About Us
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Journal title |
Humanities Journal |
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ISSN (online) |
XXXX-XXXX |
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Publisher and owner |
Institute of Counselling Psychology and Education |
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Frequency |
4 issues per year, published in March, June, September and December |
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Format |
online only, no print version |
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Access |
open access (diamond open access), no charges for authors or readers |
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Licence |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
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Funding |
publisher’s own resources, no charges for authors or readers |
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Advertising |
the journal does not accept advertising or sponsored content |
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Archiving |
Archive section of the journal website and Webarchiv of the National Library of the Czech Republic |
1. Aims and Scope
The journal is dedicated to the humanities and social sciences. Its mission is to disseminate original research findings, foster scholarly debate, and promote collaboration among researchers, university academics, and practitioners.
Subject Areas
The journal publishes contributions addressing social, cultural, philosophical, historical, and ethical issues. It welcomes both empirical research and theoretical or analytical studies that advance our understanding of human beings, society, and culture. Interdisciplinary submissions are also considered, provided that the integration of the relevant disciplines is academically well justified.
Submissions may draw on local, national, or international contexts and examine contemporary as well as historical topics. Studies focusing on a particular region or institution are expected to explain their relevance to the wider scholarly discourse.
Article Types and Scholarly Standards
The journal publishes original research articles, review articles, and theoretical or analytical papers. The principal criteria for publication are a clearly defined research problem, an appropriate research design or line of argument, critical engagement with scholarly sources, and conclusions supported by the findings presented.
No particular methodological approach is privileged in the evaluation process. The journal welcomes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research, as well as methodologically sound replication studies and studies whose findings do not support the original hypotheses. All submissions must make a scholarly contribution, follow transparent procedures, and explicitly acknowledge their limitations.
Language of Manuscripts and International Accessibility
The Editorial Board encourages authors to submit manuscripts in English to facilitate the international dissemination of research findings. Every scholarly article must include a title, abstract, and keywords in English, irrespective of the language of the main text. These English-language elements must accurately reflect the article's content and meet an appropriate standard of academic English. Bibliographic details of sources originally written in non-Latin scripts must also be provided in Latin-script transliteration.
Publication Conditions
Research articles undergo independent peer review. Acceptance is contingent upon alignment with the journal's scope, scholarly quality, and compliance with publication ethics. Manuscript submission, evaluation, and publication are free of charge.
Further details are set out in the sections Peer Review Process, Open Access Statement, and Publication Ethics.
ISSN: 00xx007 — temporary placeholder; the official ISSN will be added once assigned.
2. Peer Review Process
Research articles submitted for publication undergo double-anonymized peer review (also known as double-blind peer review). Manuscripts that pass the initial editorial screening are evaluated by at least two independent external reviewers. Reviewers' identities are not disclosed to authors, and authors' identifying information is not disclosed to reviewers. The editorial office has access to this information solely for administering the review process and assessing potential conflicts of interest.
Initial Editorial Screening
Upon receipt of a manuscript, the editorial office assesses its suitability for the journal's scope, completeness, compliance with formal requirements, and adherence to fundamental scholarly and ethical standards. This initial screening includes checks for originality and potential overlap with other publications. Any identified textual similarity is evaluated in context; a similarity percentage alone does not constitute an automatic ground for rejection.
A manuscript that fails to meet the journal's basic requirements may be returned for completion or rejected without external peer review. The author will be informed of the reasons for this decision.
Anonymization and Selection of Reviewers
Authors must submit their identifying information separately from the anonymized manuscript. Before a submission is forwarded to reviewers, the editorial office also checks supplementary files, comments, tracked changes, and file metadata for information that could reveal the authors' identities. References to authors' own publications must remain academically accurate and must not be deliberately omitted to preserve anonymity.
Reviewers are selected by the handling editor on the basis of their expertise and independence. External reviewers must not be members of the editorial staff or Editorial Board and must not be affiliated with the same institution as any of the authors. Individuals with personal, financial, or professional conflicts of interest must decline an invitation to review. This includes, in particular, close collaborators, recent co-authors, and individuals in a supervisor–supervisee relationship.
The editorial office verifies reviewers' identities and professional qualifications. Any reviewers suggested by the authors are subject to the same independent verification, and such suggestions are not binding on the journal. If a reviewer identifies an author during the evaluation or becomes aware of a potential conflict of interest, the reviewer must notify the editor, who will determine the appropriate course of action.
Scholarly Evaluation
Reviewers assess the manuscript's scholarly contribution, methodological appropriateness, transparency of data analysis or argumentation, engagement with relevant literature, clarity of presentation, and the extent to which its conclusions are justified. The evaluation also covers scholarly appendices and any other materials on which the article's conclusions depend.
