Procedure for the retraction of articles

5.1. Definition

Retraction is the official withdrawal (cancellation) of a published scientific article, including at the author’s initiative, a decision on which is taken by the editorial board of the Bulletin in the event of the discovery of significant violations or shortcomings that render the reliable use of the results of such an article impossible.

5.2. Grounds for retraction

The grounds for retraction are:

  • plagiarism or improper borrowing of text, ideas, data or research results to an extent that significantly affects the reliability of the work;
  • fabrication or falsification of data, results or conclusions;
  • duplicate or repeated publication without proper justification and reference to the previous publication;
  • significant errors in methodology or interpretation of results, rendering the conclusions unreliable;
  • including as authors individuals who have not made a substantial scientific contribution, or excluding authors who have made such a contribution;
  • evidence of an unethical peer-review process (fabricated reviews, self-reviews, etc.);
  • the existence of a conflict of interest that influenced or could have influenced the research results and was not disclosed;
  • breaches of ethical standards in conducting research (lack of the necessary ethical approval, etc.), including the absence of the mandatory opinion of the ethics committee in accordance with Order No. 56 of the Ministry of Education and Science dated 19 January 2026;
  • the authors’ own wishes in exceptional, justified cases.

5.3. Retraction procedure

The retraction procedure comprises the following steps:

  1. Initiation: the editorial team receives a request or identifies signs of a problem — from an author, reviewer, reader, the editorial team of another publication, or an institution.
  2. Investigation: the editorial board conducts an investigation in accordance with the Complaints Procedure (Section 3 of this document).
  3. Notification of the author: prior to a decision being made, the author is given the opportunity to provide an explanation within 14 calendar days. In exceptional cases (obvious falsification of data posing a public danger), retraction may be carried out without waiting for a response.
  4. Editorial board decision: the decision to retract is taken by the editorial board.
  5. Formality of retraction: an official retraction notice is published, containing the title of the article, the list of authors, the DOI, the date of retraction and a brief summary of the grounds for it.

5.4. Consequences of retraction

Following retraction, the article remains available in open access on the Bulletin’s website, clearly marked ‘RETRACTED’ on all its versions (HTML and PDF) and in the DOI metadata. The DOI metadata is updated accordingly. The article’s reference list is not removed, as the retracted article may have been cited prior to retraction and these citations must be identified.

5.5. Corrigenda and other corrective measures

In cases where errors are minor and do not significantly affect the validity of the results, the editorial board may, instead of retracting the article, publish a corrigendum (corrigendum/erratum) — an official correction. The corrigendum is published as a separate article linked to the original via the DOI.