grassrootsinstitute
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FOR AUTHORS

THE AUTHORS SHOULD FOLLOW

The esteemed authors willing to submit their manuscripts for publishing in the journals published by The Grassroots Institute should express due diligence and take note of the following points:

  • Name of Author(s) and Claims of Authorship: All the authors should have contributed significantly to the study, manuscript drafting, and holding responsibility for the authenticity. A general supervision, or financial support shall not be sufficient for the authorship. On the last page of the manuscript, a contribution of each author shall clearly be stated. The contributing authors shall not be changed without prior written consent from the existing authors. Moreover, please ensure that all contributors have approved the final versions of their manuscript and submission. The names and affiliations shall be displayed in the following manner:

    Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources

    Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

    Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology

    Journal of Policy & Governance

  • Author(s)’s Claim over Data: The authors need to ascertain the ownership, appropriate access and full understanding of the data being presented in the submitted manuscripts. Authors are expected to gather and interpret data honestly and without breaching copyrights. While copying or reproducing the figures and/or schemes from other works, it is the authors’ responsibility to acquire necessary permissions from the corresponding publishers and/or authors, if required. In case the data is presented from other sources in the manuscript, the author(s) need to provide source of information as to where the data supporting the results or analyses can be accessed. Using proper citations, references or footnotes, the data sourced from other publications should include the hyperlink to publicly archived datasets, DOI, or online source. For specific templates or style in which this information should be presented, always check our particular journal’s guidelines: Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources https://grassrootsjournals.org/gjnr/file/author-guidlines.doc.docx; Journal of Environmental Law & Policy https://grassrootsjournals.org/guidlines-for-authors-jelp.php#guidlines; Journal of Policy & Governance https://grassrootsjournals.org/jpg-guidlines-for-authors.php#guidlines; Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology https://grassrootsjournals.org/aa/file/author-guidlines-aa.docx; Pastures & Pastoralism https://grassrootsjournals.org/pp-guidlines-for-authors.php. While describing a new software tool/ application, authors should host their project with a recognized open-source repository such as http://www.bioinformatics.org/ or https://sourceforge.net/. Information such as the project name, project home page, operating system(s), programming language, license, and any restrictions to use by non-academics should accompany the manuscript.
  • The Authors Should Follow Publishing Standards: It is essential that authors are aware of international standards on the publications. Please read Publication Standards page in our website. You are requested to confirm that your submitted manuscript is neither published elsewhere nor under consideration for publication in another journal or book. The author is also advised to avoid undue fragmentation of the work into multiple manuscripts to maximize the number of articles. All the authors need to ensure that manuscripts are submitted for publication in only one journal at a time. Once one journal rejects the manuscript, only then it can be submitted to another journal.
  • Originality of the Articles and Plagiarism Policy: Our Editorial Office shall strictly monitor text plagiarism and obvious fraudulent data prior to the review process. If fact, the plagiarism is a serious issue that majority of the journals deal with seriously. In case, a plagiarism is detected at early stage or later stage, the manuscript will be rejected and will not be reconsidered in any journal published by The Grassroots Institute. Please read the section Plagiarism Test for detailed understanding on this matter.
  • Acknowledgement of Funding Sources: All authors shall fairly and clearly state the portion of the studies funded, supported or sponsored by any of the international, national, government, non-government or personal sources. In the section Submit Your Manuscript, it is explicitly guided to provide the details of funding in the following manner:
  • Conflicts of Interest/Disclosures: Authors are required to declare any financial, academic, commercial, political or personal conflicts before the publication of the manuscript. In the section Submit Your Manuscript, it is explicitly guided to provide the details of funding in the following manner:
  • Ethical Investigations: Our journals are sensitive to ethical research and ethical considerations. The authors are requested to ensure that any studies involving human, animal or Indigenous subjects conform to the national, local, and institutional laws and requirements. Please read Research Ethics section that guides which ethical guidelines must be strictly adhered to in which circumstance. In cases where humans, animals or Indigenous peoples/knowledge are used in the submitted manuscript, the methodology section must clearly indicate the adopted ethics related procedures or approval from the ethics committee of the institute or organisation.
  • Ethics for Research involving Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge: Authors involving Indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge should read thoroughly our Research Ethics section and should follow the appropriate guidelines.
  • No Criticism & Prior Permissions: The authors should please ensure that submitted article contains no personal criticism of other scientists or scholars. In case any part (e.g., table or figure) of the submitted manuscript has been taken from previously published work, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission either from the publisher or from the authors depending on the copyright ownership.
  • Authors’ Cooperation in Publishing: When we publish the articles finally on the website of the journal, we generally inform the respective authors to read carefully the published paper(s) and inform us within 3 days with the errors or changes needed in the text, tables or figures. The authors are also requested to cooperate with the editors and publisher to release an erratum, addendum, corrigendum notice, or to retract the paper, if necessary.
  • Appeal & Complaints: Please read our Complaint Policy and a Complaint can be lodged in case of any grievance.
BE CAREFUL ABOU THE PLAGIARISM

