The Clinical Nutrition Research Code of Ethics (Code) of the Korean Society of Clinical Nutrition (KSCN) is designed to delineate principles and criteria regarding responsibilities of authors, who have submitted articles to be included as content in the Clinical Nutrition Research (Clin Nutr Res, CNR), to avoid misconduct in research and publication. This Code is also applied for authors, reviewers, editorial committees, and ethics committees to secure integrity in the publication of articles as well as to enhance ethicality of the overall CNR publication process.

Article 1. Code for the Definition of Misconduct

The misconduct in the Code refers to fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, and inappropriate authorship display. Manuscripts suspected of any of the following types of misconduct should not be published.

• 1. Fabrication, which is defined as the act of making up material or results and recording or documenting them.
• 2. Falsification, which is defined as the act of manipulating research material, equipment or process and changing or omitting data or results such that the content or the result of research is distorted.
• 3. Plagiarism, which is defined as the act of stealing or using of ideas, content, results, etc. without legitimate authorization.
• 4. Duplicate publication, which is defined as the publication of a paper that overlaps with the previously published material without notifying the previous publication.
• 5. Inappropriate authorship display, which is defined as authorizing the authorship to individuals who have not contributed scientifically or technically to the research or the result; or not authorizing authorship to the individual who contributed scientifically or technically to the research or the result.
• 6. Any action which significantly exceeds the boundaries of acceptability of scientific society.

Article 2. Code for the Author

Authors must comply with the following sections.

• 1. An author must make substantial contributions to the conception or planning of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
• 2. An author must write or revise a manuscript for important intellectual content, and give the final approval of the version to be published.
• 3. A corresponding author must take responsibility in the overall process of research including research ideas and design, the acquisition of data, research procedures, and the content of the manuscript.
• 4. A lead author or the first author must be the author with the greatest contribution and responsibility of the manuscript.
• 5. Conflicts of interest refer to a case in which authors have a financial or personal relationship that can inappropriately influence the content of the manuscript and the process of review or publication. Any conflict of interest in authors must be declared.

Article 3. Code for the Reviewer

The reviewer, who has a responsibility to evaluate a manuscript submitted to the CNR for publication, is obligated to examine a manuscript fairly with an objective standard according to scientific conscience. His or her responsibility and obligation is as follows:

• 1. The reviewer judges the eligibility of the submitted manuscript for publication and should not discriminate the authors by age, gender, ethnicity, religion, educational or vocational background, nationality, or any other factors irrelevant to the manuscript.
• 2. A reviewer must obey regulations on editing, submission, manuscript examination and evaluation, ethics, and any item related to review processes.
• 3. A reviewer must be punctual with regards to the review processing period and provide detailed and constructive criticism when writing an evaluation report. Moreover, when a reviewer cannot examine a manuscript within the review processing period, when the content of a manuscript does not suit the expertise of a reviewer, or when there are conflicts of interest, a reviewer must notify the editorial committee and reject the relevant reviewing.
• 4. In rejecting the manuscript, a reviewer must provide viable reasons, examine the manuscript fairly and objectively, leaving any personal interest aside, and strive to provide accurate, detailed, and constructive criticism when reporting reviewer comments and evaluation results.
• 5. A reviewer is obligated to protect disclosing information, arguments, interpretations, etc of the manuscript and must not use any information obtained in the reviewing process for personal benefits. All the related data must be disposed of safely after the manuscript is rejected or published.
• 6. A reviewer must notify the ethics committee when he or she recognizes any misconduct violating research ethics during the reviewing process.
• 7. A reviewer must declare any conflict of interest, which can impair their ability to evaluate a manuscript, otherwise must not participate in the review process of a manuscript with conflicts of interest.

Article 4. Code for the Editorial Committee

An editorial committee is a committee appointed by the KSCN who dedicate the publication process of the CNR.

• 1. An editorial committee respects authors, and must not discriminate against authors by age, gender, ethnicity, religion, educational or vocational background, nationality, or any other factors irrelevant to the manuscript.
• 2. An editorial committee has the duty of confidentiality, according to which he or she must protect the information obtained in the process of editing a manuscript, and must not use such information for personal benefit.
• 3. An editorial committee must select manuscripts to be published with evidence of academic basis and based on objectivity, academic value, and fairness.
• 4. An editorial committee must declare any conflict of interest, which can impair their ability to make an editorial decision, otherwise must not participate in the editorial process of manuscripts with conflicts of interest.

Article 5. Code for the Ethics Committee

The KSCN constitutes an ethics committee in order to verify integrity and misconduct in research and publication of the submitted manuscript. The establishment and deliberation of the KSCN ethics committee are as follows:

• 1. The KSCN ethics committee is constituted by a minimum of seven individuals among the KSCN members. The chairman of the committee is the president or vice president of the KSCN, and the chairman appoints the members of the ethics committee by recommendation from the executive committee. The term of office of the members is two years, and members can serve consecutive terms.
• 2. The meeting of the ethics committee is established with the attendance of four members or greater and the ethics committee decides with a majority of those present voting yes. The chairman has the voting right, and the subject of decision is rejected in case of a tie.
• 3. The ethics committee deliberates and votes for the following cases; 1) those related to receiving and proceeding on a reported misconduct; 2) those related to investigating, evaluating, and judging the misconduct; 3) those related to the protection of an informant, who is a person who recognizes the misconduct and informs the ethics committee with relevant evidence, or a subject of investigation, who is subjected to an investigation of the misconduct as perceived by the ethics committee or by an informant, or a person, who is suspected to be involved in the misconduct during the investigation process; 4) those related to the handling and subsequent processing of the results of investigations on the misconduct; 5) those related to the operations of the ethics committee.

Article 6. Code for Bioethics in Human Subject Research

Research using human subjects is defined in the Enforcement Decree of Bioethics and Safety Act as involving human subjects and being conducted through intervention or interaction with the subjects or identifiable private information. The research must observe the following principles.

• 1. Based on the Declaration of Helsinki, the research must not violate human dignity and human values. The rights and well-being of human subjects or guardians must be a priority.
• 2. The subjects or guardians must be adequately informed of the purpose of the study and any potential physical and mental risks. Subjects must freely agree to be enrolled in research and their agreement must be written in a statement.
• 3. The privacy of subjects or guardians must be protected. Personal information must be protected unless with informed consent of the subject or relevant provision of the law.
• 4. For research investigators who are planning research with human subjects, it is suggested that the research plan should be written and registered prospectively to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of relevant institutions for review. CNR Editors can ask for the submission of IRB approval documents if needed.
• 5. For other details, research investigators must observe related laws including the Enforcement Decree of Bioethics and Safety Act (http://www.law.go.kr//main.html).

Article 7. Articles not included in the Code are decided in accordance with the KSCN policy and related laws.

Article 8. The Code is enacted from 2012.7.31.

Article 9. The Code is revised at 2016.7.29.

Article 10. The Code is revised at 2019.2.25.

• Enacted in July 31, 2012.
• Revised in July 29, 2016.
• Revised in February 25, 2019.