Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Electrochemical Materials and Technologies (EM&T) is a peer-reviewed, international open access journal publishing original and high-quality articles, reviews, and letters, covering all applied aspects of electrochemistry, materials science and technologies for electrochemical applications. EM&T is dedicated to providing an exclusive platform that generates discussions among researchers, scientists, engineers, and technology developers around advances, current trends and challenges in electrochemistry, characterisation and testing of functional materials in terms of their orientation towards industry and large-scale production.

The following aspects are of EM&T's particular interest:

  • All aspects of modern electrochemistry and materials for electrochemical applications;
  • Complex characterisation and testing of functional  materials;
  • Design and engineering of new materials for applied electrochemical purposes;
  • Lab-to-industry technology transferring for current electrochemical and energy demands.

 

Section Policies

From Editors

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Articles

Articles are conventional full-length research publications covering a study subject in a thorough and concise manner. No restrictions are imposed on the length of Articles; however, such texts normally include maximum 12 illustrative materials (figures, schemes and/or tables) and 60 references. If required, additional materials can be provided as supplementary data. Articles should also include an abstract not exceeding 250 words and a keyword list consisting of 5–8 words and phrases. Articles typically comprise four sections (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion and, finally, Conclusions). However, the number of such sections can be increased if necessary (e.g., Theoretical Background, Computational Details, Model Validation, etc.).


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Reviews

Review articles in EM&T can be of two major types: Focus Reviews and Comprehensive Reviews.

Focus Reviews represent critical and concise personal opinions covering most recent research activities on topics of interest. Focus reviews are restricted to 4,000 words in the article body (without abstract, figure and table captions, and references), five visual elements (figures, schemes and/or tables) and 40–50 references (a half of which should be published within the past 2–3 years). Additional materials can be provided as supplementary data. Focus Reviews should also include an abstract not exceeding 150 words, a keyword list comprising 5–6 words and phrases, 3–5 highlights (short sentences conveying the core findings, about 10–20 words each) and a brief biography (100 words maximum) completed with a photo for each co-author.

Comprehensive Reviews represent a complete, systematic and well-organized analysis of a specific research field. No restrictions are imposed on the length of Comprehensive Reviews; however, such submissions typically include maximum 15 illustrative materials (figures, schemes and/or tables). Additional illustrative materials can be included as supplementary data. Comprehensive Reviews should also include an abstract not exceeding 250 words, a keyword list comprising 5–8 words and phrases and a brief biography (100 words maximum) completed with a photo for each co-author. No restrictions are imposed on the number of references (150 and more); however, the author(s) are requested to provide a list of 10 most significant cited papers.

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Focus Reviews

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Letters

Letters are short communications that present concise reports on important results intended for rapid dissemination. Letters are restricted to 3,000 words in the article body (without abstract, figure and table captions, and references), 4 illustrative materials (figures, schemes and/or tables) and 20 references. Additional representative materials can be provided as supplementary data. Letters should include a brief abstract not exceeding 100 words, 5–6 keywords and 3–5 highlights (short sentences conveying the core findings, about 10–20 words each). Letters present a completed (not fragmented, not “salami”) study, whose results can be used as a basis for further research into the nature of the revealed phenomena.

The checklist below summarizes the specific features of papers accepted for publication in EM&T.

                                   Requirements                       Type of manuscript
   Letter   Article       Focus review    Review
Overall length (without abstract, captions, and references) in words    3,000       –             4,000        –
Illustrative materials (figures, schemes and/or tables)   up to 4   up to 12            up to 5    up to 15
Length of abstract in words  up to 100   200-250          up to 150    200-250
Number of keywords      5–6      5–8              5–6        5–8
Recommended number of cited papers in the Reference list    15-20     30-60            40–50      >150
Number of key findings (mandatory)      3–5       –              3–5         –
Brief biography (with a photo) (mandatory)       –       –                +         +
A list of 10 most significant cited papers (mandatory)       –       –                 –         +

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Peer Review Process

Each new paper should be submitted via the Online Submission system. After that, members of the international Editorial Board check out if the manuscript is prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines and whether it falls within the scope of EM&T. Decisions on whether to send a manuscript out for peer review are generally made within a week of receipt.

