Authors' Ethics
Authors must declare that they are proposing for publication completely original texts that have not been published in other publications. If the proposed text is the result of a team effort, then the author submitting the article must ensure that all co-authors who contributed to the conception, design, implementation and interpretation of the study are included in the article, that they have seen and approved its final version and have agreed to submit it for publication.
It is their personal responsibility to avoid plagiarism in any form.
Ethics in conducting research in the social sciences and humanities
The authors ensure compliance with the principles of social responsibility in conducting sociological and humanities research, by applying the EC Guidelines on Ethics in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
The authors guarantee the protection of the personal data of the participants in the studies, by implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Bulgarian Personal Data Protection Act.
When collecting data, the authors are guided by the following principles:
- Authenticity: the authenticity of the data provided is monitored, and manipulated collection of information from imaginary or real respondents is not proposed.
- Data minimization: only the most necessary data for the purposes of the study are required;
- Anonymization: personal data should be removed as soon as possible;
- Informed consent: informing participants who is conducting the study and for what purpose; informing participants that they have the right to refuse participation without consequences; preventing potential psychological discomfort for participants; ensuring written consent to participate.
The following unscrupulous practices should be avoided:
- fabrication and falsification of data (fabrication of data means that the researcher, without conducting any research, has fabricated the data; falsification of data is the replacement of data obtained during the experiment);
- violation of the principles of data collection and protection of personal information when conducting research;
- plagiarism in scientific texts (plagiarism means using other people's ideas and works, copying texts or their fragments without indicating the source, violating the rules of citation);
- simultaneous submission of materials to several journals;
- duplication of publication (placing the same manuscript in several periodicals damages the reputation of the scientist and the journals);
- failure to comply with the copyright of their co-authors - the supervisor or colleagues (indicate all those who contributed to the research, including students and laboratory assistants);
- fictitious multiple authorship (if the article is written in co-authorship, then each author must be associated with the process of preparing the article, have scientific interests in this area).
In case of violation of author's ethics, the article may be rejected at any stage of its preparation for publication. If a violation is detected after publication, the articles are withdrawn unilaterally by decision of the editorial board.
Copyright and Distribution Rights
The authors retain copyright in the work and grant the journal the right to first publish the work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to distribute the work, as long as they properly cite the authors and the original work.
The authors reserve the right to enter into separate contractual agreements regarding the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work as published in the journal (e.g., placing it in library repositories, publishing it in a book), with reference to its first publication in this journal.
The authors have the right to publish their work on the Internet (e.g., in an institute repository, in a scholarly database, or on a personal website), indicating its bibliographic data in this journal, as this may lead to productive discussion and more references to this work.
Open Access
The articles published in the Journal are open access articles, distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs 4.0 license.
The Journal allows the author to deposit the accepted version of the manuscript, as well as the published version in PDF format, in institutional repositories and other non-commercial repositories, as well as to publish it on his personal website or on the website of the respective academic institution (including on social networks, e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) at any time after publication in the Journal and in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs 4.0 license. The Journal must be indicated as the original source along with a link to the publication in
