Research Integrity and Publication Ethics

Fight Medicine Research Institute’s publication-integrity rules draw on the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the principles and practical guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics. The obligations adopted by the Fight Medicine Research Institute are stated in full on these pages. Their implementation is documented through actual review, authorship, disclosure, decision and correction records.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors is identified as ICMJE below. The Committee on Publication Ethics is identified as COPE below.

A. The ethical principles the Fight Medicine Research Institute adopts

COPE’s current six principles are implemented as follows:

These commitments govern conduct. Their operation is documented through the procedures below.

B. Practical publication-ethics responsibilities

The Fight Medicine Research Institute adopts these practical duties associated with COPE’s publication-ethics framework:

• Provide a process for misconduct allegations before and after publication.
• Identify authors and actual contributor roles; resolve disputes through accountable procedures.
• Provide complaints and independent appeal routes.
• Disclose and manage author, reviewer, editor and institutional interests.
• Document data availability, methods and reproducibility arrangements.
• Verify applicable ethical oversight, consent and confidentiality.
• Respect copyright, licences and other intellectual property.
• Maintain editorial authority, training, procedures and secure records.
• Explain and manage peer review, conflicts and decisions.
• Enable scholarly criticism and publish necessary corrections or retractions.

The Fight Medicine Research Institute also requires ethical-conduct training, editorial independence from commerce, professional cooperation on integrity concerns, protection against retaliation, responsible handling of personal information and maintenance of current policies and records. People acting for the Fight Medicine Research Institute must not discriminate, bully or harass others. Management addresses breaches through the applicable personnel, Board or research-integrity process.

The COPE membership Code of Conduct governs confirmed members within its scope. The Fight Medicine Research Institute adopts relevant professional duties as its own policy. Do not claim COPE membership, member standing or external approval without an official record.

1. Scope and authority

This policy applies to Fight Medicine Research Institute-designed, conducted, funded, commissioned or co-produced research; Fight Medicine Research Institute evidence reviews; the public research library; scientific communications; and the decisions made in their preparation and release. It applies to the people performing or approving that work.

John Parris, Institute Director, implements the policy and maintains its records. The Research Governance Board oversees performance and independence. An affected author, editor, investigator or financial stakeholder does not decide an integrity matter concerning their own work. Scientific, ethics and journal review retain their separate functions.

2. Authorship: all four conditions are required

For research publications and substantive evidence appraisals, every named author must satisfy all four ICMJE authorship conditions:

1. Make a substantial intellectual contribution to the question or design, or to obtaining, analysing or interpreting the evidence or data.
2. Draft the work or critically revise its important intellectual content.
3. Approve the actual final version for publication.
4. Accept accountability for the work and help resolve questions about its accuracy or integrity.

Record each author’s contribution. Resolve author order and the corresponding author before submission where possible. Give qualifying contributors an opportunity to perform the revision, approval and accountability duties. Funding, institutional seniority, general supervision, routine administration or proofreading alone do not establish authorship.

A change in authorship after submission or publication requires a documented explanation and agreement from affected authors. An unresolved dispute is assessed through an appropriate independent institutional process. Do not assign authorship merely to improve the Fight Medicine Research Institute’s affiliation record.

3. Contributor credit, affiliation and identifiers

The Fight Medicine Research Institute’s contributor record identifies actual work such as study design, data collection, analysis, methods advice, interpretation, drafting or critical review. Permission is obtained before naming someone in an acknowledgement that implies support.

Use the Fight Medicine Research Institute affiliation for a real relationship to the work: Fight Medicine Research Institute, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. Retain other legitimate affiliations and historical source affiliations. A Board seat does not entitle a person to authorship. A role at the journal does not create a Fight Medicine Research Institute research contribution.

ORCID identifiers are included only after the person’s identity is verified. A DOI, PMID, Registry identifier or repository accession belongs to the object or organization that received it. Never attach another paper’s identifier to a Fight Medicine Research Institute appraisal as if it identified the appraisal.

4. Relationships, funding and sponsor roles

Authors disclose financial and nonfinancial relationships relevant to the work. Reviewers and editors disclose relationships that may affect their judgment. The Fight Medicine Research Institute retains complete disclosures and publishes relevant information with the work.

