The purpose of this Code of Ethics is to clarify the foundations on which the responsibilities of the editorial committee, editors, internal and external referees, researchers and specialists are based. The editorial committee requests authors to consider compliance with it as a requirement for publishing in the journal.

The journal will ensure at all times the quality of its contents and the proper exercise of ethical practices by each of actors involved in the publication. The following is the Code of Conduct and Good Ethical Practices followed by the journal and is based on the Guidelines on Good Practices for Publications developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

In addition, the journal adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

In the event of suspicion or non-compliance with any of the good ethical practices established in this Code, we will proceed according to the guidelines in the Core Practices and the Flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for each case. In the event of suspicion or detection of new bad ethical practices that are not stated in this Code of Conduct, provisions of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in its Code of Conduct shall be evaluated and, accordingly, the actions shall be carried out as established for the dishonest actions detected.

The journal guarantees at all times the confidentiality of the evaluation process, the anonymity of the evaluators and the authors, the content evaluated, the reasoned report issued by the evaluators and any other communication issued by the editorial board. Likewise, confidentiality will be maintained in the event of possible clarifications, claims or complaints that an author wishes to send to the editorial board of the journal.

Furthermore, this Agreement (and any litigation, proceedings, claims or disputes relating to it) is subject to Cuban Law and the jurisdiction of the Courts of the Republic of Cuba.

Declaration of principles

The Publishing House, the editors, the editorial committee, the internal and external referees and the authors undertake to:

• Proceed with objectivity, honesty and in accordance with the rules of professional ethics without deviating from the parameters that govern academic practice.
• Transmit the information obtained from the editorial process in a responsible manner.
• Encourage compliance with the ethical standards for research and academic activity.
• Present scientific or professional judgments, revealing the degree of foundation in the results.
• Avoid issuing opinions influenced by a conflict of interest.
• Not get involved in any way in advertising that is not reliable and that violates the principles declared by the journal.
• Respect the confidentiality inherent to the editorial process, until the article has been accepted for publication.
• Respect the provisions regarding copyright in the journal's rules.

General Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

The editors of this journal are committed to:

• Strive to meet the needs of readers and authors
• Strive to constantly improve the journal taking into account the different points of view of authors, readers, reviewers and members of the editorial board
• Have implemented in the journal all the necessary processes to ensure the quality of the material published
• Allow freedom of expression without consenting to discriminatory or offensive manifestations
• Evaluate the articles without taking into account the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, political belief, nationality, ethnic origin or personal position of the authors
• Decide which articles should be sent to peer review, as well as which are in condition to be published after their review, in addition to preserving the confidentiality of the evaluated articles, not revealing any information about their content, subject matter, authorship, data included, analysis performed or final conclusions
• Guarantee the preservation of all the content of the journal
• Prevent commercial needs from compromising intellectual and scientific standards Ethical
• Publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary
• Provide all actors in the process with the information necessary to efficiently perform their function
• Support all actions necessary to reduce the different manifestations of research and publication misconduct, and encourage ethical and responsible behavior
• Ensure that each published document correctly reflects the results and interpretations proposed by the authors
• Archive the reports and results of the evaluations of each article, and make them available whenever requested by the competent natural and legal persons
• Ensure that the sections with and without peer review are clearly identified
• Ensure that peer review in the journal is fair, impartial and timely
• Adopt the peer review methods most appropriate to the journal and the research community it serves
• Editors will be alert to intellectual property issues and will correspondingly work with their editors to handle possible infringements of intellectual property laws and conventions
• Best practices for editors will also include adoption of systems to detect plagiarism (e.g. software)

Editorial Committee

• It will publish updated guidelines on the responsibilities of authors and the characteristics of the works submitted to the journal, as well as on the refereeing system used to select the articles and the evaluation criteria that the external evaluators must apply
• It will guarantee the confidentiality of the evaluation process, which includes the anonymity of the evaluators and the authors, the content being evaluated, the report issued by the evaluators and any other communication made by the committees (editorial, advisory and scientific). It will also maintain confidentiality in the event of possible clarifications, claims or complaints that an author wishes to send to the journal's committees or to the article's evaluators.
• It will declare its commitment to respect and the integrity of the works that have already been published.
• It will be especially strict regarding plagiarism and will act according to what is established in the journal's anti-plagiarism policy.

