This page states BMU-wide publishing principles. It does not replace journal-specific author guidelines, peer-review descriptions, fee schedules or discipline-specific ethical requirements. Operational claims apply only where implemented by the relevant journal or publisher system.
Publisher responsibilities
BMU may provide administrative, financial, legal, technological, hosting, production, metadata, preservation and operational support to journals in its portfolio. These responsibilities do not confer authority to require acceptance or rejection of an individual manuscript for commercial, personal, political, institutional or reputational reasons.
The publisher may bring legal, privacy, safety, financial or operational concerns to editorial attention and may require adherence to formally adopted policies, but such oversight should not be used to direct a preferred scholarly outcome in an individual case.
Editorial authority
Each journal should identify the person or editorial structure authorised to make manuscript decisions. The Editor-in-Chief or equivalent senior editorial authority remains responsible for scholarly direction, fair assessment, peer-review oversight and appropriate post-publication action.
Peer-review reports inform editorial judgment but do not operate as binding votes. Editors remain responsible for evaluating the relevance, quality, independence and evidential basis of reports.
Separation from financial decisions
Article-processing charges, waivers, advertising, sponsorship, donations, institutional relationships and other revenue sources must not determine editorial outcomes. Payment does not purchase acceptance, favourable review, expedited scientific treatment or immunity from correction or retraction.
Where practical, fee administration should be separated from academic decision-making. A request for a waiver or discount should not be treated as evidence of lower scholarly value.
Editorial appointments
Editorial appointments should be based on relevant expertise, academic integrity, independence, professional conduct and the capacity to perform the role. A person should not be listed merely to obtain the value of their name, institutional affiliation or title.
Before appointment, a journal may verify identity, affiliation, qualifications, expertise and relevant competing interests. Appointment terms, responsibilities, confidentiality expectations and conflict procedures should be communicated clearly.
Conflicts and recusal
Editors and board members should disclose standing and case-specific competing interests. Recusal is expected where a relationship could reasonably affect, or appear to affect, impartiality.
A recused editor should not select reviewers, influence confidential correspondence, participate in the decision or use unavoidable technical access except for documented administrative necessity.
Submissions involving editors or publisher personnel
Editors, board members and publisher personnel may be authors, but their roles must not create preferential treatment. Manuscripts involving a person with editorial authority should be handled independently by an appropriately conflict-free editor.
Where a senior editorial or publisher figure is directly implicated in a complaint or integrity matter, review should not be controlled solely by the person or organisation whose conduct is in question. An independent adviser, senior editor or ad hoc panel may be used.
Special issues and guest editors
Guest Editors are subject to the same expectations of competence, disclosure, confidentiality and independence as permanent editors. Their own manuscripts and submissions from close collaborators require independent handling.
The journal’s permanent editorial authority should retain oversight of special issues and may intervene where review quality, conflicts, delay, manipulation or failure to apply policy is in doubt.
Accountability and public disclosure
BMU-published journals should identify ownership, publisher, editorial leadership, governance arrangements and official contact routes accurately. Governance practice should correspond with public statements.
Claims of independence are not a substitute for actual conflict checks, recusals, independent handling and documented decision authority.
Policy basis and interpretation
Adapted principally from JHWCR Policies 2 and 3. The BMU version generalises journal-specific material into a publisher framework and removes details that should remain title-specific. Where a journal publishes a more specific requirement that is consistent with these principles, the journal-specific rule governs that journal's submissions.
Questions about this framework may be sent to info@bmuventures.com.