Identify direct financial support and material in-kind support where relevant. Describe the funder’s role in design, conduct, analysis, interpretation, writing and the decision to submit or publish. Explain actual author access to data. Agreements preserve scientific and publication independence. Review by a sponsor for genuine confidentiality or patent concerns is limited by the Fight Medicine Research Institute’s funding policy.

Do not use “none,” “independent” or “no conflicts” unless the statement has been checked. An unidentified funder is an unresolved disclosure. The current appraisal records require the actual funding source to be established; their prior funding statements must not be silently rewritten.

5. Editorial independence and connected submissions

A scientific editorial decision is made on evidence quality, relevance, ethics and the adequacy of the report. Advertising, reprints, sponsorship, fees, ownership, personal relationships and institutional prestige must not determine acceptance or suppress results.

Work involving a Fight Medicine Research Institute leader, Board member, editor or publisher receives independent handling. The connected person does not select the final approving decision-maker, control the review or adjudicate criticism of their own work. Keep the conflict assignment, review and decision record.

The Fight Medicine Research Institute’s permission to submit is separate from a journal’s acceptance. Fight Medicine Journal is one possible venue. Its current connected-submission procedure provides independent handling and public review records; implement the receiving journal’s actual policy. The Fight Medicine Research Institute cannot confer peer-reviewed status on a paper by declaring it ready to submit.

6. Reviewers and editors have defined duties

Reviewers accept work within their competence, disclose relevant interests, preserve confidentiality, provide constructive reasons and meet the agreed schedule or decline promptly. They do not use unpublished work for personal advantage or impose unnecessary citations to their own work.

Editors assess suitability, ethical acceptability and the adequacy of review, choose appropriate expertise, manage conflicts and communicate reasoned decisions. They retain responsibility for the editorial decision. A label such as “reviewed” must identify the actual scope: editorial, scientific, methods/statistical, clinical or external peer review.

The review model and appeal route are explained. Confidential manuscripts, identities and review reports are shared only through the authorized process. A public review model is used with the required permissions and clear terms.

7. Fight Medicine Research Institute evidence-review requirements

Each review defines its question, evidence type, source basis and intended use. A systematic review requires a documented search, eligibility rules, selection process, extraction and a design-appropriate assessment of bias. A selected-paper appraisal identifies its one source and does not imply comprehensive retrieval.

Extract the actual population, design, exposures, outcomes, follow-up, numerator and denominator. Record whether the full text or only an abstract was available. Separate observed associations from causal conclusions. Do not pool incompatible injury definitions or count multiple analyses of one cohort as independent samples.

Policy P-05 requires a second qualified reviewer to check an evidence review. Methods or statistical review and clinical review are assigned according to content and intended use. Record comments, responses, the reviewer’s competence, independence, scope, date and decision. The author’s own approval does not complete the second-review requirement.

A review is credited only after it has been completed, with its reviewer, scope, date and decision. Review is never credited retrospectively on a fabricated date.

8. Participant protection and ethical oversight

Human research is planned, conducted and reported with appropriate independent ethics oversight. Obtain and retain the required review decision, consent arrangements and permissions before relevant work begins. Report the reviewing body and actual approval or determination when appropriate. Explain unusual ethical issues and their explicit review.

Protect participant privacy in manuscripts, data, photographs and case material. Consent to participate in a study and consent to publish identifying information are separate matters. Identifiable clinical material requires the applicable explicit publication permission and lawful basis. Do not assume that study participation permits unrestricted internet publication of a fighter’s medical information.

The Fight Medicine Research Institute’s fighter-specific consent, safety and confidentiality policies apply throughout. A journal or the Fight Medicine Research Institute may decline ethically unacceptable work even when an approval document exists. Animal research, if undertaken, requires its applicable oversight and humane standards; it is not authorized by this human-research policy.

9. Registration, protocols and analysis plans

A clinical trial prospectively assigns participants to a health-related intervention to examine a health outcome. Applicable clinical trials are registered in an accepted public registry at or before first participant consent for enrolment. Registration is not replaced by an ethics approval or later journal submission.

Record the actual registry, identifier, dates and registered outcomes. Maintain the protocol and analysis plan, explain changes and identify departures from prespecified analyses. Report results according to applicable registry, legal, sponsor and journal duties. Include the required data-sharing statement and, where applicable, the registered sharing plan.

For other study designs, use appropriate prospective registration or protocol preservation according to the design and governing requirements. The Fight Medicine Research Institute’s policy can require additional transparency without labelling every observational study a clinical trial.

