Editorial Policies for Transparency and Ethics in the Editorial Process

The Spanish Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics (RENHyD) is the scientific journal of the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (the Academy). It publishes quarterly (March 31st; June 30th; September 30th; and December 31st) scientific articles that have been peer-reviewed anonymously. The journal publishes original articles on clinical and hospital nutrition; applied dietetics and diet therapy; community nutrition and public health; basic and applied nutrition; food and health education; collective, social and commercial catering; culinary technology and gastronomy; bromatology; toxicology and food safety; food culture; psychology, sociology and anthropology of food; humanitarian cooperation; and, in short, all areas of human nutrition and dietetics.

Table of contents:

Editorial Independence policy
Authorship policy
Editorial process and peer review policy
Open Access policy, copyright and warranties
Plagiarism detection policy, publication, redundant or duplicate publication and recycling of text
Human and animal research policy
Confidentiality, data protection and ethics policy
Unrestricted data access policy
Information policy on sources of financing
Conflict of interest policy
Retraction policy
Complaints policy in manuscript management
Editorial inbreeding policy
Archiving policies
Sex & Gender Policy

RENHyD follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding the principles of transparency and best practices in academic publishing. These principles can be consulted here.

Failure to comply with RENHyD policies may be grounds for rejection of the manuscript. Once the manuscript has been accepted or published, corrections or retractions may be issued as appropriate. The Editorial Committee reserves the right to confirm information by other means and to contact the author's institution if necessary.

1. Editorial Independence policy

RENHyD is funded by the Academy. The editorial team is independent in the management and decision-making regarding the manuscript evaluation process. The profile of the editorial team can be consulted here.

The members of the editorial team are obliged to maintain the confidentiality of the sensitive data of authors, readers and reviewers and may not share journal data with third parties.

2. Authorship policy

According to the Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals of the International Committee of Medical Journals (ICMJ), a person is considered to be an author of a paper when he/she has contributed intellectually to its development. The 4 mandatory criteria for authorship are:

1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.

2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.

3) Final approval of the version to be published.

4) Agreement 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 editorial team declines any responsibility for possible conflicts derived from the authorship of the papers published in RENHyD. Likewise, in the case of a request for a change of authorship of a manuscript, received or already published, the decision tree recommended by COPE is followed.

3. Editorial process and peer review policy

Manuscripts received will follow the editorial process described in detail in point 3 of this document. RENHyD follows a peer review process with external experts in the subject matter of the manuscript. In the event that after a period of more than one month the acceptance of the external persons has not been achieved, a person from the editorial team may act as a reviewer in order to preserve editorial time. Reviewers must adhere to the recommendations of the guidelines which can be consulted here.

The person from the editorial team in charge of managing the manuscript will issue an editorial decision based on the comments of the external reviewers, provided that the review is of sufficient quality. Within one month, the authors must send a point-by-point response letter through the system along with a version of the manuscript with the changes marked in a different color. If the revision is not received one week after the deadline, the manuscript will be automatically rejected.

The editorial team reserves the right to reject those articles that it considers unsuitable for publication, indicating the reason for rejection. In addition, stylistic modifications may be introduced and/or shortening of the texts that require it, with the commitment to respect the initial conceptual content of the original.

If the manuscript is accepted, an advance online version will be published, which may not be the final version. The final version will be sent to the authors prior to publication for review.

4. Open Access policy, copyright and warranties

RENHyD is Open Access and does not charge for publishing, submitting or reading any manuscript according to the definition of the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative.

The reuse of the works can be made under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. The authors retain copyright of the version published in RENHyD.

The submission of any information, including graphics, images or illustrations sent through the editorial system, shall require the acceptance of the following conditions:

The author guarantees that all the information included in the manuscript submitted through the system is original, unpublished, of his/her authorship, and that it has not been previously published.
The author is responsible for having the pertinent authorizations for their inclusion in the manuscript in case they are not original, unpublished or of his/her authorship.

RENHyD disclaims any responsibility for the information contained in the manuscript and, if necessary, additional information may be requested. Before using content from articles published in other journals, you should review the licensing conditions that have been applied to that article.

