Article Retraction Policy

International Journal of Research, Exploration & Knowledge (IJREK) adheres to the official Retraction Guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Retractions are intended to correct the academic literature and ensure its integrity, rather than to punish authors. When findings are determined to be fundamentally unreliable or unethically obtained, an official retraction is performed swiftly and transparently.

The Editor-in-Chief will consider retracting a publication under the following verified circumstances:

• Unreliable Findings: Clear evidence that findings are invalid, whether due to deliberate scientific misconduct (data fabrication, falsification) or major honest scientific calculation errors.
• Plagiarism: Substantiated plagiarism of text, ideas, figures, or empirical data from other scholarly sources without attribution.
• Redundant / Duplicate Publication: Findings that have been previously published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification.
• Unethical Research: Research conducted without required Institutional Review Board (IRB) ethics approvals or lacking valid informed consent.
• Compromised Peer Review: Evidence of systematic peer review manipulation, fraudulent reviewer accounts, or citation trafficking.

Retractions may be requested by the original authors (in case of honest irreproducible error), handling editors, research institution integrity officers, or independent scholarly readers who provide verifiable documentary proof of data manipulation or plagiarism.

All retraction proceedings follow a standardized due-process protocol:

• Initial Assessment: The Editor-in-Chief reviews the formal complaint, evidence, and comparative data.
• Author Clarification: Authors are contacted confidentially and provided 14 days to respond with original experimental logs and written explanations.
• Independent Panel Review: If dispute persists, an independent expert panel evaluates the evidence.
• Institutional Notification: If required, the authors' institution or funding agency is informed to conduct a formal institutional inquiry.

The Editor-in-Chief may issue an Expression of Concern if:

• There is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors, but significant doubts exist regarding the validity of the findings.
• An official investigation by the authors' institution is ongoing but has not yet concluded or will take substantial time.

When a retraction is enacted, an official Retraction Note is published:

• The notice is titled: “Retraction: [Original Article Title]” and assigned its own unique Crossref DOI.
• It clearly details who is retracting the article (editors, authors, or both) and explains the objective factual grounds for the retraction.
• The notice is linked bi-directionally on the website and within metadata registries to the original article landing page.

In accordance with international digital library standards, retracted articles are never removed or deleted from the electronic archives.

The original PDF is retained for historical transparency, but every page is permanently watermarked with a prominent, red “RETRACTED” banner across the text, and a preliminary header is appended directing readers to the formal Retraction Note.