Ethics & Malpractice Statement

Public Administration and Civil Service (PACS)

Open Access Policy

Public Administration and Civil Service (PACS) is an Open Access journal. All published content is freely available to readers without subscription or payment barriers.

Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright to their published works and grant the journal the right of first publication under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)
 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0

This license permits third parties to read, download, copy, distribute, and reproduce the published materials for non-commercial purposes, provided that proper attribution is given to the authors and a link to the license is included.

Authorship Criteria and Author Contributions

Authorship must be based on all of the following criteria being met simultaneously:

  1. Substantial contribution to the conception and design of the study, data collection, or data analysis and interpretation;
  2. Drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.

Peer Review Policy

All manuscripts submitted to PACS undergo double-blind peer review.

Core principles of peer review:

  • Reviewers must have no conflicts of interest with the authors (personal, professional, or financial);
  • Reviewers are selected based on their academic expertise and experience relevant to the manuscript topic;
  • Peer review is conducted within reasonable timeframes to ensure both quality and efficiency of the publication process;
  • Reviews must be objective, reasoned, and free from discriminatory, offensive, or subjective language;
  • Manuscripts are evaluated without regard to the authors’ nationality, gender, religious beliefs, or political views.

Reviewers are drawn from both the editorial board and external independent experts.

Conflict of Interest Policy

All participants in the editorial process (authors, reviewers, and editors) must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest that could affect the objectivity of manuscript evaluation.
In cases where conflicts of interest are identified, the editorial office acts in accordance with COPE recommendations.

ORCID

The journal strongly encourages all authors to provide their ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript:
 orcid.org. The use of ORCID ensures accurate author identification, improves discoverability and indexation of publications, and complies with international database requirements. The ORCID iD is published alongside the article upon acceptance.

Open Data Policy

The journal supports the principles of Open Science and encourages authors—when required by funders or institutions—to make research data available in accordance with the FAIR principles:

  • Findable
  • Accessible
  • Interoperable
  • Reusable

Open research data should:

  • Be described in a separate section of the article;
  • Be made publicly available after article publication;
  • Be properly cited when using third-party datasets.

 

Corrections and Retraction Policy

All journal publications are assigned permanent identifiers (DOI) and are considered final.
Changes are permitted only in the following forms:

  • Publication of a correction;
  • Publication of a retraction notice, with continued access to the original article.

All decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines and the journal’s Ethics & Malpractice Statement (active hyperlink).

 

Complaints and Appeals Policy

The journal provides a transparent mechanism for handling complaints and appeals.
All complaints are submitted to the Editor-in-Chief and are reviewed in accordance with established procedures and COPE guidelines.

Archiving Policy

The journal ensures the long-term preservation and accessibility of published content.

All articles are archived:

  • On the official journal website;
  • On the secure platform of the National Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Ethical Oversight

Public Administration and Civil Service (PACS) follows the principles and guidelines of COPE.
All suspected cases of academic or publishing misconduct are handled strictly in accordance with COPE recommendations.