5. Plagiarism detection policy, publication, redundant or duplicate publication and recycling of text

RENHyD fights against plagiarism and does not accept under any circumstances the publication of plagiarized materials.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

Direct copying of text, ideas, images or data from other sources without proper, clear and proper attribution.
The recycling of text from an article without the corresponding attribution and approval of the editor.
Using an idea from another source using modified language without proper, clear and proper attribution.

RENHyD follows the decision tree recommended by COPE in case of suspicion of plagiarism of a manuscript received or an article already published. RENHyD reserves the right to contact the author's institution in case of confirmed plagiarism, both before and after publication.

RENHyD does not accept material previously published or submitted simultaneously in other journals, except with the express acceptance of the journals involved.

RENHyD does not allow duplicate publication or substantial recycling of its own text by more than 20%. In the case of detecting such self-plagiarism, the editorial team will evaluate the percentage of recycling based on these guidelines and will make a reasoned decision.

6. Human and animal research policy

No articles conducted on animals will be accepted and studies involving humans must meet the following requirements:

Research will be conducted in accordance with the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments which can be found here.
If necessary, obtain prior approval for research involving human subjects from an institutional review board or research ethics committee. In non-experimental studies in which information is collected anonymously, it is not mandatory to have ethics committee approval as stated in the ethical guidelines for health-related research involving humans. There are other exceptions that can also be consulted here.
It will be necessary to include in the methodology section of the manuscript the ethical declaration of the research. If the study requires it, it should include information on the collection of informed consent and the approval of the ethics committee. If informed consent or ethics approval is not required, it should be justified in this section.

Priority for publication will be given to those studies that have officially registered their protocol online, with the AllTrials initiative, or that have published it in a scientific journal. In this section, the registration number or publication reference should be provided. In the case of clinical trial studies or systematic reviews and meta-analyses, it will be necessary to have a registry for publication. Recommendations of registry portals for clinical trials ClinicalTrials.gov or ISRCTN Registry and for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, it is recommended to use PROSPERO.

7. Confidentiality, data protection and ethics policy

7.1. Patient privacy and informed consent for publication

RENHyD defends the right to anonymity, taking all necessary measures to protect the privacy of those who participate in research and in the publication of articles.

Authors should avoid providing information that could identify the persons participating in the research. In those cases where it is strictly necessary for its presentation, the initials should be indicated, never the full name, and the written consent of the person must be obtained for the use of this information. In the event of detecting after publication that the information provided would allow the identification of the persons included in the research without their corresponding consent, it will be temporarily withdrawn or rejected after evaluation by the editorial team.

7.2. Privacy of journal users

7.2.1. User information

The academy is the entity responsible for the processing of the User's personal data and informs you that these data will be processed in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of 27 April (GDPR) and Organic Law 3/2018 of 5 December (LOPDGDD), for which the following processing information is provided:

Purpose of processing: to achieve the objective of being a leading journal in the field of human nutrition and dietetics. The operations foreseen to carry out the processing are:

Collect and process data provided by users through the platform.
To process requests or any type of request that is made by the user through any of the forms of contact that are made available to the user.

Data conservation criteria: The data of readers, authors, reviewers and editors will be kept in the database for the time necessary for the performance of the activities for which they were included in the database or for the years necessary to comply with legal obligations, ensuring that they are not kept for longer than necessary to maintain the purpose of the processing, and when no longer necessary for that purpose, they will be deleted with appropriate security measures to ensure the anonymization of the data or the total destruction of the data.

Communication of data: Data will not be communicated to third parties, unless legally required.

Rights:

Right to remove your data from the platform at any time.
Right of access, rectification, portability and deletion of your data and to limit or oppose its processing.
The right to file a complaint with the supervisory authority, the Spanish Data Protection Agency, if it considers that the processing does not comply with the regulations in force.

Contact information to exercise your rights:

LA ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA DE NUTRICIÓN Y DIETÉTICA (Revista Española de Nutrición Humana y Dietética). C/Luis Morondo nº 4 entreplanta derecha oficina 5 31006 Pamplona, Navarra, España. Email: secretaria@academianutricion.org Telephone: 93 487 00 80.