What is ‘plagiarism’? The plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source. It is essential to cite the source if text is reused or copied from another source. The reused text must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. Please note that if plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we need to publish a correction or retract the paper.

Some authors may also manipulate the images. Any kind of manipulation in the images already published by someone else is not permitted. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript.

The journals of The Grassroots Institute are committed to maintaining high standards through a rigorous peer-review together with strict ethical policies. Any infringements of professional ethical codes, such as plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, bogus claims of authorship, are taken very seriously.

An Initial Plagiarism Check is carried out for every manuscript submitted to the journals of The Grassroots Institute.

ENSURING THE RESEARCH ETHICS
(A) MANDATORY COMPLIANCE
If your research is involving human bodies

This ethical compliance is important for those whose research is involving medical data collection from human subjects. The authors need to comply with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki. Additionally, various policies are also listed on WMA website and such policies would be useful for the researchers dealing with human bodies. To read more on research ethics, please consider reading What is Ethics in Research? Also, please do not forget reading European Commission on research ethics.

As evidence, the Methods or Methodology section (or text describing the experimental procedures) should include local, national or international ethical approval statements. In case, the research was conducted where no formal ethics committee exists (applicable to only developing countries), the studies shall have complied with the Helsinki Declaration (described above) as revised in 2013.

If your research is involving animals

According to Simon Festing and Robin Wilkinson, “No responsible scientist wants to use animals or cause them unnecessary suffering if it can be avoided, and therefore scientists accept controls on the use of animals in research. More generally, the bioscience community accepts that animals should be used for research only within an ethical framework.” The authors are expected to be aware of legal boundation on the researchers who use or intend to use animals in their experimentation or field studies. Authors are expected to read and follow the observations and guidelines in this context. Because the journals of The Grassroots Institute comply with the ARRIVE we will need uploading the checklist at the time of submission, if the research has involved animals.

ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) is a set of guidelines to improve the reporting of research using animals. Authors should read the ARRIVE items, crosscheck research work against its CHECKLIST and finally upload them during the submission process of the manuscript.

In addition, we also support 3Rs principals (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) for humans and animals’ usage in research. Briefly 3Rs are:

Replacement: approaches which avoid or replace the use of animals

Reduction: approaches which minimise the number of animals used per experiment

Refinement: approaches which minimise animal suffering and improve welfare

If your research is involving Plants

If plants are involved in your research, authors need to follow Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

If your research is involving New Taxa

Authors must provide relevant documents and unique digital identifier for manuscripts that describe new taxa or species. They should also declare that the relevant guidelines have been followed for algae, fungi and plants, zoological taxa, bacteria, and viruses. Registration numbers for the new species (for e.g., from MycoBank for fungi or ZooBank for zoological species) should be stated in the manuscript. New virus names should be sent to the relevant study groups for consideration before publication in a journal.

If your research is involving Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge

To understand issues of research involving Indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge, authors are encouraged to read references in global context, such as:

While documenting and researching Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK), researchers and authors should follow a list of minimum ethical practices as suggested by WIPO.

Australia, Canada and UK have pioneered research ethics compliances if the research involves Indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge. Examples of Australia and Canada are given below:

Australia
Canada
Some other initiatives of research ethics codes
Prior Informed Consent from Indigenous Peoples

FPIC or PIC is a very big subject in discussions and use for many decades. To develop understanding on the PIC from Indigenous Peoples, you may please consider reading FAO Manual on FPIC.Another good link for reading about FPIC in general and in special context of forestry. If that is not possible, you should download, sign (or get signed) and upload the Self Declaration and/or Prior Informed Consent (PIC) from Indigenous Peoples.

