EBD is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. Researchers should conduct their research – from proposal to publication – in line with best practices and codes of conduct of relevant professional bodies and/or national and international regulatory bodies.

For specific guidelines on the mandatory statements that are required for each article type, please view the individual article type pages below:

1. Commentaries 
2. Systematic Reviews 
3. Methodology 
4. Book Reviews 

The below contains general guidance regarding ethics and policies at Evidence-Based Dentistry.

Authorship

Requirements for all categories of articles should conform to the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals’ developed by the ICMJE (www.icmje.org).

Each author must have contributed sufficiently to the intellectual content of the submission. The corresponding author should list all authors and their contributions to the work. The corresponding author must confirm that he or she has had full access to the data in the study and final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

To qualify as a contributing author, each person must meet ALL the following criteria:

1. Conceived and/or designed the work that led to the submission, acquired data and/or played an important role in interpreting the results.
2. Drafted or revised the manuscript.
3. Approved the final version.
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated.

Contributions by individuals who made direct contributions to the work but do not meet all of the above criteria should be noted in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. 

Changes to authorship: It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that the author list is correct at the point of first submission. Requests to change the authorship (such as to include or exclude an author, or change an author's name) must be accompanied by a completed Authorship Change Form, which is available from the Editorial Office upon request. New authors must also confirm that they fully comply with the journal's authorship requirements. Requests for addition or removal of authors as a result of authorship disputes (after acceptance) are honoured after formal notification by the institute or independent body and/or when there is agreement between all authors. Changes to the authorship will not be allowed once the manuscript has been accepted for publication.

Artificial Intelligence

Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript. See this page for more information on our current AI policies.

Transparency and Ethics

 

Competing interests

Competing interests are defined as those that, through their potential influence on behaviour or content, or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a publication. Whilst financial relationships are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest (and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors and science itself), conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition and intellectual passion.

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own judgments of potential bias, authors must declare whether or not there are any competing financial and non-financial interests in relation to the work described. This information must be included in both their cover letter and in the Mandatory Statements section of the manuscript. In cases where the authors declare a competing interest, a statement to that effect is published as part of the article. If no such conflict exists, the statement will simply read that the authors have nothing to disclose. For the purposes of this statement, competing interests can include any of the following:

• Funding: Research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia and other expenses) by organisations that may gain or lose financially through this publication. The role of the funding body in the design of the study, collection and analysis of data and decision to publish should be stated.
• Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through this publication. This includes positions on an advisory board, board of directors, or other type of management relationship.
• Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organisations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication.
• A close relationship with, or a strong antipathy to, a person whose interests may be affected by publication of the article.
• An academic link or rivalry with someone whose interests may be affected by publication of the article.
• Membership in a political party or special interest group whose interests may be affected by publication of the article.
• A deep personal or religious conviction that may have affected what the author wrote and that readers should be aware of when reading the article.

The competing interests statement must contain an explicit and unambiguous statement describing any potential conflict of interest, or lack thereof, for any of the authors as it relates to the subject of the report. Neither the precise amount received from each entity nor the aggregate income from these sources needs to be provided. Professional services include any activities for which the individual is, has been, or will be compensated with cash, royalties, fees, stock or stock options in exchange for work performed, advice or counsel provided, or for other services related to the author’s professional knowledge and skills. This would include, but not necessarily be limited to, the identification of organisations from which the author received contracts or in which he or she holds an equity stake if professional services were provided in conjunction with the transaction.

Examples:

• Ethics declarations
  The authors declare no conflict of interest.
• Ethics declarations
  Dr Caron's work has been funded by the NIH. He has received compensation as a member of the scientific advisory board of Acadia Pharmaceutical and owns stock in the company. He also has consulted for Lundbeck and received compensation. Dr Rothman and Dr Jensen declare no potential conflict of interest.

Where an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list, we recommend they declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers approached for assessment of submitted articles are also requested to declare conflicts of interest that may impede their judgement of that article. This includes competing research in the same area that could be negatively affected by publication of the submitted article.

In-house submissions

In-house submissions are defined as those that are submitted by Editors, Editorial Board Members, or other journal staff associated wiht the publication of Evidence-Based Dentistry.

Evidence-Based Dentistry’s Editors and Editorial Board Members are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

In addition, Editorial Board Members should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors.

Where an Editorial Board Member is an author or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another editor will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript. Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal, these submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Consent to publish

If any patient-identifiable data or images are included in the article, authors must include a statement confirming that written consent to publish was obtained from the patient (or next of kin if applicable). If written consent has not been obtained, the data/image will need to be removed.

Pre- and Post-Submissions

 

Preprints

Preprint posting is not considered as prior publication and will not jeopardise consideration at EBD. The original submitted version of the manuscript (the version that has not undergone peer review) may be posted at any time. Authors should disclose details of preprint posting, including the DOI, upon submission of the Systematic Review to EBD, and appropriately reference the preprint within the text of the main manuscript or alternatively in the Acknowledgements section.

Preprints should be cited in the reference list as below:

• Cheng DK, Oni R E, Park Y et al. Oncogenic KRAS engages an RSK1/NF1 complex in pancreatic cancer. BioRxiv. Preprint posted online 14 September 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.14.295394.

Upon acceptance in EBD, if you have posted a preprint on any preprint server, please ensure that the preprint details are updated with a publication reference, including the DOI and a URL to the published version of the article on the journal website.

Self-archiving post-publication

For Systematic Reviews published under a standard licence, the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (authors’ accepted version of the manuscript) may only be posted 6 months after the paper is published, consistent with our self-archiving embargo. Please note that the Author’s Accepted Manuscript may not be released under a Creative Commons licence. For our Terms of Reuse of archived manuscripts, please click here.

Misconduct

 

Duplicate publication

Papers submitted to EBD must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This rule also applies to non-English language publications. Springer Nature is a member of CrossCheck, a multi-publisher initiative used to screen published and submitted content for originality. EBD uses CrossCheck to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Any suspected cases of covert duplicate manuscript submission/publication will be handled as outlined in the COPE guidelines and the Editor may contact the authors’ institution.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the practice of an author attempting to pass off someone else's work as his or her own. Whereas duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. If a case of plagiarism comes to light after a paper is published, the journal will conduct a preliminary investigation, utilising the COPE guidelines. If plagiarism is proven, the journal will contact the author's institute and funding agencies as appropriate. The paper containing the plagiarism may also be formally retracted or subject to correction.