GTA Publication Policies

This policy covers the responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, and the publisher. Editorial decisions are based solely on academic merit, originality, methodological quality, relevance to the journal's scope, ethical compliance, and contribution to knowledge. Commercial considerations, Article Processing Charges, sponsorship, institutional relationships, or personal relationships must not influence editorial decisions. Editors must declare and appropriately manage any conflicts of interest and must withdraw from handling manuscripts where their impartiality could reasonably be questioned.

GTA journals normally apply double-blind peer review for original research articles. Research manuscripts are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate expertise. The peer-review process generally includes:

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  Initial editorial screening

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  Independent peer review

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  Editorial assessment

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  Revision where required

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  Final editorial decision

Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, provide objective and constructive evaluations, disclose conflicts of interest, and avoid inappropriate or discriminatory comments. The final publication decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief or an authorised handling editor. Payment of an Article Processing Charge does not guarantee publication and does not influence peer-review or editorial decisions.

GTA is committed to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record. The following forms of misconduct are not tolerated:

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  Plagiarism

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  Fabrication or falsification of data

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  Duplicate or redundant publication

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  Citation manipulation

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  Peer-review manipulation

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  Authorship manipulation

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  Inappropriate image manipulation

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  Misrepresentation of research findings

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  Undisclosed conflicts of interest

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  Research conducted without required ethical approval

Suspected misconduct may result in manuscript rejection, investigation, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other appropriate action. Where appropriate, GTA follows recognised principles and guidance issued by organisations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics.

All manuscripts submitted to GTA journals must represent original scholarly work. Authors must appropriately acknowledge and cite the ideas, words, data, figures, tables, and intellectual contributions of others. GTA journals may use plagiarism or similarity-detection software during editorial screening. Similarity percentages are evaluated in context and are not used as the sole basis for determining plagiarism. Substantive plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, duplicate publication, redundant publication, or excessive reuse of previously published work may result in rejection or post-publication action. Manuscripts must not normally be under simultaneous consideration by another journal.

Authorship must reflect genuine scholarly contribution and accountability. Individuals listed as authors should have made substantial contributions to the research and must approve the submitted and final versions of the manuscript. Gift authorship, honorary authorship, guest authorship, and ghost authorship are not acceptable. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that:

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  All authors approve the submission

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  Author information is accurate

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  Relevant declarations are complete

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  All authors approve the final version

GTA encourages the use of contributor statements, including the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy where appropriate. Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be justified and may require written agreement from all affected authors.

Authors remain fully responsible for all material submitted to and published by GTA journals, including content produced or modified using artificial intelligence tools. AI systems must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies should be transparently disclosed where these tools contribute materially to:

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  Text generation

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  Data analysis

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  Programming

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  Image creation

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  Data processing

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  Research interpretation

Authors must verify the accuracy, originality, references, data integrity, and ethical appropriateness of AI-assisted outputs. Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or unpublished research material into publicly accessible AI systems where confidentiality cannot be adequately protected. Automated AI-detection tools may support editorial screening, but no misconduct decision should be based solely on an automated detection score without appropriate human assessment.

Authors, reviewers, editors, and other individuals involved in publication must disclose interests or relationships that could influence, or appear to influence, professional judgment. Potential conflicts may include:

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  Financial interests

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  Employment

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  Consultancies

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  Research funding

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  Institutional relationships

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  Personal relationships

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  Academic competition

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  Intellectual property interests

Authors must include a Conflict of Interest or Competing Interests statement. Where no relevant conflict exists, authors may state: "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Reviewers and editors must decline or disclose assignments where their impartiality could reasonably be questioned.

Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, personal information, experiments, or other ethically sensitive activities must comply with applicable institutional and national ethical requirements. Where formal ethical approval is required, authors should provide:

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  Name of the approving institution or ethics committee

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  Approval or reference number where available

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  Relevant informed-consent information

Authors must protect participant privacy, confidentiality, dignity, and legal rights. Where research involves animals, applicable ethical and welfare standards must be followed. GTA encourages authors to make supporting research data available in appropriate repositories where ethically, legally, and commercially permissible. Published articles may include a Data Availability Statement.

GTA journals operate on an open-access publishing model. Published articles are made freely available online without subscription barriers. Unless otherwise stated, authors retain copyright in their published work and grant Global Talent Academy the right of first publication. GTA recommends publication under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). Under this licence, users may share and adapt published material provided appropriate attribution is given. Article copyright is separate from copyright relating to the GTA website, logos, journal design, and publisher-owned material. Authors may normally deposit published open-access articles in institutional repositories, subject repositories, academic profiles, and personal scholarly websites, provided the Version of Record is properly cited.

GTA journals may charge an Article Processing Charge to support editorial administration, publishing operations, digital dissemination, and open-access publication. Unless otherwise stated by an individual journal, the Standard Article Processing Charge is USD 120 per accepted article. There is no fee solely for submitting a manuscript for editorial consideration. The APC becomes payable only after the manuscript has successfully completed the required editorial and peer-review process and has received formal acceptance. Payment of the APC:

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  Does not influence reviewer selection

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  Does not influence peer-review reports

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  Does not influence editorial decisions

Any mandatory taxes, payment-processing charges, or other publication-related fees will be disclosed before payment. Where waiver or discount programmes are available, eligibility requirements will be stated by the relevant journal.

GTA is committed to maintaining an accurate and trustworthy scholarly record. Post-publication actions may include:

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  Corrections

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  Corrigenda or errata

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  Expressions of concern

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  Retractions

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  Article removal in exceptional circumstances

Retractions may be considered where findings are unreliable because of serious error, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, peer-review manipulation, unethical research, or other major integrity concerns. Retracted articles will normally remain accessible as part of the scholarly record and will be clearly identified as retracted. Authors may submit an appeal where they believe a significant factual, methodological, or procedural error affected an editorial decision. Complaints concerning editorial conduct, reviewer conduct, conflicts of interest, delays, publication ethics, or administrative procedures may be submitted to the GTA Editorial Office. Complaints and appeals will be handled objectively, confidentially, and fairly.

GTA recognises the importance of long-term preservation, accurate metadata, and reliable scholarly identification. Published content and associated metadata are maintained through GTA's digital publishing infrastructure and operational backup procedures. As GTA's publishing programme develops, appropriate recognised external digital-preservation arrangements may also be implemented. Structured metadata may include:

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  Journal title, ISSN/eISSN, article title, author names, affiliations

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  ORCID identifiers, abstract, keywords, volume and issue

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  Publication dates, DOI, funding information, licence information

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  References, conflict-of-interest statement, Data Availability Statement

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  Author contribution information

Where DOI registration is available, each eligible article will receive a unique DOI linked to a stable article landing page. GTA encourages authors to provide valid ORCID identifiers to improve author identification and metadata quality.