Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) takes its responsibility to safeguard the scholarly record very seriously. RMU acknowledges its duty as the custodian of these records in all our policies, including the ethical guidelines we have established.
RMU implements these policies and procedures to assist editors, reviewers, and authors in fulfilling their ethical responsibilities. RMU as a publisher collaborates with other universities and monitoring agencies (PM&DC, HEC etc.) and international organizations (ICMJE, COPE etc.) to establish best practices for ethical issues, errors, and retractions.
We are dedicated to ensuring that commercial interests, such as advertising and reprints, do not influence editorial decisions.
We support best practices by offering editors membership in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and providing Crossref Similarity Check reports for all submissions to our editorial systems.
We offer technical, procedural, and legal assistance to editors, including aid in communications with other journals and publishers and specialized legal review if needed.
We offer extensive education and guidance on publishing ethics.
Editors of JRMC must disclose any competing interests that might impact or appear to impact their editorial judgment. Such interests should be reported promptly and annually, and they will be evaluated and addressed. Competing interests, which may include financial and non-financial interests, must be declared. These can involve academic affiliations, other editorial roles, financial interests like patents, and minor investments.
Editors of JRMC must adhere to a policy that generally discourages them from submitting their research to JRMC unless the research was conducted before joining JRMC. Any such submissions must be disclosed to the journal editor, who will ensure that the editorial process remains independent. If published, the declaration of interest should indicate that the author is an editorial board member of JRMC and that the peer review was conducted independently.
The editorial board of JRMC must also avoid using information gained through their work for personal benefit and must not be involved in reviewing or editing papers they have authored or those involving family members or colleagues, or related to their products or services.