an official publication of the University of Southern California. The country of publication is the United States.

IJCI publishes articles individually after final acceptance and production within an annual volume. Volume 1 corresponds to 2026. Exceptional production or integrity-review delays may occur and are communicated to affected authors when material.

Submitted work must be original, accurately reported, and not under simultaneous consideration elsewhere. Authors must disclose closely related manuscripts, prior dissemination, preprints, conference abstracts, or overlapping datasets when relevant to editorial assessment.

Duplicate or redundant publication, undisclosed salami publication, deceptive reuse of substantially the same dataset, and material misrepresentation of novelty are not acceptable. Legitimate secondary analyses should identify the source dataset and explain how the new question differs from prior reports.

Authorship is limited to contributors who meet all four responsibility criteria: (1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; (2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure questions related to its accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged with permission.

Changes to authorship after submission require a written explanation and agreement from all affected authors. The journal may request documentation when authorship changes raise integrity concerns. Author contribution statements may use the CRediT taxonomy to describe roles; CRediT describes contributions but does not itself determine who qualifies for authorship. Artificial-intelligence systems and other automated tools cannot qualify as authors.

Authors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the work. Funding sources and the role of funders in study design, conduct, analysis, interpretation, writing, and publication decisions must be stated. Where no relevant conflicts or funding exist, the published record should say so.

Editors and reviewers must disclose relevant conflicts and recuse themselves when impartial assessment cannot be assured. Sponsors, donors, institutions, advertisers, and commercial interests may not control reviewer selection or editorial decisions.

Human research must comply with applicable ethical standards and, when required, have approval from an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee. Research involving human participants should be conducted consistently with the Declaration of Helsinki where applicable. The manuscript must identify the reviewing body and approval information or explain why review was not required.

Animal research must comply with applicable institutional and national requirements, identify the relevant oversight/approval where required, and follow appropriate reporting standards such as ARRIVE when applicable.

Research participation consent must be obtained when required by law, ethics approval, or study design. Written consent for publication is required for case reports, case series, images, videos, pedigrees, or other material that could reasonably identify an individual. Authors must retain documentation and provide it to the journal if requested.

Unnecessary patient or participant identifiers must not be submitted. De-identification should not distort scientifically relevant information. The journal may request evidence of consent but should not receive unrelated confidential medical records or identifiers.

Authors should use the reporting guideline appropriate to the study design and submit the relevant checklist or flow diagram when applicable. Examples include CONSORT and SPIRIT for trials/protocols, PRISMA and PRISMA-P for systematic reviews/protocols, STROBE for observational studies, STARD for diagnostic-accuracy studies, TRIPOD for prediction-model studies, CARE for case reports, SQUIRE for quality-improvement reports, ARRIVE for animal research, and other EQUATOR-listed guidance such as CHEERS, COREQ, and SRQR when applicable.

IJCI encourages authors to identify the applicable guideline through the EQUATOR Network and to report important deviations transparently rather than presenting incomplete methods or selective results.

Applicable clinical trials must be prospectively registered in an appropriate publicly accessible registry at or before the time of first participant consent for enrollment, consistent with ICMJE principles. Acceptable registries include ClinicalTrials.gov and WHO ICTRP primary registries. The registry name and registration number must be reported in the manuscript.

Retrospective registration or absent registration requires a specific explanation and is not treated as equivalent to prospective registration; any editorial exception must be rare, justified, and disclosed in the published record if the article is accepted. Material changes to prespecified outcomes or protocols must also be disclosed and explained. Registration does not replace ethics review or informed consent.

Published research should include a data-availability statement describing whether underlying data are publicly available, available on reasonable request, or restricted, with the reason for any restriction. Authors are encouraged to share de-identified data, protocols, code, analytic plans, and other reproducibility materials when ethically and legally permissible.

Editors may request underlying data or documentation when necessary to evaluate a manuscript or investigate a credible integrity concern. Authors should preserve source records for a period consistent with applicable institutional, funder, legal, and disciplinary requirements.

IJCI does not tolerate fabrication, falsification, selective or deceptive data manipulation, plagiarism, substantial unattributed text recycling, inappropriate image manipulation, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, false reviewer identities, paper-mill activity, undisclosed competing interests, misrepresentation of ethics or consent, or other systematic manipulation of the publication process.

