Submission Guidelines

Submission of a manuscript implies: That the work described has not been published before; Is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; Publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities tacitly or explicitly at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Permissions: Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Online Submission: Please follow the hyperlink “Submit manuscript” and upload all your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Source Files: Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision. Failing to submit a complete set of editable source files will result in your article not being considered for review. For your manuscript text please always submit in common word processing formats such as .docx or LaTeX.

Cover  Letter: All submissions should be accompanied by a cover letter briefly stating research significance, author’s agreement for publication, number of tables, figures and supplementary information, duly endorsed and signed by corresponding author.

Contents of Papers: The main text should be divided in the following main sections (unnumbered):

Introduction: Describe the subject of investigation, with a brief review of the literature, showing how it relates to other studies in the field, along with the objectives of the work.

Methods: Give clear and sufficient information to allow other researchers to replicate the work.

Results: Present the results clearly, including the results of the statistical analysis when applicable.

Discussion: Present a critical analysis of the new findings in the light of existing knowledge and available literature. Repeating the information provided earlier should be avoided. The limitations of the study and its implications should be provided here.

Conclusion: State the major scientific contribution of work and its relevance to the current state of the art.

Acknowledgments: Include any financial support and acknowledgment.

Title Page: Please make sure your title page contains the following information.

Title: The title should be concise and informative.

Author information

  • The name(s) of the author(s)
  • The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
  • A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
  • If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.

For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address unless specifically requested.

Abstract: Please provide a structured abstract of 150-300 words addressing purpose (stating the main purposes and research question), methods, results and conclusion.

Keywords: Please provide 4-6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Statements and Declarations: The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" for inclusion in the published paper. Please note that submissions that do not include relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete.

Competing Interests: Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Please refer to “Competing Interests and Funding” below for more information on how to complete this section.

Reference list: The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text.

Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. References should be written in APA Manual style.

If available, please always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (e.g. “https://doi.org/abc”).

Tables

  • Tables should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order and numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
  • Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
  • Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Figure Submission

  • Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
  • For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.
  • Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
  • Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.
  • Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
  • Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
  • Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
  • Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.
  • All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals, numerical order and lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).

Data citation: The journal recommends that authors cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely. This includes data the authors are sharing alongside their publication and any secondary data the authors have reused. Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI), should be included in the reference list using the minimum information recommended by DataCite (Dataset Creator, Dataset Title, Publisher [repository], Publication Year, Identifier [e.g. DOI, Handle, Accession or ARK]) and follow journal style.

Proof reading: The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.

  • After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Plagiarism Policy: ERN strictly follows plagiarism check policy for all submitted articles, to promote transparent research in scientific community. Plagiarism is prohibited because it is dishonest. Authors who do not credit the original sources of ideas and phrases are guilty of stealing the original authors’ scientific contributions. Scientific discoveries and progress build on the previous accomplishments of other scientists. They deserve proper recognition when their contributions used in current works are acknowledged with proper citations. As per ERN policy, please submit a Turnitin report while submitting articles to the journal.

Following considerations must be carefully noticed prior to submission.

  • Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
  • Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Reports) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged. 
  • Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person. 
  • Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
  • Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

*As per all mentioned above guidelines, authors need to make sure to respect third parties’ rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to: 

  • If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author. 
  • If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction: 

- an erratum/correction may be placed with the article

- an expression of concern may be placed with the article

- or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

  • The author’s institution may be informed
  • A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

Fundamental errors: Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.

Disclosures and declarations: All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).

The decision whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journal, but also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases, it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.

Data transparency: All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. Please note that journals may have individual policies on (sharing) research data in concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations.

Suggesting / excluding reviewers: Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.