DPO contact details: D. Giuseppe Russolillo, que sita en C/Luis Morondo nº 4 entreplanta derecha oficina 5 31006 Pamplona, Navarra - secretaria@academianutricion.org

7.2.2. Mandatory or optional nature of the information provided by the user

Readers, authors, reviewers and editors will complete their registration in the RENHyD platform verifying that they are truthful and are responsible for communicating any changes to them.

The Academy expressly informs and guarantees to readers, authors, reviewers and editors that their personal data will not be transferred in any case to third parties, and that whenever any type of transfer of personal data is made, express, informed and unequivocal consent will be requested beforehand. All data requested through the website are mandatory, as they are necessary for the provision of an optimal service to readers, authors, reviewers and editors. If all the data is not provided, there is no guarantee that the information and services provided will be completely tailored to your needs.

7.2.3. Safety measures

In accordance with the provisions of the regulations in force on personal data protection, the Academy is complying with all the provisions of the GDPR regulations for the processing of personal data under its responsibility, and manifestly with the principles described in Article 5 of the GDPR, whereby they are processed lawfully, fairly and transparently in relation to the data subject and are adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed.

The Academy guarantees that it has implemented appropriate technical and organizational policies to apply the security measures established by the GDPR in order to protect the rights of readers, authors, reviewers and publishers and has communicated the appropriate information to them so that they can exercise them.

8. Unrestricted data access policy

RENHyD reserves the right to request authors to make all data related to the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction.

When submitting a manuscript through the article management system, authors must provide in the "cover letter" a statement of acceptance or non-availability of data describing compliance with this policy.

Refusal to share data and metadata as well as methods related to research may be grounds for rejection or expression of concern for retraction (see retraction policy). The RENHyD editorial team encourages researchers to contact them if they have difficulties in obtaining data from articles published in RENHyD.

Appropriate methods for sharing research data will be considered:

In databases (highly recommended method): the deposit of research data in databases that allow obtaining a DOI or a unique identifier is encouraged. RENHYD understands that these are databases appropriate to the subject matter of the journal: BioSharing, Dryad, ClinicalTrials.gov, GigaDB, Open Science Framework, Zenodo, Harvard Dataverse and FigShare among others.
Data in supplementary or additional files: in step 4 of the "Authorship Guide" additional materials can be uploaded which, although they will not be formatted together with the article, will be publicly accessible through the article management system.
Provision of data on request to the corresponding author: authors may suggest to readers that certain data will be sent upon request to the corresponding author.

9. Information policy on sources of financing

The manuscript should include information on the funding received to research as indicated in the authorship guidelines. Such information includes the name of the funding entity, identification number of the funding, and description of the role that the funding entity has played in the research (decision of the question to be answered, research design, participation in some phase of the research, analysis, writing or its revision). If the funding entity has not been involved in the execution of the research, this should be specifically stated.

10. Conflict of interest policy

RENHyD does not accept commercial advertising in the entire journal, or in the manuscripts. A conflict of interest (CoI) section should be included in all the manuscripts as indicated in the authorship guidelines.

¿ What does a CoI represent?

A CoI occurs when any aspect secondary to the primary interest (publication of an article) may bias the generation of a manuscript, peer review, or editorial decision-making. CoIs can be financial or non-financial, professional or personal, and can exist when institutional or personal relationships are established.

¿ What to declare in the manuscript?

All CoIs relating to 5 years prior to the conduct or preparation of the research under consideration for publication should be reported. In addition, previous CoIs should be reported if they could have affected the research.

Financial CoI, including stock ownership, paid employment or consulting, board membership, patent applications (personal or those of the institution with which they are affiliated), research grants (from any source), travel expenses and fees for speaking or participating in meetings, and gifts.
Non-financial CoI, includes acting as an expert on a topic, membership on a government or advisory board, relationship (paid or unpaid) with non-governmental, research or charitable organizations, membership in a lobbying or advocacy group, writing for or being a consultant to a company that conducts training, personal relationships (i.e., friend, spouse, family member, mentor) with persons involved in the submission or evaluation of articles, such as reviewers or members of the journal's editorial staff, personal convictions (political, religious, ideological or other) related to the subject matter of an article that may interfere with an unbiased publication process.

