Materials Protection (original Zastita materijala – ZM) is free of charge an open-access journal that exclusively publishes original scientific papers, reviews, and conference papers that have not been published previously.
The publisher of the journal Engineers Society of Corrosion of the Republic of Serbia commenced operations back in 1953, as a part of the Center for Corrosion Protection housed within the Union Engineers and Technicians for Materials Protection of Yugoslavia. In the same year, the Society launched the journal Materials Protection (Zastita materijala – ZM), which is still actively published today. Join the countless readers who have benefited from its insightful and engaging content!
Aims & Scope
Materials Protection is a peer-reviewed journal that allows open access and features papers on original experimental or theoretical work that significantly advances understanding in the areas of corrosion and materials protection; environmental protection; environmental engineering, and technologies; materials engineering (ceramics, polymers, composites; biomaterials, materials for energy storage and conversion, and etc); nanomaterials and nanotechnologies; chemical and biochemical engineering; applied chemistry; technology management and education in sustainable development. The journal accepts papers that present experimental and theoretical scientific and engineering results based on the data provided.
ISSN (Print): 0351-9465, ISSN (Online): 2466-2585
Contributions to the journal must be submitted in English, and should include summaries in both English and Serbian language. For authors outside of the Serbian-speaking region, the publisher will provide Serbian-language summaries and titles for tables and figures.
The Journal is issued 4 times a year.
The journal is indexed in Scopus, DOAJ, International Scientific Indexing (ISI), Journals pedia scholarly analytics (JPSA), Sherpa Romeo, etc.
Digital copies of the journal are archived in the ZM repository.
EDITORIAL POLICIES
EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Upon submission of a manuscript, a principal Editor (referred to as the Editor throughout the text) will be assigned to oversee the editorial process. This Editor will be responsible for ensuring that the manuscript adheres to the scope of the submission guidelines. The Editor will review the manuscript for accuracy, consistency, and clarity, and will provide feedback and suggestions to the author(s) to improve the overall quality of the manuscript. Throughout the editorial process, the Editor will work closely with the author(s) to make revisions and ensure that the final product represents the best possible version of the manuscript.
The Editor is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Materials Protection will be published. The Editor is guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
The Editor reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. The Editorial Staff will inform the authors about the status of the manuscript within 30 to 60 days from the date of submission of the manuscript, depending on the length of the paper review.
Editor must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the manuscript shall be made by the Editorial Board.
Editor shall evaluate manuscripts for their scientific content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.
The Editor and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
Editor shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process (single-blind peer review).
AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal constitutes misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by Materials Protection Please note that posting of preprints on preprint servers or repositories is not considered prior publication. Authors should disclose details of preprint posting upon submission of the manuscript. This must include a link to the location of the preprint. Should the submission be published, the authors are expected to update the information associated with the preprint version on the preprint server/repository to show that a final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.
If a manuscript has previously been submitted elsewhere, authors should provide information about the previous reviewing process and its outcome. This provides an opportunity for authors to detail how subsequent revisions have taken into account previous reviews, and why certain reviewer comments were not taken into account. Information about the author’s previous reviewing experience is to the author’s advantage: it often helps the editors select more appropriate reviewers.
In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided Acknowledgements.
It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that manuscripts submitted to Materials Protection are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the manuscript contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Reporting standards
Materials Protection is committed to serving the research community by ensuring that all articles include enough information to allow others to reproduce the work. A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it – e.g. provide complete details of the methods used, including time frames, etc.
Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the content public. Authors are also exclusively responsible for the contents of their data/supplementary files. Authors affirm that data protection regulations, ethical standards, third party copyright and other rights have been respected in the process of collecting, processing and sharing data.
Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Authorship
Authors must make sure that only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.
In order to be named on the author list one must have:
- made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- contributed to the drafting the work, or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- provided final approval of the version to be published; AND
- 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; AND
- agreed to be named on the author list, and approved of the full author list.
Each author’s contribution must be detailed by selecting CRediT roles on the article submission form.
The addition or removal of authors during the editorial process will only be permitted only if a justifiable explanation is provided to the editorial team and publisher. Attempts to introduce ‘ghost’, ‘gift’ or ‘honorary’ authorship will be treated as cases of misconduct.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.
When citing or making claims based on data, authors should provide the reference to data in the same way as they cite publications. We recommend the format proposed by the FORCE11 Data Citation Principles.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, where someone assumes another’s ideas, words, or other creative expression as one’s own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.
