Editorial Board Policy
The Herald of the National Children's Medical Center maintains an Editorial Board composed of appropriately qualified scholars, clinicians, researchers, and other experts whose collective expertise supports the journal’s stated Aims and Scope in Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health.
The Editorial Board contributes to the journal’s scientific quality, editorial integrity, disciplinary relevance, and development. Membership is based on professional expertise and meaningful participation rather than honorary, promotional, institutional, or commercial considerations.
Composition of the Editorial Board
The size and composition of the Editorial Board should be appropriate to the breadth of the journal’s scope, publication volume, and editorial workload.
Collectively, the Board should provide relevant expertise across pediatric and child-health research, including appropriate clinical, methodological, and interdisciplinary perspectives.
The journal seeks reasonable institutional and geographic diversity among Editorial Board members and avoids unnecessary concentration of members from a single institution.
International representation should reflect genuine scholarly participation and should not be created merely for the appearance of internationalization.
Qualifications of Editorial Board Members
Editorial Board members should normally demonstrate:
- relevant academic, clinical, or research expertise;
- an active and verifiable scholarly publication record appropriate to their field;
- expertise relevant to the journal’s scope;
- understanding of responsible research and publication practices;
- ability to provide independent scientific judgment;
- willingness to contribute meaningfully to the journal.
The standing and expertise of the Editorial Board should be consistent with the scientific level and subject coverage of the journal.
Appointment to the Editorial Board
Editorial Board members are selected according to the journal’s scientific and editorial needs.
Consideration may be given to subject expertise, publication record, professional standing, research-integrity awareness, geographic and institutional representation, and the ability to contribute actively to journal activities.
A person should not be listed as an Editorial Board member without their knowledge and agreement.
Appointment to the Editorial Board does not create a right to publish in the journal and does not provide preferential treatment in editorial decisions.
Public Identification and Affiliations
The journal publicly identifies its principal editorial roles and Editorial Board members.
For each member, the journal should provide accurate and current information sufficient to identify the individual, including:
name, editorial role where applicable, institutional affiliation, and country or region.
Where appropriate, an ORCID iD, institutional profile, or other persistent scholarly identifier may also be provided.
Editorial affiliations must be genuine, current, and verifiable. Former or secondary affiliations should not be presented in a way that creates a misleading impression about the member’s current institutional relationship.
The journal periodically reviews the Editorial Board webpage and corrects outdated or inaccurate information.
Responsibilities of Editorial Board Members
Editorial Board members may contribute to the journal by advising on scientific direction, scope, editorial policies, emerging topics, research integrity, and the development of the journal.
Depending on their role and expertise, members may also:
support peer review by recommending qualified reviewers; undertake peer review when appropriately invited; advise editors on difficult scientific, clinical, methodological, or ethical questions; contribute to the evaluation of journal policies; identify developments relevant to Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health; and alert the journal to possible integrity concerns.
Editorial Board membership does not mean that every member participates in every manuscript decision.
Scientific and Ethical Responsibilities
Editorial Board members are expected to support high standards of research and publication integrity.
Members should respect the journal’s policies concerning:
Publication Ethics, Research Ethics, Peer Review, Conflicts of Interest, Authorship, Artificial Intelligence, Research Data, Corrections and Retractions, and Complaints and Appeals.
Board members should notify the appropriate editor if they become aware of a serious concern relating to the integrity of a submitted or published article.
Editorial Board members are not expected to conduct institutional misconduct investigations themselves unless they have a formally authorized role outside the journal.
Editorial Independence
Scientific decisions must be based on scholarly merit, methodological quality, ethical acceptability, relevance to the journal’s scope, and the reliability of the work.
Editorial Board members must not use their position to exert inappropriate influence on decisions concerning individual manuscripts.
Institutional, financial, commercial, political, personal, or other external interests must not determine whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected.
Detailed arrangements concerning editorial authority and independence are provided in the journal’s Editorial Governance and Editorial Independence Policy.
Conflicts of Interest and Recusal
Editorial Board members must disclose conflicts of interest relevant to their editorial responsibilities.
A member should not participate in the handling or decision-making process for a manuscript where a relationship or interest could reasonably affect, or appear to affect, impartiality.
This may include manuscripts authored by:
the Board member; close collaborators; current students or supervisors; close institutional colleagues where independence could reasonably be questioned; family members or persons with significant personal relationships; or persons with whom the member has a significant financial, professional, or competitive relationship.
Where a conflict exists, responsibility for the manuscript is transferred to an appropriately independent editor.