Reviewers and editorial team

For each article assigned to external reviewers, during the peer review process, these reviewers are asked to evaluate the existence of conflicts of interest with the subject matter as indicated in the reviewers' guide. If CoI exists, the editorial team should be informed and their participation in the evaluation of the article should be avoided.

The members of the RENHyD editorial team make an annual COIS declaration, which can be consulted here. If the editor is assigned to manage a manuscript in which he/she could have COI, he/she should not accept its management. The name of the person who managed the manuscript will appear on each published manuscript.

11. Retraction policy

The main purpose of retractions is to correct published errors and ensure the integrity of publications.

An expression of concern will be made if:

conclusive evidence of research misconduct on the part of the perpetrators is received;
there is evidence that the results are not reliable, and the authors' institutions do not declare their intention to investigate the case;
it is believed that an investigation into possible misconduct in connection with the publication has not been adequately addressed;
it is expected that the judgment will not be available for a considerable time;
text recycling or self-plagiarism considered as not legitimate is detected.

It will be considered a retraction if:

there is clear evidence that the results are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., fabrication of data) or honest error (computational, transcription or experimental error);
results have been previously published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. in case of redundant publication);
plagiarism exists;
unethical research exists.

A correction will be considered if:

it is considered that only a small proportion of published data may be unreliable (especially in cases of honest errors);
the list of authors/contributors is not correct (i.e. when an author who deserved to be in the publication has been omitted, or when an author has been included who does not meet the authorship criteria).

An article will not be retracted if:

the authorship of a publication should be changed, but there is no reason to be confident in the validity of the findings.

Notification of retractions shall be:

adequately linked to the article that is the object of the shrinkage;
clearly identified the item that is the subject of the shrinkage;
clearly identified as retraction;
published as soon as possible to minimize the damage effects of misleading publications;
freely accessible to all readers;
the person responsible for the magazine that performs the retraction shall be identified;
the reasons for retraction shall be stated (especially indicating whether it is due to misconduct or honest mistake);
avoid statements that are potentially libelous or slanderous.

12. Complaints Policy in Manuscript Management

Authors of manuscripts may submit a formal complaint against the editorial process to the secretary of the Consejo General de Colegios de Dietistas-Nutricionistas de España at secretaria@consejodietistasnutricionistas.com who will review and take part in the resolution of the complaint.

13. Editorial inbreeding policy

Editorial inbreeding refers to the presence of members of an institution or organization closely related to the journal in the authorship of an article published in the journal. In this sense, members of the editorial team may exceptionally publish original articles in the journal after consultation with the Editor-in-Chief provided that the number of manuscripts published by members of the editorial team and/or the Spanish Academy of Human Nutrition and Dietetics does not exceed 20% per year. The article in which a member of the editorial team participates will be managed by another editor. The management of the manuscript, as well as the assignment to reviewers and peer review, will be carried out following the same premise as the rest of the articles. In the CoIs section, it should be stated that the author is part of the editorial team, even if he/she has not been in charge of the manuscript management.

14. Archiving policies

This journal uses the CLOCKSS system to create a distributed system archive among participating libraries and allows libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for preservation and restoration purposes.

Individuals are allowed and encouraged to disseminate the peer-reviewed version of the manuscript accepted for publication (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website), whether it is a pre-print (version submitted without peer review), post-print (version whose content has been accepted after peer review), or publication version (the version whose format is the final art of the publication). In the archived versions, it should be properly stated whether it is a pre-print or post-print version. Archiving in repositories can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and higher citations of published works.

15. Sex & Gender Policy

RENHyD is guided by the policies, procedures and recommendations of The Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guide, designed to promote systematic reporting by sex and gender in research. This can be consulted in more detail here.

The RENHyD Editorial Board