Related to readers

• They will be informed about the sources of funding, authors and institutions of the different works
• They will have all the necessary information and tools that allow them to recover the metadata of the different documents
• They will be able to access the full texts of the documents at any time and in different responsive formats
• They have the obligation to properly reference the documents they consult
• They have the obligation to make appropriate and responsible use of the information, ensuring that no principle of good practice is violated

Related to authors

• Accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This includes the selection of their research topics and the methods used in their research, analysis and reporting.
• Seek and declare the truth as they see it and thus practice intellectual honesty. Every effort should be made to plan research to minimise the possibility of misleading findings; careful discussion of the limitations of their data should be provided.
• Ensure that the article and associated materials are original and unpublished and do not infringe the copyright of others.
• Commit to inform the editors of the journal if they detect a relevant error in one of their published articles, so that appropriate corrections can be made.
• Editors' decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication will be based on the contribution of the paper, originality, clarity, validity of the study and its relevance to the thematic field of the journal.
• The submission of a document to the journal will not be rejected unless problems are identified in the guidelines established for its submission
• The new editors will not revoke the decisions to publish the works approved by the previous editors unless problems are identified that were not taken into account in the previous evaluations
• Before and during the submission process, a guide will be made available to the author with all the characteristics and elements to be controlled in the peer review processes
• The evaluation of each document presented in the journal will be carried out by competent professionals specialized in each of the publication topics
• The authors will remain anonymous throughout the peer review process
• Requests made by the authors that their work not be evaluated by a reviewer declared in the portfolio of referees of the journal will be respected, as long as the conflict of interest existing between the reviewer and one or more of the authors of the document can be adequately justified
• The presentation of ideas from other authors as their own constitutes an unacceptable practice
• The authors must report any source of funding that has allowed the study to be carried out, as well as any other commitment that could influence the interpretation of the results
• All authors are obliged to facilitate the necessary corrections of errors
• Only authors of the work according to the Contribution Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) are considered authors
• The names of the people or institutions that have provided other types of support to the work will be included in the acknowledgments. Only contributions that the authors consider relevant will be acknowledged
• In cases where ethical misconduct is detected regarding the incorrect assignment of authors, omission of these and undeclared conflicts of interest, the journal will automatically cancel the publication of the work and issue a note to the entire scientific community informing the event and the names of those responsible for the unethical conduct
• The editors will support authors whose copyright has been violated or who have been victims of plagiarism by requesting retractions or removal of material from websites regardless of copyright

Related to reviewers

• Commit to an objective, informed, critical, constructive and impartial review of the article. Acceptance or rejection is based solely on the relevance of the work, its originality, interest and compliance with the style and content standards indicated in the editorial criteria
• Reviewers will have all the necessary guidance and preparation, as well as an evaluation guide, which will allow them to know how to carry out the evaluation, assess the quality of each part of the document, declare their observations and final decision
• Reviewers will handle the works and the information contained in them confidentially until the document is published. In this sense, they commit to not sharing, disseminating, or using the information of the articles submitted for review.
• The journal will guarantee the preservation of the anonymity of the reviewers throughout the process
• The reviewers will immediately inform the editors about any violations of good ethical practices detected during the review process such as: unethical research design, improper handling of data and rights, plagiarism, among others
• The reviewers will promptly inform the editors of any conflict of interest that they may detect when reading an article that has been sent to them for review
• The necessary procedures will be put in place so that the reviewers' comments reach the authors in their entirety, ensuring that they do not contain offensive or defamatory comments
• The performance of the reviewers will be monitored periodically and measures will be taken to ensure that the reviews that are made are of high quality
• The database of reviewers will be maintained and renewed in order to present an adequate representation of the scientific community specialized in the topics of publication of the journal
• Reviewers who constantly produce offensive, poor quality and late reviews will no longer be used

Related to Editorial Board Members

• Editors will provide new Editorial Board members with guidelines on what is expected of them and should keep existing members updated on new policies implemented
• Qualified Editorial Board members will be identified who can actively contribute to the development and good management of the journal
• Clear guidance will be provided to Editorial Board members on their expected roles and duties which may include: developing and implementing dissemination strategies for the journal, seeking new authors and novel works, reviewing submissions, writing editorials, commenting and reviewing works in their specialty, consulting Editorial Board members periodically to evaluate the functioning of the journal, among others