(B) OPTIONAL COMPLIANCE
Prior Informed Consent from Non-Indigenous (Local) Communities

Authors and researchers should voluntarily(in developing countries) or necessarily (in developed countries) adopt PIC when involving non-Indigenous local communities as participants of their research. A sample copy of such PIC is available here for use.

(A) MANDATORY DECLARATIONS

(1) Human Rights Statement (in case of research conducted experimentation on humans)

Before submitting a research involving human subjects, authors need to ensure that the work has been conducted in full compliance with the ethical standards of the responsible institutional or national committees on human subjects, as well as with the Helsinki Declaration. In cases, where such committees do not exist, strict compliance with the Helsinki Declaration is essential. In the odd situations, the authors are requested to explain the full rationale for their approach and should clarify all the doubtful matters of the study in the submitted manuscripts. For detailed guidelines on this subject, please read Research Ethics section of this website.

Authors are required to state that written Prior Informed Consent was obtained from the participants/respondents of the study (and the relevant document(s) must be provided when requested by the journal). If verbal informed consent was obtained, it cannot be treated as evidence of the PIC. For case reports/case series involving subjects like minors/children/infants, authors should confirm that the written statements of Prior Informed Consent from legally authorized representatives/parents/guardians are available; if verbal informed consent was obtained, reasons for this must be mentioned.

(2) Animal Care and Welfare (if animal is used for experimentation during research)

In order to avoid animal suffering and to raise animal welfare, we strictly request authors to obey all national and international guidelines set out for the care and use of animal in research. ARRIVE (Animal Research Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) has set out guidelines to improve the reporting of research using animals – maximising information published and minimising unnecessary studies. In cases of the research involving experimentation on animals, authors are encouraged to liaise with ARRIVE items, crosscheck research work against their checklist and finally upload them during the submission process of the manuscript.

(3) Research on Plants (if plants are used in your research)

The authors are required to follow Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

(4) If New Taxa is Invented

Authors must provide relevant documents and unique digital identifier for manuscripts that describe new taxa or species. They should also declare that the relevant guidelines have been followed for algae, fungi and plants, zoological taxa, bacteria, and viruses. Registration numbers for the new species (for e.g., from MycoBank for fungi or ZooBank for zoological species) should be stated in the manuscript. New virus names should be sent to the relevant study groups for consideration before publication in a journal.

(5) Honoring Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge

Browse ‘Research Ethics’ and read detailed explanations under the heading “Research involving Indigenous peoples and Traditional Knowledge”. Our journals are highly sensitive to the issues of Indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge.

Prior Informed Consent from Indigenous Peoples

FPIC or PIC is a very big subject in discussions and use for many decades. To develop understanding on the PIC from Indigenous Peoples, you may please consider reading FAO Manual on FPIC. Another good link for reading about FPIC in general and in special context of forestry. If that is not possible, you should download, sign (or get signed) and upload the Self-Declaration and/or Prior Informed Consent (PIC) from Indigenous Peoples.

(B) OPTIONAL DECLARATIONS
Prior Informed Consent from Non-Indigenous (Local) Communities

Authors and researchers should voluntarily (in developing countries) or necessarily (in developed countries) adopt PIC when involving non-Indigenous local communities as participants of their research. A sample copy of such PIC is available here for use.

OTHER DECLARATIONS
Authors’ Contribution

The individual contributions of authors to the research work and writing of the manuscript should be specified in this declaration; for example, who conceived the study design, who did the data acquisition, who performed the experiments, who did the data analysis, who wrote the manuscript, etc. At the time of submission of manuscript, the online system will ask you to explain this information in accordance with the journal’s rules. In case the online submission is not functional, the Editorial Office will ask you for this declaration at the time of editing process. An example of this declaration is shown below:

Single author case:

Multiple authors case:

Acknowledgments (optional)

Anyone who does not meet the authorship criteria, such as people who provided technical help, institutional/department head who provided general support, or field animators who assisted in the field work, any friend who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content, should be acknowledged.

Funding Sources, if any

All sources of funding for the research work and their role (if at all) in the design of the study and collection, analysis, interpretation of data, and in writing the manuscript should be declared. Provide the name(s) of the funding agency/agencies along with the grant number(s). If the study did not receive any funding, just fill in the entry “Not Applicable”.