All manuscripts that meet the journal's requirements will be peer-reviewed by one of the Editorial Board members and at least one external referee assigned by the editors. If the Editorial Board members are unable to perform a review, two external referees will be involved. At the submission stage (in Comments for the Editor) authors might suggest referees as well as indicate those who should not review the paper. These suggestions are often helpful, although they are not always followed. The EM&T journal uses a "Single blind peer review" model in which the names of the reviewers are hidden from the authors. The manuscripts prepared during a special invitation of the Editorial Board (as-called invited papers) are internally reviewed by Editor(s) of the EM&T journal.

All the manuscript submitted in the EM&T journals go through the standard peer-review process. The following decision can be done after the peer-review:

• Accept submission:

The decision is usually made after one or several peer-review round(s). The accepted manuscript is forwarded to the production team for preparing the final manuscript version to be published at the EM&T website. The authors have the opportunity to provide the last minor changes during proofreading.

• Revisions required:

This decision is formulated based on reviewer’s/reviewers’ comments. The authors should provide (i) a separate "response to reviewer(s)" letter, in which each change made is outlined as raised in the reviewer comments, and (ii) a suitable rebuttal to each reviewer comment, which is not addressed in the revised version of the manuscript.  The revision should be performed within 2 weeks. The authors are obligated to contact the Editorial office, if they need a longer period for revisions.

• Technical revision

This decision can be applied before the peer-review process in case of technical issues. The authors are invited to eliminate these issues within 1 week.

• Reject:

The paper suffers from serious scientific flaws, and/or has weak novelty, significance and impact signs. This decision can be made after either preliminary checking by the Editorial office or collecting the comments from reviewer(s). The rejected manuscript can be resubmitted, if all principal comments and remarks are completely addressed.

Bear in mind that the editors have the final decision on acceptance of the manuscript for publication. Authors have the right to appeal to the editors against any decision taken on their manuscript at any stage by sending a rebuttal letter to the editor via the journal email. Such a letter should explain clearly why you disagree with the decision on your manuscript, and should include a detailed response to any reviewers’ comments.

 

Open Access Policy

Open access means immediate, worldwide, unrestricted access to the full text of all published articles, ensuring far greater distribution of an author's work than the traditional subscription-based publishing model. In accordance with the original Budapest Open Access Initiative declaration, by "open access" to the full texts of the articles we mean their free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, is to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. As stated in the Copyright Notice, authors who publish in Electrochemical Materials and Technologies retain the copyright of their work, which is released under a Creative Commons Attribution License enabling the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of an article, provided that the original work is properly cited.

 

Publication Fees

Electrochemical Materials and Technologies requires no author charges, including submission fees, editorial processing charges, article processing charges (APCs), etc. (see Journal Sponsorship).

 

Editorial Policies

The following Code of Ethics of the Editorial Board of Electrochemical Materials and Technologies ("Journal") is composed on the basis of internationally recognized standards of ethics, such as those recommended by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) in its Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

General duties and responsibilities of editors

  • Editors are accountable for everything published in the Journal;
  • Editors take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish;
  • Editors ensure that all published articles have been reviewed by suitably qualified referees and that the peer review is fair, unbiased and timely;
  • Editors maintain the integrity of the academic record;
  • Editors strive to constantly improve their journal;
  • Editors preclude business and commercial needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
  • Editors publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed;
  • Editorial decisions are not affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors.

Relations with authors

  • Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication are based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the scope of the journal;
  • Editors do not reverse decisions to accept submissions and do not overturn decisions of other editors unless serious problems are identified with the submission;
  • Editors abide by established in the Journal peer review practices, which are described in details on the Journal's web site;
  • Editors publish guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them, and provide technical support when requested;
  • Authors have a right to appeal against any editorial decisions.
  • Authors have the opportunity to withdraw their manuscript if they wish at any peer review stage. However, a detailed justification for this decision should be provided to the editor.

Relations with reviewers

  • Editors provide guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them;
  • Editors require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission;
  • Editors require reviewers to handle submitted material in confidence;
  • Editors encourage reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible cases of academic dishonesty;
  • Editors monitor the performance of peer reviewers and take steps to ensure this is of high standard, ceasing to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, low quality or late reviews.

