Editorial Policies
Authorship
Authors in the Synexis journal must fulfill the following criteria:
- Manuscript submitted to Synexis must be written in English.
- Each author is expected to have made significant contributions to the work and to take personal responsibility for their input.
- Additionally, authors are accountable for ensuring that any concerns regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are properly investigated, addressed, and recorded in the published literature.
- Individuals/departments/ funding agencies, who contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship, should be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section, along with a brief description of their specific contribution.
- Additionally, any editorial assistance or services used in preparing the manuscript should be disclosed in this section.
- The corresponding author is responsible for the following:
- Ensuring that all listed authors have reviewed and approved the final manuscript before submission.
- Email addresses should be included along with affiliations.
- Receiving all significant correspondence from the journal, including editorial communications and peer review reports.
- Verifying that all data, materials, and code adhere to the transparency and reprehensibility standards of both the field and the journal.
- Making sure that the entire group of authors is fully informed of and compliant with accepted best practices.
- Upon submission of a new manuscript to a Synexis journal, all listed authors will receive an email containing a link to confirm their authorship. If any author does not provide approval, the manuscript will be rejected.
- Any changes to authorship—including the addition or removal of authors or alterations to the order of authors—must be approved in writing by all originally listed authors.
Images, data, and Text Integrity
Plagiarism is defined as the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property, as well as the substantial, unattributed copying of another’s work. This includes both the use of someone else’s content without proper acknowledgment and self-plagiarism, which refers to the significant reuse of one’s own previously published text or figures without appropriate citation.
Synexis utilizes plagiarism detection software to identify potential cases and adhere to the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when investigating and addressing suspected instances of plagiarism.
AI-Generated Multimedia and Images: AI-generated images and other multimedia are not permitted in the Synexis journal without explicit prior approval from the editors. Exceptions may be granted in specific cases—such as when the manuscript focuses on artificial intelligence or machine learning—provided that the use of AI-generated content is disclosed at the time of submission. These exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The Synexis journal acknowledges that this is a rapidly evolving area, and policies may be revised in response to developments in copyright law and ethical standards for AI use.
Images: All images included in the manuscript must accurately represent the original data.
Peer Review at Synexis
Synexis is a peer-reviewed journal with a rigorous multi-stage editorial screening and assessment process.
First, we undertake an initial in-house quality check to identify potential issues such as competing interests, compliance with ethical standards for studies, financial disclosures, data availability, and other scientific and policy requirements. Submissions may be returned to authors for changes or clarifications at this stage.
After passing quality control, each manuscript is placed with a member of the Editorial Board who conducts peer review and makes the decision to accept, invite revision, or reject the submitted manuscript.
The accepted manuscript will soon be placed on the website to be included. The forthcoming Research submitted to Synexis must comply with internationally accepted standards for research practice and reporting. Issues discovered after publication will be addressed according to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (CoPE)and may lead to a correction, retraction, or expression of concern. The Journal also contacts authors’ institutions as appropriate.
Conflict of Interest
Authors. Each author of a manuscript submitted to a Synexis journal is required to disclose affiliations, funding sources, and competing interests. Specific details about the required disclosures are listed below. This policy applies to research, reviews, and opinion-type articles.
Synexis Journal requires disclosure of:
- Institutional affiliations
The title page of every manuscript must include, for all authors, the academic, corporate, government, industry, and/or other relevant institutional affiliations where the work was performed. - Funding and contributions
All authors must disclose complete and correct information about all financial contributions to the work being reported. This information should be listed in the funding statement in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript and will be included in the final published work. Non-monetary (in-kind) contribution of goods or services may, if appropriate, be cited in published acknowledgments in the manuscript. - Competing interest
A competing interest exists when one’s professional judgment about the execution of the research and/or the presentation of the content is, or could reasonably be perceived to be, influenced by other interests.
Financial competing interests include, but are not limited to:- Awarded, planned, or pending patents, including individual applications belonging to the institution from which the authors may benefit.
- Paid employment or consultancy.
- Received payment for serving as a member of an Advisory Committee or a Board for any material engaged in activity related to the subject matter of the contribution.
Non-financial competing interests that could impact the research reported here include, but are not limited to:
- Acting as an expert witness
- Member of a government or other advisory board
- Writing or consulting for a company whose activities might impact the objectivity of this manuscript
- Personal relationships (e.g., friend, spouse/partner, family member, mentor, adversary) that could affect objectivity
Funding and contributions
All authors must disclose complete and correct information about all financial contributions to the work being reported. This information should be listed in the funding statement in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript and will be included in the final published work. Non-monetary (in-kind) contribution of goods or services may, if appropriate, be cited in published acknowledgments in the manuscript.
Prior Publication
The Synexis journal will not accept any manuscript, or part of it, that has already been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. Dissertations and theses are not treated as prior publications. However, peer-reviewed and citable conference papers are considered prior publications. Online distribution in other forms may also count as prior publication and may affect the manuscript’s originality for Synexis. While a manuscript is under review at Synexis, revised versions based on editorial or peer review feedback should not be posted on preprint servers.