Plagiarism includes the following:
- Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author’s work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
- Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else’s paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.
Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism through the CrossRef iThenticate plagiarism program https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/.
Any manuscript that shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected.
In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under the Retraction policy.
Conflict of interest
Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, the following standard statement should be added: ‘No competing interests were disclosed’.
A competing interest may be of a non-financial or financial nature. Examples of competing interests include (but are not limited to):
- individuals receiving funding, salary, or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company, that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings;
- individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents;
- official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the content of the publication;
- political, religious, or ideological competing interests.
Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical or field trials or other research studies, should declare these as competing interests on submission. The relationship of each author to such an organization should be explained in the ‘Competing interests’ section. Publications in the journal must not contain content advertising any commercial products.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.
By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Materials Protection’s Editorial Policies.
ORCID
The journal asks that all authors submitting a paper register an account with Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). ORCID numbers for all authors and co-authors should be added to the author data upon submission and will be published alongside the submitted paper, should it be accepted.
ORCID registration provides a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account that enables accurate attribution and improves the discoverability of published papers, ensuring that the correct author receives the correct credit for their work.
Funding information (if applicable)
If a paper is a result of the funded project, authors are required to specify funding sources according to their contracts with the funder.
REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.
The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.
Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.
Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.
Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.
Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
PEER REVIEW
The manuscripts submitted for review undergo a single-blind peer review process. The purpose of this review is to aid the Editor in making editorial decisions and to assist the author in improving the manuscript through editorial communication. The typical time frame for completion of the peer review process is two weeks. In case the reviewer expects to be unable to complete the review within the given time frame, he or she must notify the Editor.
When authors submit a paper, they are required to suggest potential reviewers. At least two suitable potential reviewers must be provided, along with their names, email addresses, and institutional affiliations. When selecting potential reviewers, authors should consider certain important criteria. The reviewers must have knowledge about the subject area of the manuscript, they should not be from the same institution as the authors, and they should not have had recent joint publications with any of the authors. However, the final choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the editors.
During the main review phase, the Editor sends the submitted paper to two experts in the field. The reviewers are given an evaluation form containing a checklist to ensure that they cover all aspects that can have an impact on the fate of the submission. In the final section of the evaluation form, reviewers must provide observations and suggestions aimed at improving the manuscript, which are then sent to the authors without the names of the reviewers.
All reviewers of a paper remain anonymous to the authors and act independently before, during, and after the evaluation process. They have different affiliations, are usually located in different countries, and are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief may assign additional reviewers to make a final decision.
During the review process, the Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
The editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.
Members of the editorial board are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review.
POST-PUBLICATION DISCUSSIONS
Materials Protection encourages post-publication debate either through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such as PubPeer.
Use of Large Language Models and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools
Materials Protection conforms to erecommendations on chat bots, ChatGPT and scholarly manuscripts and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)’s position statement on Authorship and AI tools.
AI bots such as ChatGPT cannot be listed as authors on your submission.
Authors must clearly indicate the use of tools based on large language models and generative AI in the manuscript (which tool was used and for what purpose), preferably in the methods or acknowledgements sections.
Authors are responsible for the accuracy, validity, and appropriateness of any content generated by tools based on large language models and generative AI and they must ensure that the cited references are correct and that the submission is free from plagiarism.
Editors and Reviewers must ensure the confidentiality of the peer review process. Editors must not share information about submitted manuscripts or peer review reports with any tools based on large language models and generative AI. Reviewers must not use any tools based on large language models and generative AI to generate review reports.
PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH COMPLAINTS AND APPEAL
Anyone may inform the Editor-in-Chief at any time of suspected unethical behavior or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.
Investigation
- Editor-in-Chief will consult with the Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation.
- During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
- The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
- If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.
Minor misconduct
Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:
- Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
- A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.
Major misconduct
The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):
- Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
- Informing the author’s (or reviewer’s) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
- The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
- A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
- Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.
When dealing with complaints and appeals, the editorial team will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts.
RETRACTION POLICY
The infringement of the legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder, or author(s), the violation of professional ethical codes, and research misconduct, such as multiple submissions, duplicate or overlapping publication, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and data fabrication, honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty), unethical research or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.