Competing Interests/Conflict of Interest

At the time of submitting the manuscript, author(s) should declare any personal conflict of interest including any association with consultancies; employment details; participation in advocacy groups; stock or share ownership, and any financial details with regard to grants; fees; honoraria, reimbursements royalties, and any registered patents. Authors should also declare any institutional conflict of interest i.e., if their employer has any financial interest in or is in conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. If there is no conflict of interest, the author(s) need to add the following statement: “No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.”

*All the Declarations can be viewed on the last page(s) of each published article in the journals. Please read on:

Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources

Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

Journal of Policy & Governance

Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology

Pastures & Pastoralism

OBEYING THE PUBLISHING ETHICS

Our all journals follow COPE standards for publication ethics Authors wishing to publish their papers in our journals must abide to the following standards as set by the COPE. Certain code of practice and standards set by COPE can be downloaded from here.:

WORKFLOW

It is pertinent for the authors to know the workflow of the articles publishing in our journals. This workflow is more or less same in all journals (i.e., Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources, Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, Journal of Policy & Governance, Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology, etc.).

  1. Reading: Read pertinent and relevant sections of website, particularly related to the submission of the article, ethical declarations, consent form, norms of article processing charges and payment methods, peer review policy, research ethics, and other necessary sections.
  2. Online Registration: Using our website, author will be required to create an online account, if Online Submission is functional. If our Online Submission System is not functional, please go direct to submit manuscript by email.
  3. Submission of Manuscript: Before submitting the manuscript, author needs to read and follow author guidelines, article preparation format, and essential compliance related instructions. MS Word files of the manuscript will be submitted using online forms in the ‘Submit Your Manuscript’. In case, the Online Submission is not functional, the manuscript can be submitted using appropriate email ID. The email IDs of different journals are given on the bottom of page Submit Your Manuscript.
  4. Submission Acknowledgement: When an author submits a manuscript online or by email, he/she will receive a submission acknowledgement letter. In this acknowledge, manuscript number/code will be mentioned. If author fails to receive this confirmation, he/she should check bulk email box or contact the Editorial Team. At the time of manuscript submission, author will need to sign Consent Form and few Declarations
  5. Preliminary Review: The editor or editorial assistant determines whether the manuscript fits the journal’s focus and scope. Next a check for the similarity rate is done using Turnitin or CrossCheck, powered by iThenticate. Any manuscripts out of the journal’s scope or containing plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, are rejected. This step will take 3-5 days and an intimation is sent to the author whether the manuscript can be processed further or recommended to Language Service or rejected. Again, a Consent of the Author will be sought to proceed further if author agrees to pay the Article Processing Charges (APC) on completion of Peer Review Process. In case, author is unable to pay the APC, he/she will be free to withdraw the manuscript at this stage, as it will not be possible to withdraw the manuscript once the manuscript goes into Peer Review Process.
  6. Double Blind Peer Review: We use a double-blind system for peer review; neither the reviewers know the identity of the author(s) nor the author(s) know the reviewers. The submitted manuscript will be reviewed by minimum two experts. The review process may take 2-6 weeks. A Panel of Reviewers performs these functions. The review on each article is given in a format and/or on the copy of article (generally in track change mode) by all the reviewers. To understand better the Double-Blind Review Process, please read the section Peer Review Process.
  7. Intimation of Provisional Acceptance with Notification of the Result of Review: Once the reviewers’ comments are received, Editorial Team forwards the same to the corresponding/other author(s) along with the additional notes of the Editor. The decision to accept or reject an article is based on the recommendations/suggestions of reviewers. If differences of opinion occur between reviewers, the Editor or Editor-in-Chief will weigh all comments and arrive at a balanced decision based on all comments, or a second round of peer review may be initiated. If the article is provisionally accepted, yet a revised draft of manuscript is solicited in addition to request for payment of Article Processing Charges.
  8. Payment of Article Processing Charge: The author(s) is/are asked to pay the Article Processing Charges (APC) specified. The amount of APC does not include any charges of English language corrections in the text of the article being processed. The APC Invoice is sent to the corresponding author separately or along with the Review Reports received from the Peer Reviewers. In the event of the paper is accepted by the Reviewers, the author is requested to revise the draft paper based on the comments or suggestions given by the Reviewers. Authors submit the Revised Article along with the proof of payment of APC.
  9. Rigorous Editing of Article: This is most serious step. No article can go into publishing without 2-3 rounds of rigorous editing by the Editors. It is deliberately performed to maintain high quality and compliance to standards set by Web of Science, Scopus, ISO4 and other available standards. After each of the rigorous editing, the authors are communicated seeking clarifications, corrections, additions, deletions and explanations on the questions or track changes suggested in the text by the Editors. This bilateral communication between authors and Editors goes on until the text of the article becomes error free and complete. In case, the response from authors delays, the article automatically delays in getting published. The Editing Process may be understood more from the link Editorial Process. In some cases, the author(s) do not correct and rectify the corrections or comments raised by the Editor, such manuscripts do not get published at all or until text is error-free.
  10. Publication of the Issue: Before finally publishing the issues of the journal, authors receive the gallery proof of the article. The authors and readers are notified and invited to visit the website of the journal’s newly published articles. The articles in PDF files can be downloaded freely from the webpages of the journal. The current issue published can be accessed on the links as under:

Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources

Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

Journal of Policy & Governance

Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology

Pastures & Pastoralism

workflow
COMMON GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

An article having more than one author can change Corresponding Author and can submit the manuscript. Once the submitted manuscript is published. Different aspects of the manuscript preparation and submission as elaborated as under:

Journal Specific Checklist

Each of our journal has its own:

  • Guidelines for Authors
  • Aims & Scope
  • Manuscript Preparation Guide
  • Manuscript Template
  • References Style

In this context, potential authors are requested to read webpages of each individual journal published by The Grassroots Institute.

For example, the Author Guidelines of different journals are:
- Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources https://grassrootsjournals.org/gjnr/file/author-guidlines.doc.docx;

- Journal of Environmental Law & Policy https://grassrootsjournals.org/guidlines-for-authors-jelp.php#guidlines;

- Journal of Policy & Governance https://grassrootsjournals.org/jpg-guidlines-for-authors.php#guidlines;

- Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology https://grassrootsjournals.org/aa/file/author-guidlines-aa.docx;

- Pastures & Pastoralism https://grassrootsjournals.org/pp-guidlines-for-authors.php.

Manuscript Submission Overview

Manuscripts submitted to our journals should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The main article types that we accept are as follows:

  • Research Articles: We accept original research manuscripts provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information. Authors should not unnecessarily divide their work into several related manuscripts. The quality and impact of the study will be examined during peer review process.
  • Review Articles: These provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research.
  • Analytical Articles: Our journals also accept analytical long articles for publication.
Accepted File Formats

Authors must use the Microsoft Word files to prepare their manuscript. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copyediting and publication of accepted manuscripts. Supplementary files, such as figures, drawings, tables, photos, etc., should be in MS Word, MS Excel, JPEG or PDF formats. The total amount of data for all files must not exceed 5 MB.

General Formatting
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

From the respective webpages of the individual journals, please download Manuscript Preparation Template. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copyediting and publication of accepted manuscripts.

Manuscript templates of different journals are linked in right side menu of each journal:

- Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources https://grassrootsjournals.org/gjnr/gjnr-manuscript-template.docx
- Journal of Environmental Law & Policy https://grassrootsjournals.org/jelp/file/manuscript-template-jelp.docx
- Journal of Policy & Governance https://grassrootsjournals.org/jpg/file/jpg-manuscript-template.docx
- Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology https://grassrootsjournals.org/aa/file/aa-manuscript-template.docx
- Pastures & Pastoralism https://grassrootsjournals.org/pp/file/pp-manuscript-template.docx

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION PROCESS

To submit your manuscript, visit the Submit Your Manuscript link. Once you have registered and created login and password, you will be asked to Submit Your Manuscript. All steps needed for submitting a manuscript are explained on this link. In online submission gateway, when you choose a particular journal while starting submission process, you will be guided what requirements you will need to fulfil. In case, the online submission gateway is not functional, the submitting author is guided to submit the manuscript by using appropriate email just on the bottom of Submit Your Manuscript page.

Cover Letter

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work and why it fits the scope of the journal. Author needs to confirm in Consent Form that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should be provided in the submission system, not in the cover letter.

