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Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade)

Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade)

https://scindeks.ceon.rs/journalDetails.aspx?issn=1450-8109

JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES BELGRADE Vol. 70, No. 4, 2025

 

Editorial Policy of the JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES (BELGRADE)

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade), the official journal of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, publishes scientific papers in the following agricultural areas: Field and Vegetable Crop Sciences, Fruit Science and Viticulture, Animal Sciences, Soil Management, Plant Protection, Agricultural Engineering, Food Technology, and Agricultural Economics.

The Faculty of Agriculture (University of Belgrade) has published a scientific journal whose title has changed several times since 1948. From 1948 to 1953, the journal was entitled Annual of Faculty of Agriculture. From 1953 to 1992, it was published in Serbian as Collection of papers of Faculty of Agriculture, issued twice a year, with identifiers UDC: 63 and ISSN 0522-8530. Beginning with Vol. 37, No. 1, 1992, the journal was published in English under the title Review of Research Work at the Faculty of Agriculture with identifiers UDC: 63 and ISSN 0354-3498. Since 1999, Vol. 44, No.1, the journal has been published under the title Journal of Agricultural Sciences, with identifiers UDC: 63 and ISSN 1450-8109.

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) publishes original papers that have not been published previously, including: original scientific papers, review articles and preliminary communications. The journal is Open Access.

Papers must be submitted in English or Serbian. Papers written in English should include a short abstract in Serbian at the end of the manuscript. For authors from other countries, the publisher provides translation of the abstract into Serbian.

The journal is published four times per year and is indexed in CAB Abstracts, AGRICOLA, Scopus, SCIndeks, EBSCO, SHERPA ROMEO, and DOAJ.

REVIEWING PROCEDURE

Review procedure

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) uses a double-blind peer reviewed system for all papers. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers, who act independently and are not aware of each other’s identities. The reviewers are selected solely based on their relevant expertise for evaluating the manuscript. Reviewers must not be from the same institution as the author(s) of the manuscript, nor have been their co-authors in the recent past. Suggestions of individual reviewers by the author(s) will not be accepted.

The purpose of peer review is to assist the Editorial Board in deciding whether to accept or reject the paper. It also aims to improve the quality of the paper through communication among editors, authors, and reviewers.

Peer review process

Manuscripts are sent for review only if they pass the initial evaluation regarding their format and thematic scope. Special care is taken to ensure that the initial evaluation does not last longer than necessary.

Under normal circumstances, the review process takes up to six weeks, and extends to three months only in exceptional cases. The total period from the submission of a manuscript until its publication averages 90 days.

During the review process, the Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if necessary for the evaluation of the manuscript. These materials are kept confidential and must not be used for any other purposes.

The entire review process is supervised by the Editor-in-Chief in an online environment within the SCIndeks Assistant, a system based on the OJS platform. The system also allows authors to track the entire review process.

Resolving inconsistencies

If the authors have serious and reasonable objections to the reviews, the Editorial Board will assess whether a review is objective and whether it meets academic standards. If there is a doubt about the objectivity or quality of the review, the Editor-in-Chief will assign additional reviewer(s).

Additional reviewers may also be assigned when reviewers’ decisions (accept or reject) are contradictory or otherwise substantially incompatible.

The final decision on the acceptance of the manuscript for publication rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief.

RESPONSIBLES

Authors' responsibilities

Authors warrant that their manuscripts are their original contributions, that they have not been published previously, and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal constitutes misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from further consideration. The paper that has already been published elsewhere cannot be reprinted in the Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade).

Authors are exclusively responsible for the content of their submissions. Authors affirm that the manuscript contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties.

Authors must ensure that the author list in the manuscript includes all and only those who have significantly contributed to the submitted manuscript. If persons other than the authors were involved in important aspects of the research project or the preparation of the manuscript, their contributions should be acknowledged in a footnote or in the Acknowledgments section.

Authors are responsible for specifying the title and code label of the research project under which the manuscript was created, as well as the full title of the funding institution. If the submitted manuscript has been presented at a conference as an oral presentation (under the same or a similar title), detailed information about the conference should be provided in the same section.

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and manuscript. Parts of the manuscript, including text, equations, images and tables that are taken verbatim from other works must be clearly marked, for example, by using quotation marks accompanied by their location in the original document (page number), or, if more extensive, given in a separate paragraph.

Full references for each quotation (in-text citation) must be listed in a separate section (References) in a uniform manner, according to the citation style used by the journal. The References section should list only quoted/cited sources, not all materials used for the preparation of the manuscript.

When authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published paper, they are obliged to promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief (or publisher) and cooperate to retract or correct the paper.

Authors should disclose any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might have influenced the results or their interpretation.

By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree to abide by the Editorial Policies of the Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade).

After acceptance, authors are required to submit a signed Author Declaration.

Editorial responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published. The decisions are made exclusively on the basis of the manuscript's merit and must be free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias. When making a decision, the Editor-in-Chief is also guided by the editorial policy and legal provisions relating to defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Members of the Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief, must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the manuscript they consider for publication. Members who believe they might be perceived as having such a conflict must not participate in the decision process for that manuscript.

The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts must be kept confidential. Information and ideas contained in unpublished materials must not be used for personal gain without the written consent of the authors.

Editors and the editorial staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the authors/reviewers remain anonymous during and after the evaluation process, in accordance with the type of review process.

The Editorial Board is obliged to assist reviewers by providing additional information on the manuscript, including the results of plagiarism checks.

Reviewers' responsibilities

Reviewers are required to provide a qualified and timely assessment of the scholarly merits of the manuscript. The reviewer must pay particular attention to the real contribution and originality of the manuscript. The review must be fully objective. The judgment of the reviewers must be clear and substantiated by arguments.

The reviewers assess the manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the scientific relevance of the information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and the scholarly apparatus. The review follows a standard format and is submitted through the online journal management system, where it is stored permanently.

The reviewer must not be in a conflict of interest with the authors or funders of research. If such a conflict exists, the reviewer is obliged to promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief. The reviewer shall not accept for reviewing papers beyond the field of their professional expertise.

Reviewers should alert the Editor-in-Chief to any well-founded suspicions or knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been considered in the manuscript. They may recommend specific references for citation, but shall not require to cite papers published in the Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade), or their own papers, unless it is justified.

The reviewers are expected to improve the quality of the manuscript through their suggestions. If they recommend correction of the manuscript prior to publication, they are obliged to specify the manner in which this can be achieved.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors.

ETHICAL PUBLISHING

Dealing with unethical behaviour

Anyone may inform the Editor-in-Chief / Editorial Board at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary credible information/evidence to start an investigation.

The procedure for verifying the presented evidence is carried out as follows:

  • Editor-in-Chief makes the decision regarding the initiation of an investigation.
  • During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in the process.
  • The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
  • If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.

Minor misconduct (with no influence on the integrity of the paper and the journal, for example, when it comes to misunderstanding or wrong application of publishing standards) will be dealt directly with authors and reviewers without involving any other parties. Outcomes include:

  • Sending a warning letter to authors and/or reviewers.
  • Publishing correction of a paper, e.g. when sources properly quoted in the text are omitted from the reference list.
  • Publishing an erratum, e.g. if the error was made by editorial staff.

In the case of major misconduct the Editor-in-Chief may adopt different measures:

  • Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
  • Informing officially the author's/reviewer's affiliating institution.
  • The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy.
  • A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
  • Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.

The above actions may be taken separately or jointly. If necessary, in the process of resolving the case relevant expert organizations, bodies, or individuals may be consulted during the process of resolving the case.

When addressing unethical behaviour, the Editorial Board will follow the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Plagiarism prevention

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) does not publish plagiarised papers. The Editorial Board maintains that plagiarism, defined as presenting another person's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own, constitutes a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law and may be subject to legal action.

Plagiarism includes the following:

  • verbatim (word-for-word), or near-verbatim copying, or intentional paraphrasing of parts of another author's paper without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, by using quotation marks) as described under Authors’ responsibilities;
  • copying equations, figures or tables from another person's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.

Any manuscript which shows clear signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected. If plagiarism is discovered in a paper already published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described under the Retraction policy.

To prevent plagiarism, the manuscripts are submitted to a plagiarism detection process using iThenticate/CrossRef within SCIndeks Assistant. The results obtained are verified by the Editorial Board in accordance with the guidelines and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In the preparation of manuscripts for publication in the Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade), AI tools may be used exclusively for the creation of AI-assisted, but not AI-generated content.

AI tools must not be used as a substitute for human critical thinking, scholarly judgment, or professional expertise. Artificial intelligence technologies must always be applied under direct human supervision and control. All intellectual content – including ideas, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions – must be exclusively the work of the authors.

Under no circumstances may an AI tool be listed as an author or co-author, nor cited as the author of a referenced paper.