When an article is retracted, the reason for the retraction and who initiated it will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. The practice of retracting articles has been standardized by various scholarly bodies, including Materials Protection. In the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is provided to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is provided to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article remains unchanged, except for a watermark on each page of the PDF indicating that it has been “retracted.”
RESEARCH DATA POLICY
At Materials Protection we strongly encourage authors to share the research data that were used to confirm the results published in their manuscript. This will enhance the published manuscript and aligns with our principle of being ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. We accept a wide range of supporting materials including software applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound or video clips, large appendices, data tables, and other relevant items that cannot be included in the article.
Authors may deposit relevant data in a FAIR-compliant repository – institutional, disciplinary, or general-purpose. If you need assistance in finding a FAIR compliant repository, check this link: https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org/. Authors should also provide via the repository any information needed to replicate, validate, and/or reuse the results / your study and analysis of the data. This includes details of any software, instruments and other tools used to process the results. Where possible, the tools and instruments themselves should also be provided.
Exceptions: We recognize that openly sharing data may not always be feasible. Exceptions to open access to research data underlying publications include the following: obligation to protect results, confidentiality obligations, security obligations, the obligation to protect personal data and other legitimate constraints. Where open access is not provided to the data needed to validate the conclusions of a publication that reports original results, authors should provide the relevant access needed to validate the conclusions to the extent their legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded).
Ethical and security considerations
If data access is restricted for ethical or security reasons, the manuscript must include:
- a description of the restrictions on the data;
- what, if anything, the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent said about the data sharing; and
- all necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to apply for access to the data and the conditions under which access will be granted.
Data protection issues
When it is not possible to effectively de-identify human data, it is important to protect the privacy of participants by not sharing the data unless explicit written consent has been given to make their identifiable data publicly available. However, if the data cannot be made available, the manuscript must include the following information:
- an explanation of the data protection concern;
- any intermediary data that can be de-identified without compromising anonymity;
- what, if anything, the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent said about data sharing; and
- where applicable, all necessary information required for a reader or peer reviewer to apply for access to the data and the conditions under which access will be granted.
When submitting a paper to a journal, it is important to link or make data accessible through a Data Accessibility Statement. If data is not being made available, the author should provide a statement explaining why. When depositing data, the following should be considered:
- The repository the data is deposited in must be suitable for this subject and have a sustainability model.
- The data must be deposited under an open license that permits unrestricted access (e.g., CC0, CC-BY). More restrictive licenses should only be used if a valid reason (e.g., legal) is present.
- The deposited data must include a version that is in an open, non-proprietary format.
- The deposited data must have been labeled in such a way that a 3rd party can make sense of it (e.g., sensible column headers, descriptions in a readme text file).
- Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed by the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate Ethics Committee. The identity of the research subject should be anonymized whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardians).
- A ‘Data Accessibility Statement’ should be added to the submission, before the reference list, providing the details of the data accessibility, including the DOI linking to it. If the data is restricted in any way, the reasoning should be given.
OPEN ACCESS POLICY
Materials Protection is an open-access journal. No fees are charged for submission, reviewing, or production. The readers can access and download articles for free without seeking authorization from the author or publisher.
SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY
As an author, you have the right to deposit your preprint, postprint (accepted version) and publisher’s version (PDF) of your work in any institutional, subject-based or general-purpose repository, your own website, or your departmental website. You can do this before or during the submission process, as well as after the acceptance or publication of your manuscript.
Provide full bibliographic information, including authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, and pages, link to the article’s DOI and license.
Copyright and licensing
Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Authors can enter the separate, additional contractual arrangements for non-exclusive distribution of the published paper (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
METADATA POLICY
The journal metadata are freely accessible to all, and freely reusable by all, under the terms of the Creative Commons Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license.
DISCLAIMER
The opinions expressed in published works do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors are solely responsible for the ideas expressed in their articles, both legally and morally. The Publisher will not be held liable for any claims for damages arising from the use of the published works. Neither will the Publisher be held responsible for any claims for compensation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks to the invaluable assistance of Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), the publisher of Materials Protection was able to significantly enhance and improve its Journal Policy.
The policy has been inspired by:
Principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing. Directory of Open Access Journals. https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/.
Core practices. COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics. https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
Policies. Open Research Europe. https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/about/policies
Journal Policies. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. https://www.glossa-journal.org/site/journal-policies/
EDITORIAL BOARD