Ethical issues and best practices have become a major problem due to the convergence of various threats, such as the growth of paper mills, the emergence of generative AI, and the abusive use of publication fees, even in contexts defined as non-profit. The SciELO Program has created the SciELO Ethics Office to deal professionally and systematically with the fight against fraudulent actions. SciELO Ethics should be formally established in 2025.
When there is a demand, the coordinator must appoint an Evaluation Committee to the Scientific Committee, which will be made up of:
In 2023, on the occasion of the SciELO Network Meeting, SciELO Ethics – Office of Ethics and Good Practices in Research Communication of the SciELO Program was established with the aim of supporting journal editors, collections, SciELO Preprints, SciELO Data and SciELO Books in managing issues, events and processes related to ethics and good practices in research communication.
The intervention of SciELO Ethics may be requested by a communication, whether from readers, authors, referees, editors, journal and book publishers or SciELO Network coordinators.
Whenever necessary, the SciELO Ethics coordinators will set up a working group to analyze the cases and draw up an opinion which will be forwarded to the SciELO Brazil Advisory Committee (AC) or to the coordinators of the national collection, who will give the final go-ahead.