Sport i Turystyka is committed to maintaining high standards of research and publication ethics. This policy follows the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and, where applicable to medical and health research, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
1. Authorship and contributorship
Authors are required to confirm that their manuscript is original, has not been previously published or submitted elsewhere, except where permitted under the Journal's Publishing Policies, and complies with applicable ethical standards.
To qualify as an author, an individual must have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; participated in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content; approved the final version for publication; and agreed to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work.
The Journal uses the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to document individual author contributions. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the contribution statement accurately reflects the work performed and has been agreed upon by all authors.
The following CRediT roles should be used where applicable:
Conceptualization
Ideas; formulation or development of overarching research goals and aims.
Data curation
Management activities to annotate, organize, and maintain research data for initial use and subsequent reuse.
Formal analysis
Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize research data.
Funding acquisition
Acquisition of financial support for the project leading to the publication.
Investigation
Conducting the research and investigation process, including performing experiments or collecting data or evidence.
Methodology
Development or design of methodology and creation of models.
Project administration
Management and coordination responsibility for planning and execution of the research activity.
Resources
Provision of study materials, participants, samples, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analytical resources.
Software
Programming, software development, implementation of computer code and algorithms, or testing of existing software components.
Supervision
Oversight and leadership responsibility for the planning and execution of the research activity, including mentorship external to the core research team.
Validation
Verification of the reproducibility or replication of results, experiments, analyses, or other research outputs.
Visualization
Preparation, creation, and presentation of the published work, particularly visualization or presentation of data.
Writing – original draft
Preparation and creation of the initial manuscript, including substantive translation where applicable.
Writing – review & editing
Critical review, commentary, revision, or editing of the manuscript by members of the research team, including stages before or after publication.
Example CRediT statement:
Marie Skłodowska-Curie: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Albert Einstein: Data curation, Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Rosalind Franklin: Formal analysis, Visualization, Validation. Niels Bohr: Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Alan Turing: Software, Resources, Writing – review & editing. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Changes in authorship and authorship disputes
Requests to add or remove an author or to change the order of authors after manuscript submission must include a clear explanation for the proposed change and written agreement from all authors, including any individual being added or removed.
Changes in authorship after publication, if approved, will be documented through a formal correction.
The Journal does not adjudicate authorship disputes. Where the authors are unable to reach agreement, the matter should be referred to the relevant institution or institutions for resolution.
2. Research ethics
Research involving human participants, human data, or human biological material must comply with applicable ethical, institutional, and legal requirements. Medical and health research involving human participants must be conducted in accordance with the principles of the current World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.
Where ethical review is required, authors must obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review body. The manuscript must identify the reviewing body and provide the approval or reference number, where available. If ethical approval was not required, or if the requirement was formally waived, this must be clearly stated and appropriately justified.
Example – ethics approval:
The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the [full name of ethics committee] (approval no. XXX/XXXX, date of approval: DD Month YYYY).
Example – exemption or waiver:
The requirement for ethical approval was waived by the [full name of committee or institution] because [brief reason] (reference no. XXX/XXXX, if applicable).
Informed consent
Where informed consent is required, authors must confirm that it was obtained from participants or their legally authorized representatives. If the requirement for informed consent was formally waived by the appropriate body, this should be reported.
Example – informed consent:
Written informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from all participants.
Example – consent waived:
The requirement for informed consent was waived by the [name of approving body] because [brief reason].
Privacy and consent for publication
Identifiable information concerning research participants, including photographs, case descriptions, or other material from which an individual could reasonably be identified, may be published only when written informed consent for publication has been obtained from the participant or their legally authorized representative.
Example – consent for publication:
Written informed consent for publication of identifiable information and/or images was obtained from the participant.
Research involving animals
The Journal does not accept manuscripts reporting primary research involving animals.
Reviews, methodological papers, or other manuscripts discussing previously published animal research are not excluded solely on this basis.
3. Acknowledgments
Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be recognized in the Acknowledgments section. Their contribution should be described where appropriate.
Contributions such as general supervision, administrative or technical support, language editing, or proofreading alone do not qualify for authorship. Authors should obtain permission from individuals named in the Acknowledgments.
Example:
The authors thank Nicolaus Copernicus for assistance with data collection and Ignacy Łukasiewicz for language editing of the manuscript.
Disclosure of generative AI use is governed separately by the Journal's Policy on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence.
4. Funding
Authors must disclose all sources of financial support directly related to the research and/or publication of the article. The funding statement should identify the funder and, where applicable, the grant or project number.
Where a funder had a role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit the work for publication, this role should also be disclosed.
Example – funded research:
This research was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, grant number XXXX/XX/X/XX/XXXXX.
If no financial support was received:
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
5. Conflicts of interest
Authors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships or activities that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, interpretation of the findings, or publication of the manuscript.
Potential conflicts may include, but are not limited to, employment or consultancy relationships, honoraria or other payments, financial interests, patents or intellectual property interests, and relevant personal, professional, or academic relationships.
Example – no conflicts of interest:
The authors declare no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Example – conflict disclosed:
Author A has received consulting fees from Company X. The remaining authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Reviewers and editors
Reviewers, editors, and members of the Editorial Board must disclose relationships or activities that could affect, or reasonably appear to affect, their objectivity.
Reviewers should decline an invitation to review when a relevant conflict of interest exists. Editors and other members of the editorial team must not participate in the evaluation or decision-making process for manuscripts where they have a relevant conflict of interest.
Manuscripts submitted by members of the Journal's editorial team will be handled independently of the submitting editor, who will have no involvement in reviewer selection, peer review, or the editorial decision.
6. Plagiarism
Manuscripts submitted to Sport i Turystyka must constitute original work and must appropriately acknowledge and cite the work of others.
All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are screened for text similarity using Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate (Turnitin). Similarity identified by the software is not, by itself, considered evidence of plagiarism. Similarity reports are assessed by the editorial team, and potentially problematic overlap is evaluated in context.
Suspected plagiarism will be handled under the Journal's procedures for research and publication misconduct. Issues relating to duplicate, redundant, or overlapping publication are addressed separately in the Journal's Publishing Policies.
7. Research and publication misconduct
The Journal takes allegations of research and publication misconduct seriously, regardless of whether concerns arise before or after publication. Suspected misconduct will be assessed fairly and proportionately in accordance with relevant COPE guidance and the Journal's established procedures.
Authors will be given an opportunity to respond where appropriate. The Journal may request original data, documentation, ethics approvals, analytical materials, or other information necessary to evaluate the concern.
Where appropriate, and particularly where a matter cannot be adequately investigated by the Journal itself, the Journal may contact the authors' institution, research integrity office, ethics committee, funder, or another relevant body.
Confirmed misconduct may result in rejection of a submitted manuscript or appropriate post-publication action in accordance with the Journal's Publishing Policies.