Editorial policies

These policies follow COPE guidance and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. They apply to every submission and every member of the editorial team.

1. Peer review

Double-anonymised review by at least two external reviewers selected for competence; reviewers declare conflicts before accepting. Target time to first decision 42 days. Editorials and commissioned commentary are labelled and are not represented as peer-reviewed research.

2. Editorial conflicts of interest — standing declaration

The Editor-in-Chief, Prof Rajesh Varma, is the owner of the publisher, MD Acumen Ltd, and holds professorships at New Vision University and East West University, Tbilisi.

Any manuscript authored by, supervised by, or originating from the Editor-in-Chief’s institutions, students or collaborators is allocated to a Deputy Editor-in-Chief with full and final decision authority; the Editor-in-Chief has no access to its review. All editors refresh interest declarations annually; a conflicted editor is recused.

3. Authorship & contributorship

Authorship follows the ICMJE four criteria; contributions recorded via CRediT. Gift, guest and ghost authorship are misconduct. Supervision alone does not confer authorship; student first-authorship of student-led work is expected.

4. Research ethics & approvals

Research requires ethics-committee approval (number stated). QI and audit require documented institutional approval and, for student-led work, supervisor verification. UK authors should consult the HRA decision tool. Patient data must be anonymised; identifiable material requires written consent.

5. Fees

GJPC charges no submission or publication fees (2026–27).

Any future APC will be announced at least three months in advance, will never apply retrospectively, and will carry automatic waivers for student first authors and corresponding authors in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Editors never see fee or waiver status.

6. Licensing & copyright

Articles are published open access under CC BY 4.0. Authors retain copyright and grant the publisher a non-exclusive licence to publish.

7. Plagiarism & originality

Every submission is screened before review. Plagiarism, duplicate publication and salami slicing are handled under COPE flowcharts, up to rejection and retraction.

8. Artificial intelligence

Authors disclose any generative-AI assistance and remain fully responsible; AI cannot be an author. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts to external AI services.

9. Corrections, retractions & expressions of concern

Honest errors are corrected freely with DOI-linked notices. Retractions follow COPE criteria and link to the original, which remains available and watermarked.

10. Appeals & complaints

Authors may appeal once, with reasoned grounds, to a non-involved editor. Complaints go to editor@globalprimarycarejournal.com; acknowledgement within 5 working days, response within 30 days.

11. Preprints & prior presentation

Preprints on recognised servers are permitted with disclosure and should be linked to the article DOI on publication. Conference abstracts do not constitute prior publication.

12. Archiving, data & privacy

Content is preserved in the PKP Preservation Network. Data availability statements are required. Personal data is processed under UK GDPR (MD Acumen Ltd is an ICO-registered data controller); the site sets no advertising cookies.