INDEXING & ABSTRACTING

1. Indexing & Digital Interoperability

The Pakistan Journal of Clinical Research (PJCR) distributes its metadata to international discovery networks and scholarly repositories. Every article is assigned a permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) at the point of online publication.

  • Persistent Identifiers: Crossref (DOI Prefix: 10.65761)

  • Scholarly Discovery Engines: Google Scholar, BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

  • Open Metadata Registries: OpenAlex, Scilit

  • Open Access Directories: ROAD (Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources – UNESCO)

  • Metadata Harvesting: Operating on the Open Journal Systems (OJS) architecture, the journal natively supports the standardized OAI-PMH protocol, enabling automated metadata crawling by international library catalogs and global abstracting services.

2. Access, Licensing, & Copyright Retention

PJCR operates under a Gold Open Access model, strictly aligning with the DOAJ definition of open access. All content is immediately and permanently free to the public upon online publication.

  • Open Access Statement: There are no subscription paywalls, digital barriers, embargo periods, or mandatory registration requirements to read, download, print, distribute, or link to published articles.

  • Licensing Policy: All published works are issued under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

  • User Rights: Third parties are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to full texts, crawl for indexing, use as data for software, or remix and build upon the material for any lawful purpose (including commercial use), provided the original authors receive clear attribution.

  • Copyright Ownership: Authors retain full, unrestricted, and unconditional copyright and publishing rights to their work without any transfer clauses, processing delays, or exclusivity restrictions.

3. Publishing Ethics & Scientific Integrity

PJCR strictly adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing jointly published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA).

A. Core Authorship & ICMJE Compliance

All submissions must comply with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Authorship must meet all four core ICMJE criteria. All authors must explicitly disclose all potential financial, institutional, or personal conflicts of interest during the initial submission process.

B. Research Misconduct & COPE Governance

The journal operates in strict accordance with the core practices and systematic flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE Guidelines). Pre-review screening is systematically conducted via Turnitin. The journal enforces a zero-tolerance policy for:

  • Plagiarism, text-recycling, self-plagiarism, and duplicate/redundant submissions.

  • Data fabrication, falsification, and digital image manipulation.

  • Citation manipulation, as well as guest, ghost, or gift authorship.

C. Editorial Independence & WAME Alignment

In strict compliance with the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME Core Principles), PJCR guarantees absolute editorial independence. The evaluation and selection of manuscripts are based entirely on scientific quality, validity, and relevance to clinical research. Editorial decisions are fully insulated from commercial, institutional, financial, or geopolitical influences.

D. Ethical Safeguards & Trial Registration

  • Human & Animal Subjects: Research involving human participants, medical records, or biological tissue must comply with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Manuscripts must explicitly cite the official approval reference number from a recognized Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethical Review Committee (ERC), and documented informed consent must be secured. Animal studies must strictly adhere to the ARRIVE guidelines.

  • Clinical Trial Mandate: In compliance with both ICMJE and WAME directives, prospective registration of clinical trials in a primary registry recognized by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or ClinicalTrials.gov is mandatory and must be declared, along with the registration number, within the methodology section of the manuscript.