Credible allegations are assessed confidentially and fairly. Authors may be asked to provide source data, ethics documentation, original images, permissions, or other records. The journal may contact relevant institutions, funders, registries, or other journals when necessary to protect the scholarly record. Pre-publication findings may lead to rejection; post-publication findings may lead to correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other appropriate notice.

Submissions may be screened for textual overlap and other integrity signals. Plagiarism, substantial unattributed reuse, self-plagiarism, and redundant publication are evaluated in context. Prior related work must be cited and disclosed.

Images may be adjusted only when changes apply appropriately and do not obscure, remove, introduce, or misrepresent scientifically relevant features. Splicing, duplication, selective enhancement, or other manipulation must be disclosed and scientifically justified. Original image files may be requested for verification.

IJCI requires references to be accurate, relevant, and verifiable against the original source. Manuscripts should use numbered references in the order of first citation and follow AMA/NLM medical-journal formatting unless the editors approve another format for a specific article type.

Citation requests by editors or reviewers must be based on scientific relevance, methodological context, or correction of a substantive omission. IJCI treats coercive citation, citation cartels, excessive self-citation demands, irrelevant journal self-citation, and citation manipulation as publication misconduct.

IJCI uses double-blind external peer review for scholarly articles selected to proceed beyond editorial screening. Under the current prospective standard, publication requires at least two completed independent reviewer reports in the editorial record. This requirement applies to research articles, reviews, case reports and series, technical or surgical/video articles, medical education research, perspectives/commentaries, editorials, and letters that are accepted as scholarly journal content. Reviewers must preserve confidentiality, declare conflicts, assess only work within their competence, and provide evidence-based and respectful evaluations.

Authors are not required to nominate reviewers. If reviewer suggestions or exclusions are provided, editors independently verify expertise and conflicts and are not obligated to follow the suggestions. Supplementary material relevant to the scientific record may be supplied to reviewers.

Reviewers and editors must not use generative AI to create substantive peer-review assessments or editorial decisions and must not upload confidential manuscripts or review material to unauthorized external AI systems.

Special issues and collections remain under the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief and must fall within the journal's stated scope. Guest editors must have relevant, verifiable expertise and must disclose conflicts of interest.

Special-issue scholarly articles are subject to the same research-integrity and external peer-review standards as regular submissions. A manuscript submitted by a guest editor, editor, Editorial Board member, or journal owner must be handled by an uninvolved qualified editor without the submitting person's participation in reviewer selection or the decision.

Artificial-intelligence and other automated tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot accept responsibility for the work. Authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, citations, confidentiality, and research integrity; they must verify the validity of automated-tool outputs, including factual statements, analyses, images, code, and references. Generative AI must not be cited as a scholarly source.

Authors should disclose material use of generative AI in research or manuscript preparation beyond straightforward language correction, editing, and formatting, with sufficient detail to understand the tool's role.

IJCI may use tested automated tools for limited operational support such as metadata validation, similarity or integrity flagging, workflow notifications, or reviewer suggestions. Such outputs are advisory, remain subject to human oversight, and do not autonomously determine acceptance, rejection, reviewer appointment, or research-integrity findings.

IJCI corrects the scholarly record transparently. Material errors that do not invalidate an article are addressed through a linked correction/corrigendum or erratum. An expression of concern may be issued while a serious matter is under investigation. Articles may be retracted when findings are unreliable because of major error or misconduct, when publication is redundant or unethical, or when other circumstances require removal from the reliable literature.

Published notices remain permanently accessible and linked to the affected article. The Version of Record is not silently replaced in a way that obscures the publication history. Article removal is reserved for exceptional circumstances such as overriding legal obligations, serious privacy breaches, or immediate safety risks; a public notice will normally remain when lawful and appropriate.

Authors may request withdrawal of an unpublished manuscript by contacting the Editorial Office and explaining the request. A withdrawal request does not erase necessary editorial, security, integrity, or audit records. IJCI does not charge a withdrawal fee.

Once an article has been published, concerns are handled through the correction, expression-of-concern, retraction, or exceptional-removal policy rather than by deleting the scholarly record at an author's request.

Readers, authors, institutions, or other parties may raise factual, ethical, or integrity concerns about published work through editorial@ijcinnovation.org or the journal's Report a Concern page. Substantive concerns are assessed and, when appropriate, may result in author queries, independent review, institutional contact, or a formal post-publication notice.

