Ethics code

Salt and Seawater Science & Technology (hereinafter referred to as SSS&T) is an international, peer-reviewed and Open Access journal publishing outstanding and informative papers in all fields (see keywords, “Instruction to Authors”) of seawater sciences and salt technologies, including science, engineering, agriculture, fisheries, and food science, ranging fundamental principles to practical applications. SSS&T is fully peer-reviewed and upholds the highest standards research and publishing ethics. This journal is published by the Society of Sea Water Science, Japan (hereinafter referred to as SWSJ).

Describe any ethical rules that are not included in the “Instruction to Authors”. If the contents of “Ethics Code” overlap with the “Instruction to Authors”, the contents of the “Instruction to Authors” shall take precedence.

Journal & Ethics Policies

SSS&T upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing.

Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.

The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere.

If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in SSS&T, they should first withdraw it from SSS&T.

Originality
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.

Authorship
Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes to the author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names, or a rearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor.

Authors are encouraged to consider the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations on ‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors’. The ICMJE recommends that authorship is based on four criteria: making a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; approving the final version of the manuscript for publication; and agreeing to be held accountable for all aspects of the work. Any contributor who has met all four criteria should be an author on the manuscript. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should not be authors of the manuscript but may be included in the Acknowledgements section instead.

Image integrity
Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

Reproducing copyrighted material
If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.
If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it.
Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.

Availability of data and materials
Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.

Authors may make their own data and materials available in Supplementary Material, or by linking from their manuscript to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, and must be made publicly available by the date of publication. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least three years from the date of publication in the journal.

The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.

Animal/human experimentation (Duplicates the “Instruction to Authors”, reposted)
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research.

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s).

Specimen collection
Manuscripts describing the collection of archaeological, geological, paleontological or wildlife specimens or samples should include detailed information on their provenance and collection methods. Authors must include a statement in their manuscript describing the relevant ethics guidelines, local laws and collection permits under which the research was conducted.

Clinical trial registration
The journal adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on Clinical Trials Registration, which recommends that all clinical trials are registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. Manuscripts describing clinical trials must include the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry.

Reporting guidelines
The journal requires authors to follow the EQUATOR Network’s Reporting Guidelines for health research. Study types include, but are not limited to, randomized trials, observational studies, systematic reviews, case reports, qualitative research, diagnostic and prognostic studies, economic evaluations, animal pre-clinical studies and study protocols.

Author competing interests and conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.

Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section of their manuscript.

Confidentiality
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy
Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. SSS&T encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal.

Long-term digital archiving
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including [the journal], with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.

Editorial independence
SWSJ has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. SWSJ will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.

Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

Appeals
Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where and when relevant.

Confidentiality in peer review
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors and reviewers will not:

Conflicts of interest in peer review
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.

Members of the journal’s Editorial Board and reviewers undertake or are asked to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor or reviewer who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript in question and is replaced by a new editor or reviewer.

Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias.

Errata and retractions
The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.

A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum. Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the editor who handled their manuscript or the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes. In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Correction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been published elsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may be retracted. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Editors as authors in the journal
Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief who is an author on a submitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review process and from viewing details about their manuscript.

A manuscript authored by an editor of SSS&T is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.
Responding to potential ethical breaches
The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines of COPE.

Waiver policy
The journal will waive the APC on an article if none of the authors are professionally affiliated with a research organization, or if all authors are from a “Least Developed Country” or “Other Low Income Country” on the OECD’s qualifying country list. Other waivers will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the journal’s Editorial Office. Authors must apply for a waiver before or upon the submission of their manuscript; applications will not be considered after the review process has started. Applications may be made by email to the right person.

The ability of an author to pay the APC does not influence editorial decisions. To avoid any possibility of undue influence, editors involved with the decision-making process on submitted manuscripts are not involved in any deliberations on waivers.
Manuscript Submission
All manuscripts must be submitted via email to the Editor-in-Chief via edit[atmark]aiselect.co.jp. Upon initial submission, please provide files that contains the text, tables, figures and any other material, as well as a submission form, which is available from https://swsj.org/academic-journal/salt-and-seawater-science-technology/submit-your-paper/. Instructions for revised manuscripts are provided with the first decision letter, if relevant.

Accepted Manuscripts

See Instruction for Authors, section 7.

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Updated:  1 August 2025