Along with the article submitted to any journal of The Grassroots Institute, the Corresponding Author must sign a Consent Form and submit online. This Consent Form contains several crucial declarations by the author(s), including statements regarding no plagiarism, authors’ responsibilities and no simultaneous submission of the manuscript.

Consent Form is mandatory before the manuscript is processed further. This Form can be downloaded from the link Consent Form (see also the Submit Your Manuscript).

CORRECTIONS & RETRACTIONS
Corrections (Erratum) and Addendum

Immediately after an article is published online, the Editorial Office informs all the concerned authors to check and verify not only the contents of the published article but also the information placed on the webpages. Within 3 days time, the authors file their corrections wherever they spot and intimate the respective journal, which undertakes those corrections.

Once the issue of the journal is published, if an article has major changes (e.g., in a figure, in conclusions, whole paragraph added, correction of a species name or equation, or addition of missing details about a method, etc.) affecting significantly the scientific interpretation of a paper, an Addendum can be published in the next issue of the journal. In case, crucial results (e.g., missing grant number, additional affiliation, clarification regarding some aspect of methods/analysis, etc.) were unintentionally overlooked or removed from the original text, through an Addendum the original article can be amended with the mentions of the previously omitted results. The Addendum would be published, with the manuscript number of the article.

Retractions

Why retractions? An article published by a journal by The Grassroots Institute can be retracted only if a scientific misconduct is observed. The scientific misconduct includes data fabrication, data falsification including deceptive manipulation of images, ethical breaches, and plagiarism. Sometimes, the inappropriate methodology compromising integrity of research may also lead to retraction of the published article.

The Grassroots Institute follows the recommendations of the Retraction Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction. Potential retractions are thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. There may be circumstances in which no misconduct is proven, but an exchange of letters to the Editors could be published to highlight matters of debate to readers.

There may be circumstances in which no misconduct is proven, but an exchange of letters to the Editors could be published to highlight matters of debate to readers.

Comments and Replies

In the situation of a complaint of reader against an article’s contents, a reader will approach the Editorial Office or the Editor-in-Chief of a journal. In such circumstances, the Editorial Office may invite the reader to write a short and reasoned Comment on that particular article. After consideration and review by the Editors, the Comment may be published. The Editorial Office may approach the author(s) of the article and invite to prepare a Reply. If the reader’s Comments are substantiated by the authors, the Editorial Office may consequently publish a Correction or Reply.

MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

In the era of electronic communications, there are ample opportunities of producing fabricated and fictious data. The journals published by The Grassroots Institute fully endorse and conform the most prevalent ethical guidelines and publication standards. Therefore, ethical issues and scientific misconduct (as described in Retraction section) are obviously handled very seriously by our journals. If something serious anomaly is noticed during the process of review, editing or processing of article, the author is asked for clarifications. In case, the clarifications are unsatisfactory, the article can either be rejected before publication or be retracted if already published. The authors can appeal in writing against the Editor's decision on the manuscript.

The Editorial Office of all our journals also check the manuscripts for plagiarism and any fraudulent data prior to the processing of the manuscript before the peer review process. If plagiarism is detected at this stage or latter, the manuscript is rejected and is not reconsidered in any of our journals. In serious issues of scientific misconduct, our editors will investigate the allegations of publication/scientific misconduct (as explained in Retraction section) and may take appropriate action if the allegations are proven. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing in our journals.

CONTROVERSY OVER ANY ARTICLE

Despite our precautions and honest transparent processes, a controversy can emerge on an unpublished or published article. In such circumstances, the matter will first be documented by the Executive/Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief, and then will be placed in front of all the Editorial Board of the journal concerned. As per the majority decision of the Editorial Board Members, further action will be taken.

TRACKING METHODS

The journals of The Grassroots Institute manage the manuscripts using online submission system. When a manuscript is submitted, the author/submitter (user) creates an online account in the system using a login and password. After submission of the manuscript, the user can track the process/fate of the manuscript through Dashboard. User’s dashboard has a table that will show the Status of the manuscript. A copy of the published paper can be downloaded from this route.