10. Methods and reporting must permit examination

Reports state the question, design, setting, recruitment or source selection, eligibility, sample rationale, measurements, analyses and limitations. Present relevant effect estimates and uncertainty, missing information, adverse outcomes and important deviations. Report negative and inconclusive results honestly.

Use the reporting framework appropriate to the work, for example CONSORT for randomized trials, SPIRIT for trial protocols, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STARD for diagnostic accuracy, TRIPOD for prediction models, CARE for case reports and ARRIVE for animal research where applicable. A completed checklist supports reporting; it does not validate a weak study or establish that a tool is safe.

Use accurate references and units. Distinguish unique fighters, athlete-exposures, bouts, rounds and training hours. Check percentages against the reported counts and describe material source inconsistencies without concealing them.

11. Data, code and reproducibility

The research record identifies the protocol, analysis plan, data provenance, code, materials and responsible custodian. Record permissions and maintain a secure, versioned working record. Another qualified person should be able to follow how the reported findings were produced within lawful access conditions.

Publish a data-availability statement identifying what is available, where, under what terms and why any restriction applies. Share identifiable or sensitive material only within consent, law, agreements and ethics permissions. Do not describe restricted data as openly available. Use durable repository records and persistent links when available.

Data inspection, reproduction or verification must actually occur before it is credited. A software run or AI-generated table does not by itself constitute independent replication.

12. Responsible use of artificial intelligence

AI tools are not authors. Human authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, attribution and accountability. Disclose material AI assistance at submission and in the appropriate published section, describing how it was used. Check generated citations, numbers, quotations and images against authentic sources. Do not use an AI response as the primary evidence source.

Do not upload confidential manuscripts, participant information or unpublished protected material to an unapproved AI service. Reviewers and editors use AI only where the applicable process permits it and confidentiality is protected; required permission and disclosure are recorded. AI does not replace a qualified reviewer or clinician. Nondisclosure and misuse are assessed through the integrity process.

13. Intellectual property, overlapping work and permissions

Publish only material the Fight Medicine Research Institute has a lawful right to use. Identify copyright, licence and third-party exclusions. Free-to-read, indexed, deposited in a repository and openly licensed are different access or rights conditions. A source link and the Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own summary remain available where reproduction rights are absent.

Authors disclose related manuscripts, prior reports, preprints and overlapping analyses to the receiving editor. Cite earlier work and explain the new contribution. Do not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to multiple journals unless the receiving processes explicitly permit the arrangement. Authorized secondary publication requires the appropriate editorial agreement and clear attribution.

Do not copy text, figures, images, data or ideas without proper permission or attribution. Do not artificially split a study to conceal overlap. Clearly distinguish a new analysis, a new version and a duplicate record.

14. Publication charges, commercial content and communication

Any actual submission, processing or publication charge is disclosed before it becomes payable. Waiver rules and the party collecting a charge must be clear. Do not invent a fee schedule or imply that payment purchases acceptance.

Advertising, sponsored material and independent editorial content are visibly distinguished. Sponsors do not select favorable conclusions, reviewers or acceptance decisions. Public scientific communications preserve the meaning and limitations of the work. News reports and physician commentary remain separately labelled from scientific studies.

15. Discussion, criticism and complaints

Provide a functioning route for scholarly questions, source concerns and complaints. Consider reasoned criticism fairly, including criticism of a founder, director, editor, sponsor or Board member. Do not suppress it because of status or a commercial relationship.

The Fight Medicine Research Institute acknowledges concerns within five business days and completes initial triage within ten business days. It records the issue, evidence, conflicts and intended route. A person whose work is disputed does not control the case. An appeal may be filed within 30 calendar days and is heard independently. Preserve confidentiality and protect good-faith reporters against retaliation. Use applicable mandatory external procedures when they impose additional duties.

16. Correcting the public record

Correct material errors promptly through a dated notice that identifies the affected work, the change and its reason. Link the notice to the work and mark the current version. Preserve earlier versions and make the version history available. A change of authorship, funding, findings or substantive interpretation is not hidden as a routine cosmetic edit.

If the findings are unreliable or serious unresolved concerns remain, the accountable editor considers a correction, expression of concern, withdrawal or retraction as appropriate to the evidence and publisher process. A notice identifies the basis and responsible action. Preserve a traceable record rather than silently deleting a published output.