Each review must provide reasoned feedback and a recommendation to accept the manuscript, accept it subject to minor revisions, require major revisions followed by further review, or reject it. Criticism must be specific, evidence-based, professional, and respectful. Personal attacks and requests to cite publications without a sound scholarly justification are unacceptable.
Revisions and Further Review
The corresponding author receives anonymized reviewer reports and instructions on the next steps. A revised manuscript must be accompanied by a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments. Any decision not to implement a particular recommendation must be supported by a scholarly justification.
Manuscripts requiring substantial revision are submitted for further scholarly evaluation. Where reviewers' assessments differ significantly, the editor may seek an additional independent review. The final outcome is not determined by a mechanical tally of reviewers' recommendations.
Final Decision and Editorial Independence
Decisions to accept or reject a manuscript are based exclusively on its suitability for the journal's scope, the outcome of the peer review process, and the scholarly quality of the submitted work. They are not influenced by financial considerations. Compliance with publication ethics is an additional essential condition of acceptance.
The final decision is made by the handling editor authorized to oversee the editorial process, taking into account the reviewers' reports, the authors' responses, and the final version of the manuscript. The author is informed of the decision and its rationale. A positive recommendation from a reviewer does not, in itself, guarantee acceptance.
Review Procedure, Confidentiality, and Record-Keeping
The editorial office does not promise acceptance before completion of the peer review process and does not guarantee a particular date of acceptance. Deadlines for reviews and author revisions are established when the relevant stage is initiated, and the corresponding author is informed of any substantial delays.
Manuscripts, reviewer reports, and related correspondence are confidential. The editorial office maintains records of manuscript versions, reviewer selection, reviews, author responses, and editorial decisions, with access restricted to authorized personnel. Reviewer reports and the identities of individual reviewers are not made publicly available.
Published articles display the actual dates of submission, acceptance, and publication, as well as the date of any relevant revision, where applicable. These dates must not be altered retrospectively in a manner that misrepresents the course of the editorial process.
The same rules apply to manuscripts submitted by members of the editorial staff and to articles in any special issues. Editorial announcements and administrative notices are not subject to external peer review and are clearly distinguished from scholarly articles. Procedures for conflicts of interest, complaints, and appeals are set out in the Publication Ethics section.
3. Open Access Statement
The journal provides immediate open access to all published articles. Full texts are available from the moment of publication, without subscription fees, paywalls, mandatory registration, or embargo periods.
Publication Free of Charge
The journal charges authors no fees for manuscript submission, initial editorial screening, peer review, editorial processing, or article publication. There are no article processing charges (APCs), nor are fees imposed on the basis of article length, tables, illustrations, or supplementary materials. Acceptance is not conditional upon a subscription, membership, financial contribution, or purchase of any other service. Readers may access and download articles free of charge.
Copyright and Licensing
Authors retain the copyright to their contributions. They grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish the article for the first time in the journal, distribute it, and preserve it. All authors must provide documented consent to the publication terms before the article is published.
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits sharing, copying, redistribution, and adaptation, including for commercial purposes, provided that the license terms are observed.
Users must give appropriate credit, retain relevant information about the work's provenance, provide a link to the license, and indicate whether changes have been made. They must not imply that the authors or the journal endorse their use of the material. No additional legal restrictions or technological measures may be imposed that would prevent others from exercising the rights granted by the license.
Copyright and licensing information is displayed on each article's webpage and in its published full text.
Third-Party Materials
Authors are responsible for appropriately citing and obtaining the necessary permissions to use third-party materials. Where any component of an article is excluded from the CC BY 4.0 license, the exception and the conditions governing its use must be clearly identified alongside the relevant material.
The license does not replace any consents or permissions required to protect privacy, personality rights, or other third-party rights.
Repository Deposit and Further Dissemination
Authors may deposit the published version of their article in institutional or disciplinary repositories and make it available on their professional websites without an embargo. In doing so, they must retain information about authorship, the original source, and the license. Providing a link to the article's journal webpage and its DOI, where assigned, is recommended.
Published articles are made available in the journal's archive. Substantial corrections and retraction notices are published transparently and linked to the publications concerned in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policies.
4. Publication Ethics
The journal requires scholarly integrity, transparency, and accountability from everyone involved in the publication process. Its policies and procedures for addressing suspected misconduct are informed by the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These rules apply to authors, reviewers, editors, members of the Editorial Board, and the publisher.
Originality and Integrity of the Scholarly Record
Authors must submit original manuscripts that are not under simultaneous consideration by another journal. Ideas, wording, data, and visual materials originating from other sources must be properly acknowledged and supported by references to genuine sources. An unacknowledged translation or a substantially identical version of a previously published article must not be presented as an original work.
Plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, misleading manipulation of images, deliberate misrepresentation of findings, fabricated references, and manipulation of peer review are prohibited. Authors must disclose any substantial overlap with their own previously published work and explain the new contribution made by the submitted manuscript.
Prior dissemination as a preprint, conference abstract, or thesis or dissertation must be disclosed to the editorial office. Such dissemination does not automatically preclude publication. The editorial office will assess the nature of the overlap, the originality of the submission, and compliance with copyright requirements. A preprint must not be represented as a peer-reviewed publication.
Authorship and Contributions
Authorship must reflect a substantial scholarly contribution to the work. Each author must have participated in its intellectual development or critical revision, approved the final version, and accepted responsibility for their own contribution and for cooperating in the resolution of questions concerning the integrity of the work as a whole. Providing funding, administrative assistance, or organizational supervision alone does not justify authorship. Both the inclusion of individuals without a qualifying contribution and the omission of genuine co-authors are unacceptable. Other contributors may be acknowledged with their consent.
For jointly authored works, the contribution of each author must be specified. The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the editorial office and for confirming that all co-authors consent to the submission and publication of the article. Changes to the author list must be justified and supported by the consent of the individuals concerned. In the event of an authorship dispute, the editorial office may suspend the editorial process and seek assistance from the relevant institutions. Changes to authorship after publication are made through a transparent correction.
Limit on the Number of Articles per Author in Each Issue
No more than one article by the same author may be published in a single issue of the journal. This restriction applies regardless of whether the individual is the sole author or a co-author and extends to every member of the author group. Neither changing the order of authors nor altering the composition of the author group constitutes an exception to this rule. The same restriction applies to members of the editorial staff and Editorial Board. Another accepted article involving the same author may be published in a different issue. The restriction must not be circumvented by omitting a genuine co-author.
Conflicts of Interest and Funding
Authors must disclose funding sources and any financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationships that could influence the work or its interpretation. For funded research, authors must also describe any role played by the funder in study design, data collection and analysis, manuscript preparation, and the decision to publish. Every article must include funding and conflict-of-interest statements, including an explicit declaration that the authors have no conflicts of interest to report or that the work received no specific funding, where applicable.
Reviewers, editors, and others involved in editorial decisions must likewise disclose conflicts of interest. Any individual affected by a conflict must not participate in the relevant evaluation or decision-making process. If a previously undisclosed conflict is identified, the editorial office will investigate and, depending on its seriousness, arrange for a corrected disclosure, a new independent evaluation, or other appropriate measures.
Editorial Independence
Scholarly evaluation must not be influenced by authors' financial circumstances, institutional standing, personal relationships, or the interests of the publisher, donors, or other supporters of the journal. Financial support of any kind confers no entitlement to publication or influence over editorial content.
Acceptance and rejection decisions are based on the journal's scope, peer review findings, scholarly quality, and compliance with ethical requirements. The publisher provides the conditions necessary for independent editorial work and does not interfere in scholarly decisions concerning individual manuscripts.
Submissions from Editorial Board Members and Special Issues
Any manuscript authored or co-authored by a member of the editorial staff or Editorial Board must be handled by an independent editor without a conflict of interest. The author concerned must not select reviewers, administer the review process, or take part in decisions regarding their own manuscript.
If the article is published, the author's editorial role and the measures taken to ensure independent peer review and decision-making must be disclosed. If an independent process cannot be ensured, the manuscript cannot be accepted. The same requirements apply to any special issues and guest editors. The journal's editorial leadership retains oversight of these arrangements; special issues must not be used to circumvent peer review or publication policies.
Ethical Oversight of Research
Authors are responsible for ensuring that their research meets applicable ethical standards. Studies involving human participants must describe how participants' rights, privacy, and voluntary participation were protected. Particular attention must be paid to vulnerable individuals and to situations in which a relationship of dependency may compromise the freedom to decide whether to participate. Where research ethics committee approval was required, authors must provide the committee's name and any available identifying details of the approval. Where ethics approval or informed consent was not required under the applicable rules, authors must explain why. Neither approval nor consent may be fabricated or falsely declared.
Publication of identifiable personal information, photographs, or case reports requires the appropriate authorization and consent for publication. Consent to participate in research must not automatically be treated as consent to disclose identifiable information. For other types of research, authors must document the ethical requirements and any necessary permissions appropriate to the nature of the study.
Data, Transparency, and Reproducibility
Research methods, analytical procedures, and sources must be described in sufficient detail to allow scholarly scrutiny of how the authors reached their conclusions. Empirical articles must include a data availability statement and, where applicable, information on the availability of analytical code and other supporting materials. If a particular availability requirement does not apply to the work, the authors must state this.