The alternate route of accessing your published paper is to browse the issues of the journal in which paper was submitted. Two-three layers of information about the paper are uploaded on webpages of the journal. The recently published papers and the past issues of different journals are easily accessible and can be downloaded from the links:

Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources
Journal of Environmental Law & Policy
Journal of Policy & Governance
Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology
Pastures & Pastoralism

ARTICLE AVAILABILITY

All published articles are free to access and download by anyone. Authors can also download their papers. Readers can read and download any published without any fee or restriction. The recently published papers and the past issues of different journals are easily accessible and can be downloaded from the links:

Grassroots Journal of Natural Resources
Journal of Environmental Law & Policy
Journal of Policy & Governance
Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology
Pastures & Pastoralism

ENQUIRY

Any specific enquiry about the journal should be directed to respective journal. The Editorial Office will be glad to address your queries. In case of any matter related to The Grassroots Institute, please visit the dedicated independent website of the Institute. The independent websites and email contacts are:

Grassroots Journal of Natural Resource
Journal of Environmental Law & Policy
Journal of Policy & Governance
Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology
Pastures & Pastoralism

[ nr@grassrootsjournals.org ]
[ jelp@grassrootsjournals.org ]
[ jpg@grassrootsjournals.org ]
[ aa@grassrootsjournals.org ]
[ pp@grassrootsjournals.org ]

PROMOTING YOUR PUBLISHED ARTICLE

Promoting your published work is an important part of the post-publication process which will increase the visibility, impact and citation of your work. The Grassroots Institute can support you to promote your research papers within your scientific community, as well as to a wide audience. You are highly recommended to adopt the following:

Social Media

  • Share your article on various social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Mendeley, and Twitter.
  • Write a blog post to explain the meaning and possible outcomes of your research. This will lead to higher engagement of your research community.
  • Ask your institution or society to post your paper on their social media accounts and to include a story about your paper in their newsletters.

Link Share

  • Share the article link directly with colleagues and peers in your field.
  • Add a link to your article in your email signature.
  • Update your personal and institutional websites by adding the title of your article and a link to it.

Academic Research-Sharing Platforms

  • Set up your profile on academic research-sharing platforms, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, ORCID, Scopus, Publons, SciProfiles, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and add a short summary of your article.
  • Deposit your article to repositories (such as those run by your university) to make your research more discoverable.

Conferences

  • Present your publication at conferences in the form of a presentation or a poster.

Video

  • Produce a video abstract that briefly introduces your article, and upload on YouTube, Vimeo, etc.

Wikipedia

  • Find a Wikipedia page on a topic related to your article and add a reference to your paper.
COPYRIGHT POLICY

Authors publishing with the journals of The Grassroots Institute retain the copyright of their work under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). This license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, provided that the original work is properly cited.

By submitting a manuscript for publication, Authors agree to the following terms.

  1. Authors will own the copyright to the Article.
  2. The manuscript submitted for publication is the author’s original work.
  3. Authors hereby grant to The Grassroots Institute a free and unrestricted license to disseminate the Article electronically to anybody who asks for it.
  4. All authors participated in the work in a substantive way and are prepared to take public responsibility for the work.
  5. All authors have seen and approved the manuscript as submitted.
  6. The manuscript has not been published and is not being submitted or considered for publication elsewhere.
  7. The text, illustrations and any other materials included in the manuscript do not infringe upon any existing copyright or other rights of anyone.
  8. No responsibility is assumed by The Grassroots Institute, its staff or members of the Editorial Board for any injury or change to person or property as a matter of product liability, negligence or otherwise of any methods, product instruction or ideas contained in this publication.
Copyright without Restrictions

The journals published The Grassroots Institute allow the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions and will retain publishing rights without restrictions.

The submitted papers are assumed to contain no proprietary material unprotected by patent or patent application; responsibility for technical content and for protection of proprietary material rests solely with the author(s) and their organizations and is not the responsibility of our journals or its Editorial Staff. The main (first/corresponding) author is responsible for ensuring that the article has been seen and approved by all the other authors. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain all necessary copyright release permissions for the use of any copyrighted materials in the manuscript prior to the submission.

What are the rights of author(s)?