When an external source is corrected or retracted, update its Fight Medicine Research Institute record and featured placement and link the actual publisher notice. Distinguish a documented publisher action from the Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own concern about a source.

17. Suspected misconduct and cooperation

The Fight Medicine Research Institute examines credible allegations of fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, manipulated review and other material breaches under its applicable procedures. Preserve evidence, assess conflicts, give the respondent a fair opportunity to answer, and use qualified independent decision-makers. Record findings and remedial actions.

Cooperate professionally with relevant journals, institutions, funders and ethics bodies, while observing legal confidentiality and reporting requirements. A journal’s correction decision and an institution’s conduct investigation are related responsibilities with different authority. Neither is fabricated as a substitute for the other.

For covered U.S. Public Health Service matters, follow the applicable federal assessment, inquiry, investigation, reporting and retention requirements. Internal service targets do not replace required procedures.

18. Implementation, monitoring and records

The Director maintains the policy, appointment, conflict, project, ethics, review, contributor, publication, correction and complaint records. The Board reviews implementation, training, independence and research performance. Staff, advisers, reviewers and editors receive role-appropriate induction and annual integrity training.

Claims such as independently reviewed, clinically reviewed, registered, accredited, approved or indexed identify the actual body and record supporting them. The Fight Medicine Research Institute’s public statements must match its operating records. A policy page alone does not establish that its procedures have been completed.

P-01. Responsibility and scope

This policy governs Fight Medicine Research Institute research, evidence reviews, external-study records, methods, datasets, educational material, and public research communication. It applies to Board members, investigators, editors, reviewers, employees, advisers, contractors, and collaborators working for the Fight Medicine Research Institute.

John Parris, Institute Director, is accountable for implementation. Each research project has a named principal investigator; each publication has an accountable editor or corresponding author. The Board assigns an independent integrity lead and an alternate or external reviewer for conflicted cases. Nobody directs an investigation of their own work.

Appointments, delegated authority, training, conflicts, and reviews are documented. Participant protection and required external review remain governed by R-01 and R-02. Editorial approval is recorded separately from scientific review, ethics approval, and clinical education review.

P-02. Authorship and contributor accountability

Institute publications apply all four ICMJE authorship conditions: substantive intellectual contribution; drafting or critical revision; approval of the final version; and accountability for the work. Record each author's qualifying contribution and obtain final approval before release. A Board seat, title, funding relationship, or general supervision does not by itself establish authorship.

Identify nonauthor contributors and obtain permission before an acknowledgment that may imply endorsement. Agree authorship and contributor roles during planning and update the record when work changes. A corresponding author maintains approvals, disclosure forms, underlying source/data references, and publisher correspondence. Authorship disputes are assessed independently; unresolved disputes pause publication pending determination.

Source: ICMJE authors and contributors.

P-03. Institutional contributions and affiliations

Every public record states the Fight Medicine Research Institute's completed contribution. For an external-study catalog record, describe source selection, original summary, bibliographic verification, and maintenance as actually performed. Full-text review, methodological appraisal, statistical review, and clinical education review receive distinct credits and dates when completed.

Credit the original study authors, affiliations, journal, publisher, DOI, and study approvals accurately. Fight Medicine Research Institute cataloging does not transfer the original research to the Fight Medicine Research Institute. Publications using the Fight Medicine Research Institute affiliation must arise from a genuine appointment or research relationship and identify where the work was performed. Proposed projects, source curation, and original studies receive accurate output-type labels.

An institutional output record identifies whether the Fight Medicine Research Institute designed, conducted, analysed, funded, commissioned, hosted, or otherwise contributed to the work, and identifies the supporting project or agreement. Existing publication affiliations are corrected through the publisher when the historical record warrants a correction.

P-04. Conflicts and editorial independence

Maintain annual and project-specific disclosures covering financial and nonfinancial interests, publishing relationships, intellectual property, regulatory authority, athlete management, promotion, and relevant personal relationships. The independent decision-maker records disclosure, recusal, access restrictions, or external review required for each material conflict.

Publication agreements protect access to supporting data and the ability to publish. Funding and sponsor roles are reported with each Fight Medicine Research Institute output. Commercial relationships do not determine source inclusion or findings. Connected authors and publishers do not approve their own featured placement, review record, or corrections.

Both Sears records carry the established author/Board relationship disclosure and any further confirmed ownership or financial disclosures. Independent editorial selection is documented. Keep the two-work featured limit.

Source: ICMJE relationships, activities, and conflicts.