The journal supports responsible data sharing, not the disclosure of information that would violate privacy or legitimate confidentiality obligations. Any restrictions on access must be explained, and arrangements for controlled access, where available, must be described.
The editorial office may request materials necessary to verify the reliability of a study. Authors must retain these materials in accordance with the nature of the research and applicable institutional policies. Any transfer of such materials must respect the protection of research participants and the rights of third parties.
Reviewer Responsibilities and Confidentiality
Reviewers should accept assignments only when the manuscript falls within their area of expertise and must disclose any circumstances that could call their impartiality into question. Reviews must be prepared independently, objectively, and within the agreed timeframe. Reviewers must not share a manuscript or any part of it with another person without editorial permission, nor may they exploit unpublished information for personal benefit.
Reviewers must report suspected ethical misconduct to the editor. Confidentiality extends to the manuscript, supplementary materials, reviews, and related communications and continues after the review process has ended.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Human authors remain responsible for the content of their work, the accuracy of references, the analyses performed, and the conclusions drawn.
The use of generative artificial intelligence in drafting or translating text, creating visual materials, or analyzing data must be disclosed. Authors must identify the tool, provide version information where available, and specify the purpose and extent of its use. AI use as part of the research must be described in the methodology; assistance with manuscript preparation must be declared in a separate statement. Routine spelling and typographical checks that do not generate new content do not require a separate declaration. Authors must verify all AI-generated outputs. Generated content must not be used as a substitute for research that has not been conducted or presented as genuine observations or existing sources.
Reviewers must not use generative artificial intelligence to prepare scholarly peer review reports. Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, reviewer reports, or personal data to publicly accessible generative AI tools. Scholarly evaluation and final editorial decision-making must not be delegated to an automated system. The output of an automated detection tool does not, on its own, constitute evidence of a breach of policy.
Citations and Intellectual Property
References must be selected on the basis of scholarly relevance. Authors, reviewers, and editors must not request or add citations solely to increase the citation metrics of a particular person, journal, or institution. Publication must never be made conditional on citing the journal.
Authors are responsible for the lawful use of third-party content. Copyright provisions, the CC BY 4.0 license, and the treatment of third-party materials are addressed in the Open Access Statement.
Allegations of Misconduct, Complaints, and Appeals
Concerns may be submitted to the editorial office using the contact email address published on the journal's website. Submissions should identify the manuscript or article concerned, describe the issue, and provide any available supporting evidence. The editorial office also considers anonymous reports if they are sufficiently specific and verifiable.
Authors may submit a reasoned appeal against a manuscript decision, specifying the scholarly or procedural grounds and any evidence they believe was not adequately considered. Complaints concerning editorial procedures are considered separately from the scholarly merits of an article.
Cases are handled by an individual without a conflict of interest. If a complaint concerns the handling editor, it is referred to another independent editor or an authorized person; no one may adjudicate a complaint concerning their own conduct. The editorial office acknowledges receipt, examines the available information, gives the individuals concerned an opportunity to respond, and communicates a reasoned outcome.
An allegation is not automatically treated as evidence of established misconduct. Depending on the circumstances, the editorial office may suspend consideration of the manuscript, request additional documentation, or contact the relevant institution. The outcome and any measures taken are documented. Necessary corrections to the scholarly record are not delayed solely because an author disagrees with the proposed action.
Post-Publication Scholarly Discussion
The journal welcomes evidence-based comments and scholarly responses to published articles through the editorial office's contact email address. Contributions proposed for publication undergo editorial assessment and, where appropriate, scholarly review according to their nature.
The authors of the article concerned are given an opportunity to respond. Published discussions are linked to the original article. Scholarly disagreement alone is not grounds for removing an article; identified errors or ethical breaches are addressed through appropriate editorial measures.
Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions
Authors who discover a significant error in their published work must promptly notify the editorial office and cooperate in correcting it. Limited errors that do not undermine the reliability of the work as a whole are addressed through a publicly issued correction. Where serious concerns remain unresolved, the editorial office may publish an expression of concern. An article may be retracted if its findings are fundamentally unreliable or serious ethical misconduct has been established. Retraction may also be warranted by a serious unintentional error: its purpose is to correct the scholarly record, not to punish authors.
Correction and retraction notices are freely accessible, clearly identify the article concerned, explain the reason for the action, and are linked to the article in both directions. Retracted articles normally remain in the archive with a prominent retraction notice. Removal of the content itself is reserved for exceptional, duly justified circumstances, particularly where required to protect rights or safety; the bibliographic record and an explanation of the action remain available.