The use of AI tools is permitted only for limited linguistic and technical purposes, including:

  • grammar and spelling corrections;
  • stylistic refinement of text previously written by the authors;
  • assistance with formatting (tables, figures, charts, etc.), provided that such use is disclosed in the Acknowledgments;
  • technical assistance, such as code debugging.

Failure to disclose the use of AI tools in a manuscript constitutes a breach of publication ethics and, if confirmed, may result in rejection of the manuscript and the application of measures in accordance with the guidelines of relevant ethical bodies (e.g., COPE).

The use of AI tools is not permitted for:

  • generating substantial portions of the manuscript, particularly ideas, data, results, images, tables, or similar content;
  • modifying scientific arguments or interpretations;
  • altering data or generating references;
  • submitting a manuscript that is not the result of the authors’ own scientific work.

In all cases, authors are fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, and integrity of their work.

The use of AI tools in the research process underlying the manuscript is not prohibited, provided that such use is scientifically justified and described in detail in the Methods section or an equivalent part of the manuscript. A detailed description must include the name of the AI tool, the provider, the date of access, the prompt(s) used, and the purpose of use.

Members of the Editorial board and reviewers are also required to adhere to ethical principles concerning the use of AI tools. AI may be used only as support for work based on their own expertise. Editorial recommendations and decisions must not be delegated to AI systems. Submitted manuscripts may be entered only into internal, secure, contractually protected AI systems.

Retraction policy

Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder, or author(s), as well as infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, false claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or any major misconduct, require the retraction of an article.

Occasionally, a retraction may be used to correct numerous serious errors, which cannot be addressed by publishing corrections. A retraction may be published by the Editor-in-Chief, the author(s), or both parties by mutual agreement.

The retraction takes the form of a separate item listed in the contents and labeled as "Retraction". In SCIndeks, as the journals' primary full-text database, a two-way communication (HTML link) is established between the original work and the retraction. The original article is retained unchanged, except for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted”.

Retractions are published according to the requirements of COPE operationalized by CEON/CEES as the journal indexer and aggregator.

Conflict of interest

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) adheres to the conflict of interest policy recommended by COPE and/or other international research publishing regulatory authorities (ICMJE, EASE). The authors must declare any conflicts of interest in the Conflict of Interest Statement (CoIS). In the CoIS, each named author is required to provide: (1) a statement of any potential conflicts of interest relevant to the content or a statement that there are no such conflicts; (2) disclosure of how the article is funded, including specific disclosure of any and all company funding (partial or total), or a statement that there was no such involvement (if applicable); (3) a comprehensive explanation of the role of sponsors in article preparation if the article is sponsored in part or in full.

Informed consent policy

Authors publishing in the Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) are required to handle data related to research participants in accordance with the highest ethical standards, ensuring confidentiality and protection of privacy. When personal or potentially identifiable data are used, authors must obtain written informed consent from participants for their use and publication.

Human and animal rights

For articles reporting experimental research on animals, authors should indicate whether the procedures comply with national or international guidelines. Where available, the procedures should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement in accordance with relevant guidelines (Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or ethical approval must be submitted with the manuscript. Studies must include accepted norms of veterinary best practice regarding animal sacrifice.

OPEN ACCESS

Open access policy

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) is published under an Open Access licence. All its content is available free of charge. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search the full text of articles, as well as to establish HTML links to them, without having to seek the consent of the author or publisher.

The right to use content without consent does not release the users from the obligation to give the credit to the journal and its content in the manner described under Licensing.

Archiving digital version

In accordance with the law, digital copies of all published volumes are archived in the legal deposit library of the National Library of Serbia and concurrently in the Repository of SCIndeks – The Serbian Citation Index as the primary full-text database.

ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGE

The Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) does not charge authors or any third party for publication. Manuscript submission, processing services, and article publishing services are all free of charge. There are no hidden costs.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media.

The published articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA). It is allowed to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), a link to the license is provided, any changes are indicated and the new work is distributed under the same license as the original.

Users are required to provide full bibliographic description of the original publication (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages), as well as its DOI. In electronic publishing, users are also required to link the content to both the original article published in the Journal of Agricultural Sciences and the licence used.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., posting it to an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), provided there is an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Self-archiving policy

Authors are permitted to deposit the publisher's version (PDF) of their work in an institutional repository, subject-based repository, the author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), and/or departmental website at any time after publication.

Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided, and links must be made to the article's DOI and the license.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in the published works do not reflect those of the Editors and the Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. The Publisher shall have no liability in the event of any claims for damages and will not be held legally responsible should any claims for compensation arise.