P-05. Evidence-review quality

Each Fight Medicine Research Institute evidence review begins with a defined research question and records databases, search dates, search strings, eligibility rules, selection methods, extraction methods, and the source-access basis for each paper. A systematic-review claim requires a reproducible method and appropriate reporting. A selected-paper appraisal is identified as such.

Before publication, verify the population, design, sample, comparator, exposure, outcomes, denominators, effect estimates, uncertainty, follow-up, and applicable source notices. Distinguish full-text appraisal from abstract-based description. Use an appropriate design-specific risk-of-bias method when claiming a formal assessment, and retain the completed assessment.

Quantitative claims are checked independently against the cited source. Record inconsistent denominators, conflicting dates, unavailable details, and missing data as source issues. Preserve the reported observations and resolve discrepancies through the editorial process. Do not create pooled estimates from incompatible injury definitions or denominators.

A second qualified reviewer checks the evidence review; methods/statistical review and clinical review are assigned according to content. All material reviewer comments and resolutions are retained. Publish the actual scope and date of review in a compact credit; keep detailed extraction sheets and audit logs in the underlying record or a suitable public supplement.

P-06. Data, methods, registration, and preservation

Use a protocol and data-management plan before study work requiring them begins. Apply required scientific and external ethics review. Prospectively register applicable trials and human-participant studies under the approved research policies. Publish an appropriate data-availability statement; trial outputs include the information required by the relevant journal and ICMJE data-sharing policy.

Describe the data, code, protocol, analysis plan, access conditions, restrictions, responsible custodian, and preservation arrangements. Share only within consent, law, contracts, and ethics permissions. Provide persistent repository links where available. Use versioned research records and retain the underlying approvals, analyses, and source files under D-01.

Source: ICMJE clinical trials, data access, and data sharing.

P-07. Responsible AI use

Human authors and editors remain accountable for content and sources. Record substantive AI assistance and disclose it in the appropriate publication section and to the receiving journal as required. AI systems are not authors or primary evidence sources. Check every generated citation, quotation, number, and image claim against an authentic source.

Confidential manuscripts, identifiable participant data, unpublished results, and protected review material must not be uploaded to an unapproved AI service. Any proposed AI-assisted peer review requires authorization consistent with the journal or publisher's policy and confidentiality arrangements. Reviewers retain responsibility for their assessment and disclose permitted material AI use.

Sources: ICMJE AI use by authors and AI use by reviewers.

P-08. Research integrity concerns and publisher cooperation

Provide a named integrity contact and a functioning independent escalation route. Acknowledge reports within five business days and complete initial triage within ten business days, retaining immediate action for urgent safety or confidentiality risks. Permit concerns raised in good faith, preserve evidence, assess conflicts, and protect reporters and witnesses against retaliation.

An independent case lead documents the allegation, applicable rules, available evidence, respondent's opportunity to answer, findings, and corrective action. Communicate with relevant publishers, institutions, funders, and ethics bodies as required. Apply governing legal and funder procedures when they impose additional duties or deadlines. Appeals follow the approved 30-calendar-day process and are heard independently.

Source: COPE institution–journal cooperation guidance. The Fight Medicine Research Institute's detailed case handling remains governed by I-01 and applicable U.S. research-misconduct requirements.

P-09. Corrections and public record integrity

Use dated corrections for errors affecting meaning, attribution, results, or conclusions. Preserve previous versions and link notices to affected records. When an external publisher issues an update, expression of concern, correction, or retraction, link it and update the library's display and featured status. Research criticism and an integrity finding are recorded separately.

Published research records are not silently replaced to conceal errors. Minor typographic repairs and routine link changes may be logged internally. Material changes receive a visible account. When work is unreliable, the accountable editor determines withdrawal, correction, or other action with the relevant publisher and institutional process. Preserve the citation trail.

Source: ICMJE corrections and version control, together with current COPE guidance.

P-10. Operating records and review

Maintain a policy register, project register, acceptance/authority records, conflict register, authorship approvals, evidence extraction and review records, ethics determinations, data-management plans, correction log, and concern-handling records. Limit access to sensitive records and retain them under the approved retention rules.

Provide research-integrity training at induction and at least annually. Review this policy annually and when a material standard changes. The Board records amendments and implementation responsibilities. Public compliance statements describe implemented procedures and documented activity; external memberships and research identifiers are linked to their actual official records.