Research Transparency & Author Responsibilities Policy

Virtual Economics is committed to promoting transparency, accountability and reproducibility in scholarly communication. Authors are required to provide clear and accurate information regarding authorship, funding, potential conflicts of interest and the availability of research data. These disclosures form an integral part of the published article and contribute to the reliability and integrity of the scholarly record.

Authorship and Author Contributions

Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a substantial scholarly contribution to the conception, design, execution, analysis or interpretation of the research and to the preparation of the manuscript. All listed authors share responsibility for the content of the work and must approve the final version prior to submission and publication.

For manuscripts with multiple authors, a detailed description of individual contributions must be provided in accordance with the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework. Contributions may include, but are not limited to, conceptualisation, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing of the original draft, review and editing, visualisation, supervision, project administration and funding acquisition.

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the acknowledgements section rather than listed as authors. Guest, honorary or ghost authorship is not permitted.

Funding Disclosure

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support related to the research reported in the manuscript. This includes research grants, institutional funding, contracts, sponsorships or other material support received from public or private organisations.

The funding statement should identify the funding body and grant number where applicable. If the research received no external funding, authors must explicitly state that no external funding was received.

Accurate disclosure of funding ensures transparency regarding possible financial influence on the research and supports the evaluation of the independence of the study.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to disclose any financial, institutional, professional or personal relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the interpretation, analysis or presentation of the research. Potential conflicts may include employment, consultancies, advisory roles, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, personal relationships or academic competition.

If no conflicts of interest exist, authors must explicitly state that they have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Editors and reviewers are also expected to disclose conflicts of interest and to recuse themselves from handling a manuscript where a conflict exists, in accordance with the journal’s Conflict of Interest and Editorial Independence Policy.

Data Availability

Authors must provide a statement describing the availability of the data supporting the findings of the study. Where possible, datasets should be deposited in recognised public repositories and a persistent link or identifier should be provided in the manuscript.

If data cannot be shared due to legal, ethical or confidentiality restrictions, authors must clearly explain the reason. In such cases, authors may be required to provide data to the editors for confidential verification.

Providing information on data availability supports reproducibility, verification of results and transparency of the research process.