The purpose of the Editorial Board of «MST» is to promote the integrity of the publication process for research work. When solving the ethical problems of mutual relations associated with this process (including possible conflicts of interest) and obligations of all parties (Editorial Board, authors, reviewers), the Editors of «MST» focus on the materials of the international Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Based on them, the requirements of the Journal are formulated.

1. Editorial Board.
– Accepts materials not previously published and containing new original scientific results; does not consider manuscripts simultaneously submitted to other print or electronic media.
– Guarantees the consideration of all materials submitted for publication, compliance with editorial independence and scrupulosity in making objective decisions without prejudice to the authors, based on national or religious affiliation, gender, citizenship, and official position; regardless of commercial interests and relations to the founder of the Journal.
– Reviews all materials of the manuscript provided by the author and makes a preliminary decision on whether to accept or reject the manuscript based on data of its compliance with the scientific profile of the Journal.
– Establishes and changes the rules for the presentation of papers, their design, procedure and form of review.
– Checks the manuscripts for plagiarism by the AntiPlagiat.ru system; unscrupulous authors may be denied publication.
– The Editorial Board does not allow publication of works for which there are sufficient grounds to believe that they have violated ethical standards - they contain falsification of results, plagiarism, false attribution of authorship, have doubtful scientific value, as well do not correspond to the scientific interest of the Journal and its publishing policy.
– The Editorial Board do not enter into discussions with the authors about papers that it accepts or does not accept for publication.
– The accepted manuscript is sent to the reviewer, a competent specialist on the subject, avoiding conflicts of interest and ensuring the confidentiality and anonymity of reviewing materials.
– Based on the peer review (the relevance and accuracy of the author's material should be noted in it) the Editorial Board makes a decision on the publication of the paper.
– The final decision on publication is made by the Chief Editor.
– In case of refusal to publish, the Editorial Board sends a motivated refusal to the author.
– Papers are published in order of priority. The date of receipt is the date of receipt of the corrected manuscript.
– The Editorial Board is responsible for publishing decisions.
– The Editors cannot correct the author’s text without authorization; the final version of the paper should be agreed with the authors.
– The Editors ensure that all sources of funding for the project are disclosed and indicated in the manuscript.
– The Editorial Board considers all claims to the papers, including to published ones and their authors, making, when it is necessary, collegial decisions on withdrawing a paper or publishing comments or refutations to an already published paper. All the claims are considered regardless of data the work was published.
– The Editorial Board is obliged to provide the authors with the opportunity to respond to any complaints about both unpublished and published works.
– All documents related to the receipt and consideration of the claims, as well as the authors' responses to them, are kept in the editorial archive.
– Members of the Editorial Board do not have the right to use in their scientific publications the content of the papers discussed at the Editorial Board until these papers are published in the Journal, and the use of the published results should be accompanied by corresponding references to the publication of the author. The results from the papers rejected by the Editorial Board also cannot be used by its members in personal interests.
– The paper, if accepted for publication, is posted on the website of the Journal in the public domain.
– Each report on the fact of non-compliance with editorial ethics will be considered. In case of detection of errors and misconduct, the subsequent publication of relevant adjustments, refutations or apologies is obligatory.
– All disputes regarding compliance with these obligations are reviewed by the Chief Editor of the Journal (or the Publisher).

