Editorial Board

IJGO provides immediate open access to its scholarly content. Readers may access full-text articles without registration, subscription or embargo. IJGO supports the principle that free availability and responsible reuse of research improve global exchange of knowledge. The specific reuse rights for each article are governed by the licence displayed on that article.

Recommended policy, subject to publisher/legal approval: Authors retain copyright in their work and grant IJGO a non-exclusive right of first publication. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, which permits sharing and adaptation for lawful purposes provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the licence is supplied, and changes are indicated. Third-party material not covered by the article licence must be identified separately. Do not publish “All rights reserved” on CC BY articles.

Submission fee: Nil. Editorial processing fee: Nil. Article Processing Charge (APC): Nil. Publication fee: Nil. Page charges: Nil. Colour-figure charges: Nil. Mandatory society-membership fee: Nil. Authors are not charged after acceptance.

IJGO is committed to integrity, transparency and accountability in scholarly publishing and aligns its editorial practice with current ICMJE recommendations, COPE core practices, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Suspected fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, inappropriate image manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, authorship manipulation, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, unethical research or other misconduct will be assessed fairly and confidentially. The journal may request raw data or documentation, contact institutions where appropriate, and issue corrections, expressions of concern or retractions when warranted. Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, relevance, methodological quality and integrity, not on commercial considerations or personal relationships.

IJGO follows the ICMJE criteria for authorship. Every listed author must make a substantial contribution to the work; participate in drafting or critical revision; approve the final version; and agree to be accountable for the work. Contributors who do not meet all authorship criteria should be acknowledged with permission. For research articles, IJGO requires a contributorship statement using the CRediT taxonomy where feasible. Requests to add, remove or reorder authors after submission require a written explanation and agreement from all affected authors; changes after acceptance are exceptional and may require an editorial notice.

Authors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships or activities that could be perceived to influence the work. Reviewers must disclose conflicts and decline when impartiality is compromised. Editors must recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have a conflict, including their own work, close collaborators, family members or institutional relationships that create a reasonable concern. Every published scholarly article must include a Competing Interests statement, including an explicit “none declared” statement when appropriate.

Research involving human participants, identifiable human material or identifiable data must state the approving ethics committee/institutional review board, approval/reference number where available, and consent process or documented waiver. Research must comply with applicable law and ethical standards. Identifiable patient information or images require appropriate consent for publication. Case reports and clinical images must include a publication-consent statement. If consent is not required, authors must explain the legal/ethical basis.

Animal studies must state the responsible ethics committee approval and compliance with relevant institutional/national standards. Authors should use appropriate reporting guidance, including ARRIVE where applicable.

Prospective clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry that meets ICMJE/WHO expectations before enrolment of the first participant, unless a justified exception applies. The registry name and registration number must appear in the abstract and manuscript. Late registration must be disclosed and explained.

All original research articles must include a Data Availability Statement. Authors should make de-identified data, protocols, code or analytic materials available in a suitable repository when ethically, legally and practically possible. Where data cannot be shared, the statement must explain why and describe any controlled-access route. Editors may request underlying data or documentation during review or post-publication integrity assessment.

Authors must disclose substantive use of AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, analysis, coding, image creation or other research/publishing tasks, identifying the tool and purpose in the manuscript and/or cover letter as appropriate. AI tools cannot be listed as authors or cited as primary sources. Human authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, references, permissions and integrity. AI must not be used to fabricate or alter research data, clinical findings or patient information. Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts or unpublished material into AI systems where confidentiality cannot be assured. Any editorial use of AI must be transparent, appropriately safeguarded and subject to human oversight.

Submissions may be screened for similarity and inappropriate text reuse. Plagiarism, fabricated citations, duplicate publication and simultaneous submission to multiple journals are not permitted. Legitimate reuse of methods or standard language must be appropriately limited and cited where required. Related manuscripts, preprints and overlapping datasets must be disclosed. A preprint is not considered prior publication when handled in accordance with the journal’s stated preprint policy.

IJGO permits submission of manuscripts previously posted as preprints, provided authors disclose the preprint DOI/URL at submission and update the preprint record with the Version of Record DOI after publication where the server permits. Media promotion of unreviewed findings should be responsible and should not imply peer-reviewed validation.

IJGO preserves the integrity of the Version of Record. Substantive errors are not silently overwritten. Corrections are published as separate, citable notices linked bidirectionally to the affected article. Retractions and Expressions of Concern follow established publication-ethics principles and remain visible with reasons that distinguish honest error from misconduct where known. Metadata and DOI relationships are updated when corrections, withdrawals or retractions occur. Minor metadata or typographic corrections that do not alter interpretation may be made with a dated change log.

Authors, reviewers and readers may submit complaints or appeals to the journal’s designated role-based email. Appeals must identify the manuscript/article and provide specific grounds. An appeal will be reviewed by an editor who was not the sole decision-maker in the original decision whenever feasible. Complaints concerning the Editor-in-Chief are escalated to an independent senior editor or publisher/society governance route. The journal will acknowledge complaints, preserve confidentiality and communicate an outcome in a reasonable timeframe.

Editorial decisions are made independently of advertising, sponsorship, society politics, commercial relationships, author fees and personal influence. The publisher/society appoints editorial leadership but does not determine acceptance or rejection of individual manuscripts. Any sponsored collection must preserve independent editorial control and disclose sponsorship.

Special issues use the same submission, ethical screening and peer-review standards as regular issues. Guest editors are selected for relevant expertise and declared conflicts are managed. The Editor-in-Chief or delegated board member oversees the collection. A guest editor’s own manuscript, if considered, is handled by an independent editor and independent reviewers. Special-issue branding must not imply endorsement by an institution unless written permission exists.

Advertising, sponsorship and commercial support are kept separate from editorial decisions and clearly identified. Advertisements must not be presented as editorial content. Sponsored content must state its nature. The journal will not allow intrusive advertising that interferes with access to scholarly content.

IJGO is committed to permanent preservation of the scholarly record. The journal will deposit published content and associated metadata in an independent long-term digital preservation service. For MEDLINE readiness, prioritize Portico or CLOCKSS (or full PMC participation once eligible), because NLM currently recognizes Portico and CLOCKSS as acceptable third-party preservation repositories. Display the preservation service publicly only after an active agreement and deposit are confirmed.

The journal collects personal information required for submission, peer review, publication and journal administration. Contact information is used only for legitimate editorial/publishing purposes and is protected with access controls. Reviewer identities are handled according to the double-anonymized review model. The site should explain cookies/analytics and applicable privacy rights.