To strengthen academic integrity, standardize manuscript submission, review, editing and publication, and prevent academic misconduct, Geotechnical Engineering Technique has developed this Publishing Ethics Statement for authors, reviewers, editors and publishers in accordance with the Code of Publishing Ethics for Scientific and Technological Journals and the actual operation of the journal.

(1) The term “publishing ethics” in this statement refers to the ethical standards, professional conduct and codes of practice that all parties involved in scientific journal publishing should follow.

(2) Academic misconduct refers to behaviors that violate academic norms and professional ethics, mainly including fabrication, falsification and plagiarism:

Fabrication: Making up data or results without any factual basis.

Falsification: Altering or distorting data or results through improper means.

Plagiarism: Taking others’ ideas, works or data as one’s own without proper attribution, including full or partial copying, paraphrasing, plagiarism of viewpoints, and plagiarism of the full text.Other forms include inappropriate authorship, duplicate submission, redundant publication, salami slicing, and violations of research ethics.

(3) The journal uses the CNKI Academic Misconduct Literature Check System (AMLC) and Wanfang Similarity Check to screen all submitted manuscripts.

Manuscripts with a similarity rate over 15% will be rejected directly.

For manuscripts with a similarity rate below 10%, further evaluation will be conducted:① If the duplicated content constitutes the main results or core viewpoints of the paper, the manuscript will not be accepted.② After removing overlapping content and providing proper citations, if the remaining content cannot support a complete and meaningful paper, the manuscript will be considered lacking academic value for publication.

(4) A Conflict of Interest refers to a situation where secondary interests such as financial benefits or personal relationships may compromise the objectivity, impartiality or professional judgment of individuals involved in research and publication.

1. Ethics for Authors

(1) Authors are responsible for the authenticity and integrity of their work. They should provide raw data, original images, project approval documents and funding information upon the editorial office’s request.

(2) Upon submission, authors must submit a Copyright Transfer Agreement to confirm that the manuscript is original, not under consideration elsewhere, free of confidentiality issues, and without authorship disputes.

(3) Authors must strictly observe the “Five Prohibitions”: no ghostwriting, no third-party submission, no unauthorized third-party revision, no false reviewer information, and no violation of authorship ethics.

(4) Authorship is limited to those who have made substantial contributions to the research conception, design, data acquisition, analysis or interpretation; drafting or critical revision of the manuscript; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Others who provided support may be acknowledged but should not be listed as authors.

(5) The order of authors should be determined by contribution and confirmed before submission. Any changes to authorship or affiliation after submission require a written application signed by all authors.

(6) Normally only one corresponding author is allowed. Under special multi-institutional cooperation circumstances, no more than two corresponding authors may be approved.

(7) Equal contributions should be clearly indicated at the time of submission, normally limited to two authors.

(8) Author affiliations should be relevant to the research work. The institution that provided the main research conditions should be listed as the primary affiliation.

(9) For research involving human subjects, authors must ensure informed consent and protect personal privacy.

(10) For animal experiments, authors must comply with the Guidelines for Ethical Review of Laboratory Animal Welfare.

(11) Authors must disclose any potential Conflict of Interest when submitting the manuscript.

(12) Authors may submit a written appeal if they disagree with the review outcome.

2. Ethics for Reviewers

(1) Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts objectively, honestly and fairly, without discrimination based on country, institution, race, gender, religion or political belief.

(2) All manuscript information is treated as strictly confidential.

(3) Reviewers should proactively recuse themselves if a Conflict of Interest exists with the authors.

(4) Review comments should be constructive, professional and free of unfair or malicious criticism.

(5) Reviewers should complete reviews in a timely manner and must not entrust others to review manuscripts without permission.

(6) Reviewers should notify the editorial office if they have previously reviewed the same manuscript.

3. Ethics for Editors

(1) Editors evaluate every manuscript fairly and make decisions based on academic quality, originality, scientific rigor and relevance to the journal.

(2) Editors maintain strict confidentiality of manuscripts, author information and reviewer identities.

(3) Editors respect the independence of the peer-review process and will not interfere with review results due to personal or external interests.

(4) Editors verify the information of recommended reviewers and avoid conflicts of interest.

(5) Reviewers from the same institution as authors or authors themselves will not be selected as reviewers.

(6) Editors will recuse themselves from handling manuscripts if a Conflict of Interest exists.

(7) Editors take authors’ appeals seriously and may organize re-evaluation or further review when necessary.

(8) Editors may consider publishing well-designed negative results to avoid unnecessary repetitive research.

(9) Editors conduct similarity checks twice to prevent duplicate submission and redundant publication.

(10) Editors remind authors of potential copyright issues related to changes in authorship or affiliation.

(11) Editors provide clear, detailed and reasonable decisions for all manuscripts.

(12) Editors maintain objective and respectful communication and avoid personal comments or attacks on authors and reviewers.

4. Ethics for Publishers

(1) The journal upholds the principles of objectivity and impartiality throughout the review and publication process.

(2) The journal reserves the right to reject accepted manuscripts if academic misconduct is identified, and may notify the authors’ institution and relevant journals.

(3) The journal will retract published articles with confirmed academic misconduct and publish retraction notices.

(4) The journal publishes and regularly updates complete guidelines for authors.

(5) The journal maintains a Conflict of Interest policy for editors, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.