2. Author(s).
– Send the manuscript in electronic form according to the "Rules for authors" to the Editorial Board of the Journal.
– Provide only original works; indicate that their work is published for the first time, and manuscript materials are not submitted at the same time in other journals.
– Confirm that the data in the paper are genuine and real, i.e., they exclude falsification.
– Guarantee the accuracy of the results published in the paper. When identifying errors and significant inaccuracies in the manuscript submitted to the Editorial Office, the author must immediately inform the Editorial Board, assist the Editorial Board in the preparation and publication of relevant corrections, additions and explanations. The same is applied to papers published earlier in the Journal. Authors should retain the data used in the manuscript submitted. If necessary, the authors undertake to withdraw the manuscript submitted for publication.
– Must ensure that the names of all co-authors and project participants who have made significant contributions to the study are indicated, that all co-authors familiarized themselves with the final version of the work and gave their consent to its publication.
– Undertake to participate in making fundamental changes, editing and eliminating errors at all stages of preparing a paper for publication, as well as in the final approval of the version.
– Must indicate in the manuscript all sources of funding (grants, programs, projects), which resulted in this paper.
– Must take into account all the works that had significance during the study, and provide bibliographic references.
– Any manifestations of plagiarism are unacceptable - both the use of someone material without reference to it, and the publication of someone else's work under their names; authors should also accept that participation in multiple and duplicate publications is regarded as self-plagiarism.
– In cases where a part of the text of the manuscript submitted to the Editorial Board is identical to the material published by the author earlier, it should be framed as a quotation with reference to the corresponding source.
– Can use in the study confidential information from a personal conversation or correspondence only with the written consent of the person who submitted it.
– Textual and graphical information borrowed from the published research results of other persons should be given in the form of a quotation with reference to the relevant work.
– Authors should disclose possible conflicts of interest (financial, organizational or other competing interests) that may have an undue influence on the assessment and interpretation of their manuscript at any stage of its publication.
– Authors must return the manuscript, corrected in accordance with the comments of the Reviewer and the Editor, and send a letter with the answers to the comments.

3. Reviewer.
– An honest independent peer review process must be guaranteed by the Editorial Board. The procedure for reviewing materials submitted for publication is established by the Editorial Board in accordance with the Journal policy. (The material may be rejected without an independent review if it is considered to be of poor quality or inappropriate to the sphere of interest of the Journal).
– The Reviewer as an expert should give an objective and reasoned assessment of the research results presented in the paper. This should help the Editorial Board to decide on the publication of the manuscript and improve the quality of the paper.
– The Editors involve in peer reviewing the materials considered for publication experts with sufficient experience and no conflict of interest. Independent Reviewers are informed about requirements for them, and about any changes in editorial policy.
Reviewer
– Takes into account that the manuscript sent to him is the intellectual property of the author, and therefore the review of the article is confidential (confidentiality may be breached if the reviewer claims that the materials in the article are false or falsified).
– Can refuse to participate in reviewing having insufficient competence to evaluate the submitted material or if it is impossible to be objective in the case of a conflict of interest with the author or with an organization related to the submitted work.
– Guarantees maximum objectivity of the peer review based on the relevance, scientific importance, reliability and novelty of the research results. Any criticisms of a subjective nature arising from a personal relationship with the author or for any other reasons are not acceptable in the Review.
– Gives clear recommendations on how to correct the paper.
– Draws the attention of the authors to the lack of references to the relevant publications.
– Informs members of the Editorial Board if the reviewed manuscript has significant similarities with previously published papers, that is, cases of plagiarism.
– Does not use unpublished data obtained from submitted for peer review (or rejected) manuscripts for personal purposes.

4. Copyright and publishing policy.
This section governs the relationship between the «MST» Editorial Office (hereinafter the Editor), the LLC Publishing House «Center of the Conjugated Monitoring of Environment and Natural Resources» (hereinafter the Publisher), and the author or group of authors who submitted their manuscript for publication in the «MST» (hereinafter the Author).
– The Author, submitting the manuscript to the Editorial Board of «MST» and after receiving consent to the publication, agrees (by signing the License Agreement) with the transfer of the exclusive property rights to the Manuscript (including such protected objects of copyright as photographs, drawings, diagrams, tables, etc.) use, i.e., to reproduction in print and on the Internet, to translation into any world languages, export and import of copies of the Journal with the paper of the Author for the purposes of distribution for public disclosure. Besides, it includes the placement of bibliographic information in the databases of scientific citation and full-text version in the Scientific Electronic Library eLIBRARY.RU, and on the website of the Journal «MST» in the public domain.
– The Author reserves the right to the text of the paper without any restrictions. The author reserves the right to use the published material, its fragments and parts for personal, including scientific and teaching, purposes.
– The Editor reserves the right to shorten and correct manuscript materials, conduct scientific editing, change the design of graphs, figures and tables to align with the design of the Journal without changing the meaning of the information provided.
– The Editor and the Publisher have the right to conclude an agreement on the transfer of the rights received from the Author to third parties and the right to prohibit third parties from using any materials published in the Journal for commercial purposes.
– The Author guarantees that he has exclusive rights to use the material submitted to the Editorial Board. In the event of violation of this warranty and receipt of claims against the Editors or the Publisher, the Author undertakes to settle all claims at his own expense. The Editor and the Publisher are not liable to third parties for breach of guarantees given by the Author.
– The Author transfers these rights to the Editor and the Publisher without limitation of their validity in the territory of all countries of the world.
– The rights to the manuscript are considered to be transferred by the Author to the Editor and the Publisher from the moment they are accepted for publication.
– Reprinting of materials published in the Journal by other individuals and legal entities is possible only with the written permission of the Editor and the Publisher, with the obligatory indication of the name of the Journal, number and year of publication.
– The Editor are not responsible for the accuracy of the information provided by the Author.
– Publication for the Author is carried out on a fee basis with the provision of payment receipt. In the case of publication of the paper in the Journal, the Publishing House sends the author an electronic copy.