Good-faith scientific criticism is evaluated on its substance. Harassment, knowingly false allegations, threats, or attempts to manipulate editorial outcomes are not accepted.

Authors may submit one reasoned appeal of an editorial decision or raise a complaint regarding editorial procedure, peer review, ethics, or conduct by contacting editorial@ijcinnovation.org. Appeals should identify the manuscript and explain the specific scientific, procedural, or ethical grounds for reconsideration.

Complaints are handled confidentially and, when feasible, by an editor who was not directly involved in the matter. If a complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, journal owner, or handling editor, it will be referred to an uninvolved senior Editorial Board member or other appropriate independent person. Good-faith complaints do not affect an author's or reviewer's future treatment by the journal.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted material is lawful to publish and that necessary permissions have been obtained for copyrighted figures, tables, questionnaires, instruments, photographs, videos, or other third-party material.

A person who believes IJCI content infringes copyright or another intellectual-property right may send a good-faith notice to editorial@ijcinnovation.org identifying the work, the allegedly infringing material, the basis of the claim, and reliable contact information. IJCI may request supporting evidence and may temporarily restrict access when necessary while a claim is assessed. This process is not presented as a registered DMCA-agent service unless such registration is separately established.

The final published Version of Record is maintained on the IJCI website at a stable article URL together with its bibliographic metadata and available publication files. Published article metadata and publication assets are retained within IJCI's publication infrastructure. Corrections, retractions, and other post-publication notices are issued transparently and linked to the affected article rather than silently replacing the scholarly record.

IJCI is establishing independent long-term preservation with a recognized third-party preservation service. Until such participation is formally active, IJCI does not claim preservation through LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico, PubMed Central, or another external archive. If IJCI ceases publication, the journal will make reasonable efforts to maintain continued access to published Versions of Record and to transfer preservation copies and metadata to an appropriate scholarly repository or preservation service when feasible.

Authors may self-archive the published Version of Record under CC BY 4.0 without embargo, provided the journal citation and Version of Record are identified.

IJCI does not charge manuscript submission fees, editorial processing fees, article processing charges (APCs), page charges, color charges, mandatory publication fees, or withdrawal fees. Editorial decisions are based on scientific and editorial considerations and are independent of any current or future author fee, waiver, subsidy, donation, or sponsorship.

IJCI is independently self-published. Current journal operating costs are supported by the owner/publisher, with editorial and peer-review service contributed independently of any article-level payment.

IJCI does not currently accept paid advertising, advertorials, sponsored links, or commercially sponsored editorial content. If advertising is introduced in the future, it will be clearly identified and kept editorially separate from scholarly content and editorial decision-making.

Sponsors, donors, institutions, commercial partners, and other funders may not select reviewers, access confidential peer-review material, or influence editorial decisions. Any future journal-level sponsorship, donation, or unrestricted financial support will be disclosed publicly. Funding of individual research articles must be disclosed by authors in the published article.

IJCI does not currently publish sponsored supplements or paid-for editorial content. Any future sponsored supplement, special collection, or externally supported content will be clearly labeled, will disclose its funding and editorial responsibility, and will remain subject to the journal's applicable editorial and peer-review standards.

Any direct marketing or recruitment conducted on behalf of IJCI, including manuscript, reviewer, or editorial-board invitations, must be accurate, appropriately targeted, professional, and unobtrusive. Communications must not promise acceptance, indexing, impact metrics, editorial appointment, or preferential treatment.

If IJCI introduces author fees in the future, the amount, timing, applicable article types, and any waiver or exemption policy will be published before submission. New fees will not be applied retroactively to manuscripts submitted while the journal stated that no such fee applied.

Editorial decisions are made on scientific and editorial grounds. Ownership, funding, sponsorship, institutional relationships, advertising, fees, waivers, or commercial interests may not determine reviewer selection, peer-review outcomes, acceptance, rejection, or the content of editorial decisions. Institutional affiliations of editors are provided for identification purposes only. IJCI is an independent journal and is not an official publication of the University of Southern California.

IJCI collects personal and professional information needed to administer submissions, peer review, editorial appointments, publication, research-integrity processes, and account security. Manuscripts and peer-review material are treated as confidential and are shared only as necessary for journal operations, legal or ethical obligations, or integrity investigations.

IJCI does not sell personal information or use journal-account data for cross-site behavioral advertising. Additional details are provided in the Privacy Policy linked in the site footer.