Editorial Policies

Articles are submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere previously and that they are not being submitted simultaneously to another journal.

If the author uses materials protected by copyright, it is the author’s responsibility to acquire any necessary permissions, and they are personally responsible for the payment of any fees related to copyright that may be applicable. Authors are also responsible for obtaining any ethical clearance necessary for the publication of their article.

Pre-print: The author needs to declare that a preprint is available during submission and must include a link to the location of the preprint. Should the submission be published, the author is expected to update the information associated with the preprint version to show that a final version has been published in NPL, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.

Editors and Editorial Staff as Authors: Editorial staff or editors shall not be involved in the processing of their own academic work. Articles authored by editorial staff/editors will be assigned to two independent reviewers. Decisions will be made by other editorial board members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author on whether their submissions ought to be published or not.

Competing Interests: Authors, peer reviewers and editors are required to disclose any competing interests that might influence their decisions and conclusions around their work.

Editorial independence and ethical practice: The editorial decision-making process is independent of all commercial concerns. The publisher is not involved in the decision-making process of publication. Please refer to the Ethics section for ethical practices for authors, reviewers and editors. 

Use of Artificial Intelligence: Authors can use AI-based tools in assisting with writing, e.g., spelling and grammar, style, and similarity checks. But the journal does not attribute authorship to AI nor accept AI-generated images or AI-generated content in its publications.

Transfer between Journals: Editors/publisher can make recommendations of other suitable AT Journals should the initial submission be declined due to being outside of the scope. We do not allow manuscripts to be submitted to more than one journal at a time, but will endeavour to ensure that the process of transferring a paper between journals is as efficient and as swift as possible.

Plagiarism & Malpractice: The journal/publisher takes any academic misconduct seriously and has zero-tolerance towards plagiarism. Authors must carry out a similarity check and make a declaration when submitting their work. Where a paper is suspected or discovered to be based on plagiarism, the editor will take prompt steps to investigate and to notify readers. The paper will be corrected or retracted depending on the severity of the case. Please refer to the Malpractice section for our policies and practices.

Appeals & Complaints: Should an individual wish to submit an appeal, complaint or raise an issue of potential misconduct regarding the journal or its content, they should contact the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and/or the publisher to explain their concerns. The EiC and/or publisher will assess the nature of the complaint and/or appeal following the Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)