1. General Provisions
1.1. The Retraction Policy of the journal “Geology and Geochemistry of Combustible Minerals” defines the procedure, grounds, and process for withdrawing (retracting) scientific articles published in the journal in order to ensure academic integrity, reliability of scientific results, and compliance with ethical standards of scholarly publishing.
1.2. In its editorial activities, the journal adheres to the principles of scientific ethics, the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and the current legislation of Ukraine.
1.3. Retraction of an article is an official mechanism for correcting the scholarly record in cases where a published work contains significant violations or errors that affect the reliability of the results or conclusions.
1.4. Retraction is not a form of punishment for authors but is intended to inform the scientific community about the invalidity or unreliability of published materials.
2. Grounds for Article Retraction
2.1. Grounds for retracting an article may include:
- detection of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, or improper borrowing;
- fabrication, falsification, or significant distortion of scientific data;
- serious methodological or factual errors that render the results unreliable;
- duplicate publication (in whole or in part) in other outlets without proper citation;
- violation of authorship principles (unjustified inclusion or exclusion of authors);
- violation of ethical standards in conducting research;
- submission of false information regarding conflicts of interest.
3. Initiation of the Retraction Procedure
3.1. Retraction may be initiated by:
- the author(s) of the article;
- the journal’s editorial board;
- reviewers;
- readers or third parties who provide substantiated evidence of violations.
3.2. Notifications of possible grounds for retraction are considered by the editorial board, with the involvement of independent experts if necessary.
4. Retraction Procedure
4.1. The editorial office notifies the author(s) about the initiation of the retraction review process and provides them with an opportunity to submit explanations.
4.2. The consideration of a retraction request is carried out by the editorial board within no more than 30 calendar days from the receipt of a substantiated claim.
4.3. Based on the review results, the journal’s editorial board (or the Editor-in-Chief on the basis of its decision) shall decide to:
- retract the article;
- publish a correction (corrigendum);
- refuse retraction in the absence of sufficient grounds.
4.4. The decision on retraction is documented in official minutes and published on the journal’s official website.
5. Retraction Notice
5.1. In the event of a decision to retract, the journal publishes a separate retraction notice in Ukrainian (and, if necessary, in English) which:
- clearly identifies the retracted article (title, authors, date, DOI);
- provides a clear explanation of the reasons for retraction;
- states who initiated the process (author, editorial office, etc.);
- is openly accessible to all readers free of charge.
5.2. The journal does not remove the original article but:
- marks it as “RETRACTED” on all pages;
- provides a hyperlink to the retraction notice;
- updates the relevant metadata, bibliographic records, and indexing databases accordingly.
5.3. If necessary, the journal notifies the relevant institutions where the research was conducted.
6. Final Provisions
6.1. Information on retracted articles is submitted to scientometric databases and repositories in which the journal is indexed.
6.2. The Retraction Policy is open and mandatory for all participants in the editorial process.