We believe that media and online coverage are best done after peer review is complete and the final version is accepted. Posting papers on preprint servers, such as arXiv.org, bioRxiv.org, ChemRxiv.org, and medRxiv.org, is supported after the manuscript is accepted.
Unpublished data and personal communications should not be used to support major claims in a manuscript.
Publication Policies
Copyright and License to Publish
Synexis journal requires that, before manuscript acceptance, authors sign a license agreement granting PNS rights to use and authorize use of their contribution. The authors retain copyright as well as rights to make certain uses of the work, which are described in detail in the information to authors that accompanies the form. Authors should read this information sheet before signing the agreement.
In general, authors will complete the license form during the process of uploading the revised manuscript after peer review.
License to Publish: Information for Authors [PDF]
License to Publish: Form [PDF]
Synexis requires that, before manuscript acceptance, authors sign a license agreement granting PNS exclusive rights to use and authorize use of their contribution.
Access Policies for Authors and Readers
Immediately after publication, authors of peer-reviewed research may post the accepted version of their manuscript on their personal or institutional archival website or in a repository of their choice. The accepted version is the version of the manuscript accepted for publication after changes resulting from peer review and copy editing of the final PDF.
Synexis is an online-only open-access journal from PNS. All content is freely available from the date of publication. It allows readers to distribute, adapt, or reuse articles for non-commercial purposes, while commercial reuse requires permission.
Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions
Synexis adopts the policy guideline of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and the journal is committed to correcting errors in published papers and, where necessary, retracting papers, to maintain the integrity of the scientific record. We encourage authors to promptly notify us when there are concerns related to papers that they have published in our journals. These could range from minor corrections to errors or misconduct that affect the core conclusions of the paper.
Readers with concerns regarding the integrity of a paper published in a Synexis journal should contact the Chief Editor of the subject. Concerns will be investigated following COPE guidelines, which provide authors with an opportunity to respond.
For corrections that do not substantively affect any scientific results, the online version and PDF will be corrected, and this will be noted in the article. For corrections that address scientific accuracy, an independent, citable Erratum that transparently explains the corrections will be published online along with the corrected manuscript version(s). Authors who take responsibility for post-publication corrections ensure the integrity of their work.
In cases of identified errors or irreproducibility of research findings reported in a Synexis paper, a retraction is likely if the core conclusions are thereby invalidated.
Corrections & Retractions Policy
- Minor corrections (not affecting scientific results) will be made to the online and PDF versions of the manuscript, with a note indicating the change.
- Substantive corrections (affecting scientific accuracy) will be published as a citable Erratum, along with the corrected version of the manuscript.
- Authors should promptly inform the journal if they discover errors, ranging from minor issues to problems affecting the main conclusions.
- Readers with concerns about a published paper should contact the Editor in Chief or Chief Editor for that subject area.
- All concerns are investigated according to COPE procedures.
- Authors will be allowed to respond before action is taken.
- A paper will be retracted if errors, misconduct, or irreproducibility invalidate its main conclusions.
- Retractions are issued transparently and are linked to the original article.
Information for Authors
Synexis is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal that publishes significant original scientific research plus reviews. We seek to publish manuscripts that are influential in their fields or across fields and that will substantially advance scientific understanding. The selected manuscript should present novel and broadly important data, syntheses, or concepts. We welcome submissions from all fields of science.
Manuscripts should be submitted to our manuscript submission and information portal. The status of submitted manuscripts can also be tracked at this portal.
Authors should familiarize themselves with the overall editorial policies for Synexis before submitting their manuscript. These policies spell out the rights and responsibilities that authors agree to when submitting and publishing their manuscripts.
Categories of Manuscripts
- Letters
These should be short notes on important scientific discoveries, giving brief results and detailed findings can be published later. - Research Articles
Research articles should not exceed 3000 words (for the main text), plus an abstract, figures or tables with brief legends, references, and a structured acknowledgments section. The main text should be divided into sections with brief subheadings. This should be followed by additional data and figures needed to support the manuscript’s conclusions. All data must be available in either the main text or the supplementary materials or must be deposited at a publicly accessible repository and cited in the manuscript. A PDF of the full article can be downloaded. - Reviews and Analysis
Reviews must be novel, insightful, and authoritative syntheses of fields that have shown wide-reaching progress over the past 3 to 5 years. Reviews are not conference or workshop summaries and cannot contain analysis of unpublished data. Reviews can be up to 5500 words, schematic figures should be produced by the authors and not reproduced from elsewhere. Ideally, there should be 1-3 authors. About 20% of the reference list should refer to the authors’ own work. Unsolicited offers of Reviews are considered. A few solicited reviews are also published.
Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism Chambers Dictionary defines a plagiarist as a kind of thief, “one who steals the thoughts or writings of others and gives them out as his [sic] own”. When this is also used for gain in the University to gain credits for a module or modules, then an additional dimension of dishonesty is added.
Synexis adopts the plagiarism policy implemented by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, defined in https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/policies/Pages/Plagiarism.aspx
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
- Chief Editors
- Artificial Intelligence
- Biosciences
- Chemistry & Material Sciences
- Engineering
- Physics
- President (or representative) of PNS