Relations with editorial board members

  • Editors provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and keep existing members updated on new policies and developments;
  • Editors identify suitably qualified editorial board members who can actively contribute to the development and good management of the journal;
  • Articles submitted by the journal employees or members of the Editorial Board are evaluated on a general basis being given no advantages over the other authors' manuscripts.

Relations with journal owners and publishers

  • The owner and publisher of the Journal is Ural Federal University;
  • Ural Federal University as well as the other agencies outside of the journal itself do not interfere with the editorial decisions on which articles to publish.

Dealing with academic dishonesty

Academic dishonesty in any way is NOT tolerated by the Journal. Some examples of such misconducts along with the good practices that must be used by the authors are presented below.

  • Improper Authorship: authorship must be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the research presented;
  • Citation Manipulation: submitted manuscript must not contain citations whose sole purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author's works, or to the articles published in a given journal;
  • Plagiarism and Duplicate Submission: since the Journal is committed to publishing only original papers, submitted manuscripts must not be published elsewhere, or be under review elsewhere, and the results or the words of others must be appropriately cited or quoted;
  • Redundant Publications: there must be no undue fragmentation of the research into several papers;
  • Data Fabrication and Falsification: submitted manuscripts must not contain either fabricated or intentionally falsified experimental results, and when an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his own published work, it is the author's obligation to notify the Editors in order to retract or correct the paper;
  • Intellectual property infringement: submitted manuscripts must not violate intellectual property rights and conventions;
  • Undisclosure of Conflicts of Interest: any possible Conflicts of Interests must be properly disclosed.

Editors at first seek a response from those suspected of academic dishonesty. This response is discussed by Editor-in-Chief and the members of the Editorial Board. In case the response is found not convincing, the Editors reserve the right to impose one or several of the following sanctions:

  • Immediate rejection of the manuscript under consideration;
  • Immediate rejection of any other manuscript submitted to the Journal by the authors of the infringing paper;
  • Making a public statement about the discovery of the academic dishonesty facts.

Note that the latter will be reserved only for the most severe cases of the academic dishonesty.

 

Conflicts of Interests

Conflict of interest (COI) exists when there is a divergence between an individual’s private interest (competing interest) and his abilities to act as an unbiased author, editor or reviewer. The most obvious conflicts of interests include

  • Financial ties - when authors receive funding from an organization with an interest in the particular outcome of the work;
  • Affiliation - when an author is an employee or a member of an organization with an interest in the particular outcome of the work.

Everyone has COIs of some sort. Having a competing interest is not in itself unethical. However, COI constitutes a problem when it could reasonably be expected to hinder one's abilities to produce an unbiased research or review. When in doubt, it's better to declare the potential conflicts of interests. The rules for disclosure of COIs, established in Electrochemical Materials and Technologies, are listed below.

Authors
Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process, helping readers form their own judgments of potential bias.

Reviewers
Reviewers should not be involved in the peer review process if they fulfill one of the following conditions:

  • Reviewer is a co-authors of the current submission;
  • Reviewer has the same affiliation with that of any author;
  • Reviewer collaborate(ed) with any author within the last 5 years;
  • Reviewer has financial (or other related) interest;
  • Reviewer feels unable to be completely objective in their judgements.

Editorial Board Members
Editorial Board Members (EBMs) are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In addition, they should be exclude from handling manuscripts in the following cases:

  • EBM is a co-authors of the current submission;
  • EBM has financial (or other related) interest.

If EBM is an author of a submitted manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief will be assigned to manage the peer-review process. If the Editor-in-Chief is an author of a submitted manuscript, handling this manuscript is carried out by one of EBMs. In both cases, these should be declared in the ‘Conflict of interest’ section on the submitted manuscript. Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit their manuscripts to EMT. However, these submissions will not be given priority over other manuscripts, and the status of Editorial Board Member has no influence on the editorial consideration. The following endogeneity rule applies: the proportion of published research papers where at least one of the authors is an Editor, Editorial Board Member, or Reviewer must not exceed 25% in either of the last two issues.

 

Plagiarism policy

Each new paper is routinely screened for plagiarism using  https://text.rucont.ru/.