5. Personal data processing policy.
In accordance with the procedure established by Federal Law No. 152-ФЗ dated July 27, 2006 “On Personal Data”:
– personal data are any information relating to a directly or indirectly defined individual (subject of personal data);
– personal data processing is any action (operation) or set of actions (operations) with personal data, performed with the use of automation tools or without them. The processing of personal data includes, inter alia: collection; record; systematization; accumulation; storage; clarification (update, change); extraction; using; transfer (distribution, provision, access); depersonalization; blocking; deletion; destruction.
5.1. Authors, as subjects of personal data, provide the right to store and process the following personal data with no time limit:
– Full Name;
– information on academic degree and academic rank;
– information of affiliation and position;
– E-mail address;
– phone number;
– mail address (if you need to send a registered parcel by post).
5.2. Personal data obtained with the consent of the authors are used exclusively for the below stated purposes:
– creating a relationship between the work of science and the author;
– inclusion in analytical and statistical reports;
– storage and processing in various databases and information systems.
5.3. The specified data may be transferred for processing and storage to third parties with notification of such a fact and the provision of information about the third party (name and address) to the subject of personal data.
5.4. The withdrawal of consent to the storage and processing of personal data is made by the authors sending a written notice to the Editorial Office of the Journal.

6. Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior.
Identification of violations of publication ethics
1. Misconduct and unethical behavior may be identified and brought to the attention of the Editorial Board and the Publisher of the Journal by anyone at any time.
2. Unethical behavior may include, but need not be limited to, examples of deviation from outlined above requirements.
3. Whoever informs the Editorial Board or the Publisher of such misconduct should provide sufficient information and evidence for an investigation of the identified violation. All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision and reasonable conclusion are reached.
Investigation upon the revealed violation of publication ethics
1. An initial decision should be taken by the Editor in any case of identified misconduct. The Editor should consult with the Publisher, if appropriate.
2. The Editor is responsible both for gathering of pieces of evidence and avoiding of spreading any allegations beyond those who need to know until an official conclusion is made.
Minor breaches
Minor misconduct, primarily any misunderstandings or misapplications of standards might be dealt without the need to consult more widely. The Editor must inform authors or reviewers where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.
Serious breaches
Serious misconduct might require that the employers or the funding organization supporting the accused be notified. The Editor, in consultation with the Editorial Board and the Publisher as appropriate, should make the decision whether or not to involve the employers and funding organizations, either by examining the available evidence themselves or by further consultation with a limited number of experts.
Measures against proven violation of publication ethics
The outcomes are mentioned below in increasing order of severity and may be applied on the decision of the Editorial Board as separately as in conjunction depending on the severity of the proven misconduct.
1. Informing the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of standards of publication ethics.
2. An official letter to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct with a warning to future behavior.
3. Publication of a formal notice detailing the proven violation.
4. Publication of an editorial detailing the proven misconduct.
5. An official letter to the head of the author’s or reviewer’s department or to the head of the funding organization mentioned in the paper.
6. Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the Journal, in conjunction with informing the head of the author or reviewer’s department, the head of the funding organization mentioned in the paper, as well Abstracting & Indexing services and the readership of the publication.
7. Imposition of a formal embargo on consideration of accused author’s papers for the period defined by the Editorial Board depending on the misconduct severity.
8. Reporting the proven misconduct case and outcome to a professional organization, professional societies, and higher authority for further investigation and action.