Journal of Clinical Hepatology adheres to internationally recognized ethical standards in publishing. In light of applicable guidelines issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and taking into account this journal's specific circumstances, we have developed the ethical statement for the publication of the journal. We require all authors, editors, and reviewers to abide by the following guidelines.

1. Publication responsibilities

Journal of Clinical Hepatology aims to promote the prevention and treatment of hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases and the clinical application of the findings of basic research and is committed to serving a vast number of clinicians and researchers. With the emphasis on both theory and practice and the combination of contents at different levels, it provides an overview of the significant progress in the prevention and treatment of hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases in China and the rest of the world, so as to boost the worldwide academic exchanges in the fields of hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases. The contents is new, authentic and reliable. Refuse fraudulent and plagiarism paper to publish. The journal publication is on time.

2. Editorial responsibilities

Editors should be responsible for everything published in the journal, strive to do: improve journal quality constantly to meet the needs of readers and authors; ensure the quality of the material they publish; champion freedom of expression; preclude business needs from compromising intellectual standards; always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed. Willing to help readers communicate to authors. To inform authors the peer-review suggestion and amending idea to satisfy editorial standard in time. Respect peer-review opinion, protect creative enthusiasm of authors at the same time, when the review point of authors and review expert appear serious difference, invite over two experts to reexamine.?

Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article, editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept, only accept a paper when reasonably certain, when errors are found, promote publication of correction or retraction, preserve anonymity of reviewers.

3. Author’s responsibilities

Author’s article must be original works, no plagiarism; the data in article must be real and reliable, no fraudulence; if any errors was found, all authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes; citing outlook should mark out reference; forbid one paper for more than one journal; all authors in paper have significantly contributed to the research.

4. Peer review experts responsibilities

Valuation of Peer review experts for paper should be objective and just, the viewpoint error, intellectual mistakes, serious copy, suspected fake data are once discovered, should feedback to journal editorial department. Whether the paper reached publication criterion, clear opinion should be given. Review experts should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles research content. Review work are conducted under anonymity.?

5. Solving of academic misconduct

In order to enhance the independence and innovation of academic papers in our country, create a fair and equal academic atmosphere, and prevent academic misconduct, the Journal of Clinical Hepatology subjects all submissions to a full-text detection via the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) Academic Misconduct Literature Checking System (AMLC) at https://check7.cnki.net/amlc2/. Full-text comparison is conducted against the Chinese Academic Literature Publishing House database to accurately identify plagiarism, fabrication, tampering, and other academic misconduct behaviors.

For a single article with a repetition rate exceeding 30%, the editor will conduct relevant investigations and verifications for the suspicious issues detected by the software. If plagiarism or other academic misconduct is found, the article will be defined as non-conforming and returned. If academic misconduct, such as plagiarism, is discovered after publication, the published article will be revoked and the author’s unit and related institutions will be notified.