It is important to check the policy for the journal to which you are submitting or publishing to establish your rights as author(s). Our standard policies allow the following re-use rights:

  • The journals allow the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions.
  • The journals allow the author(s) to obtain publishing rights without restrictions.
  • You may do whatever you wish with the version of the article you submitted to the journal(s).
  • Once the article has been accepted for publication, you may post the accepted version of the article on your own personal website, your department’s website or the repository of your institution without any restrictions.
  • You may use the published article for your own teaching needs or to supply on an individual basis to research colleagues, provided that such supply is not for commercial purposes.
  • You may use the article in a book authored or edited by you or someone from The Grassroots Institute (publisher of our journals) at any time after publication in our journals. This does not apply to books where you are contributing a chapter to a book authored or edited by someone else from other publisher.
  • You may post the published article on a website or in a repository.
  • When posting or re-using the article please provide a link to our respective journal.
ARTICLE DEPOSIT, POSTING & ARCHIVING POLICY
Self-Archiving Policy

Preprint version

The preprint version is defined as the submitted unpublished version of an article, which has not been peer-reviewed, officially accepted into a journal, or had any value added to it by the journal of The Grassroots Institute (such as copyediting, typesetting, metadata formatting, etc.). Authors may place their preprint manuscript on a non-commercial institutional repository, subject repository, archive, not-for-profit preprint repository or personal website at any time. This is not subject to an embargo. Once accepted for publication in our journal, authors should add the following note to the front page:

This is a pre-peer review preprint of an article that has been accepted for publication in [name of journal, volume, issue, year].

Upon publication, authors should link the preprint to the final published article (version of record) by adding the following note to the first page:

This is a pre-peer review preprint © [name of author, year]. The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in [name of journal, volume, issue, pages, year, DOI link].

Preprints should not be enhanced or formatted in any way to appear like the accepted manuscript or final published version. Authors are not permitted to replace the preprint with the accepted manuscript or the final published version.

Accepted manuscript

An accepted manuscript (or post-print file) is defined as the version of the paper after peer review, with revisions having been made, but before copy-editing and typesetting have taken place. The accepted manuscript can be made publicly visible in a non-commercial, institutional or subject repository. Authors should link the accepted manuscript to the final published article (version of record) by adding the following note to the first page:

© [name of author, year]. The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in [name of journal, volume, issue, pages, year, DOI link].

Authors are only permitted to consider republishing any part of the accepted contribution after the article is published in the journal.

The authors need to abide by the terms of the licence form, The author retains all moral and proprietary rights that are not in conflict with the terms of this licence. This includes ownership of all patent and trademark rights to any process or procedure, or any other form of intellectual property contained in the accepted contribution.

Users may access, view, copy and download the accepted manuscript for personal, non-commercial use of academic or educational nature. Users may not modify the content, remove any copyright notices or author information, or create derivative works.

Final published version (version of record)

The start date for this policy is the article’s publication date.

The version of record as the final published PDF, XML or HTML version of the article. The author is permitted to post, print, or otherwise distribute the journal’s version of record/final PDF or XML published version without permission. Quotations from the article may be used, provided these are of a reasonable and necessary length only, and there is a full citation to the original source using the DOI. Users may not modify the content, remove any copyright notices or author information, or create derivative works.

Deposit & Posting and Self-Archiving Policy

All the journals of The Grassroots Institute follow the Sherpa Policy for Deposit with its embed code.

By signing the Consent Form of respective journal, the authors retain the rights of self-archiving. Following are the important features of self-archiving policy of the journals of The Grassroots Institute:

  1. Authors can deposit the first draft of a submitted article on their personal websites, their institution’s repositories or any non-commercial repository for personal use, internal institutional use or for permitted scholarly posting.
  2. Authors may deposit the ACCEPTED VERSION of the peer-reviewed article on their personal websites, their institution’s repository or any non-commercial repository, such as ResearchGate, arXiv, Academia.edu, quickly after publication on the journal’s website. In addition, journal's webpage (where article is published) should be inserted while depositing to repositories.
  3. The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number of the article.

All the journals of The Grassroots Institute store all back issues and current articles on its respective websites.

Long-term Archiving

To ensure permanent access to our published content and for long-term preservation of the content published in our journals, all the journals of The Grassroots Institute deposit published articles in (1) Internet Archive, (2) WorldCat (3) Other databases [e.g. Crossref, EuroPub, Scilit, Publons, SSRN, DRJI, Cite Factor, Academia.edu, Dimensions, Research Gate, ZENODO, Scribd, Research Square, etc.].

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