Manuscripts Authored by Editorial Board Members
Editorial Board members may submit manuscripts to the journal, but such submissions receive no preferential treatment.
The same scientific, ethical, reporting, and peer-review standards apply as for manuscripts submitted by other authors.
An Editorial Board member who is an author or co-author must not participate in:
reviewer selection, peer-review management, access to confidential reviewer information where this could compromise independence, or the final editorial decision.
The manuscript must be handled by an independent editor without a relevant conflict of interest.
Editorial Endogeny
The journal seeks to prevent excessive publication of articles authored by its own editors, Editorial Board members, or reviewers.
Editorial affiliation must never be used as a mechanism for preferential publication.
For transparency and good open-access publishing practice, the journal monitors the proportion of research articles involving editors, Editorial Board members, or reviewers and seeks to maintain this proportion within accepted international standards.
Where the journal is required to meet DOAJ eligibility criteria, research articles with at least one author who is an editor, Editorial Board member, or reviewer must not exceed the applicable DOAJ limit for the relevant publication period.
Peer Review Responsibilities
Editorial Board membership does not automatically make a person a reviewer for every manuscript.
Where a Board member is invited to review a manuscript, the same requirements concerning competence, independence, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, timeliness, citation ethics, and responsible AI use apply as to any other reviewer.
Detailed requirements are provided in the journal’s Peer Review Policy and Reviewer Policy.
Confidentiality
Editorial Board members must protect confidential information obtained through their editorial role.
Unpublished manuscripts, reviewer identities, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, research data, ethical documentation, allegations, and other confidential information must not be disclosed or used for unauthorized purposes.
Confidential information obtained through journal duties must not be used to advance a member’s own research, publications, grants, commercial interests, or competitive position.
These obligations continue after an individual leaves the Editorial Board.
Artificial Intelligence and Confidential Editorial Material
Editorial Board members remain personally responsible for editorial judgments made within their assigned responsibilities.
Confidential manuscripts, reviewer reports, unpublished data, patient information, or other restricted editorial material must not be uploaded to external generative-AI systems where confidentiality, privacy, or appropriate authorization cannot be assured.
AI tools must not replace independent editorial judgment.
Any use of AI in editorial work must comply with the journal’s Artificial Intelligence Policy.
Special Issues and Guest Editors
Special issues and thematic collections remain subject to the journal’s normal standards of editorial oversight, peer review, research integrity, and conflicts-of-interest management.
Where Guest Editors are appointed, their qualifications, expertise, and potential conflicts of interest should be assessed before appointment.
The Editor-in-Chief or appropriately designated Editorial Board members retain oversight of Guest Editors.
A Guest Editor must not independently handle their own manuscript or another manuscript for which they have a relevant conflict of interest.
Special-issue content does not receive a lower standard of peer review than regular journal content.
Use of Editorial Position
Editorial Board membership must not be used:
to guarantee publication; to pressure authors or reviewers; to obtain inappropriate citations; to solicit personal payments; to imply endorsement of unrelated commercial activities; or to influence editorial decisions for personal, institutional, or professional benefit.
Members should accurately represent their relationship with the journal.
Performance and Continued Membership
Editorial Board membership is not necessarily permanent.
The journal periodically reviews the composition and functioning of the Board to ensure that membership remains relevant to the journal’s scope and editorial needs.
Factors that may be considered include continued scientific activity, contribution to journal activities, responsiveness, professional conduct, adherence to journal policies, conflicts of interest, and continued relevance of expertise.
Membership may end because of resignation, role changes, prolonged inactivity, inability to fulfil responsibilities, serious breach of journal policies, research-integrity concerns, or restructuring of the Editorial Board.
Changes should be made fairly and should not be used to punish legitimate scientific disagreement or good-faith criticism.
Accuracy of the Editorial Board Record
The journal is responsible for ensuring that the publicly displayed Editorial Board accurately reflects the individuals who genuinely hold editorial roles.
The journal does not knowingly list:
fictitious persons; individuals who have not agreed to serve; obsolete affiliations presented as current; misleading academic titles; or persons whose names are used solely to create an appearance of prestige or international representation.
If inaccurate information is identified, the journal should correct it promptly.
Policy Application
This policy applies to the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy or Associate Editors where applicable, members of the Editorial Board, and other persons exercising comparable editorial responsibilities.
The composition, expertise, public presentation, and actual activities of the Editorial Board should remain consistent with the journal’s Aims and Scope, published content, publication volume, and publicly stated editorial policies.