About the Journal

Focus and Scope

First published in 1995, the journal Environmental Research, Engineering and Management (EREM) = Aplinkos tyrimai, inžinerija ir vadyba  is an international multidisciplinary journal designed to serve as a roadmap for understanding complex issues and debates of sustainable development. EREM publishes peer-reviewed scientific papers which cover research in the fields of environmental science, engineering (pollution prevention, resource efficiency), management, energy (renewables), agricultural and biological sciences, and social sciences.

EREM is included in the SCOPUS database since 2016.

EREM’s topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • environmental research, ecological monitoring, and climate change;
  • environmental pollution – impact assessment, mitigation, and prevention;
  • environmental engineering, sustainable production, and eco innovations;
  • environmental management, strategy, standards, social responsibility;
  • environmental economics, policy, and law;
  • sustainable consumption and education.

In addition to primary Articles, EREM also publishes a section for Experience, reviews, discussions which includes book reviews, news and views, information about upcoming and past events, articles about the broader sustainable development picture, and discussions on topics of man-made and natural environmental problems. Every issue comes with an Editorial – a section for a short essay or a thesis of any member of Editorial board on the up-to-date topic.

EREM also facilitates interaction between industry and academia by providing an authoritative and publicly accessible up-to-date global perspective on sustainable development policy, relevant research and case studies from industry in extremely dynamic and continuously changing multidisciplinary environmental area; it enables outsourcing experts from both research and industry around the world to communicate and share information. EREM aims to become a reliable worldwide-known information source for industry, researchers, and global society.

The papers are printed in English.

Peer Review Process

EREM very much depends on its eminent group of Reviewers (Editorial Board members and external scientists) who represent a wide range of scientific interests and provide reviews of manuscripts in their area of expertise and overall advice on intellectual content.

Internal review

A submitted manuscript is first checked by the Technical Editor to ensure that it conforms to the Author Guidelines, and that its Author’s Guarantee Form is present. Afterwards, a manuscript is processed with CrossCheck, a plagiarism screening tool. Manuscripts that pass the internal review are then sent to at least two reviewers for assessment.

Peer-review

Manuscripts submitted to EREM are reviewed by single-blind peer review process, i.e. reviewers are aware of the identity of the authors, but authors are unaware of the identity of reviewers.

The Editor-in-Chief makes an editorial decision based on two recommendations. In case, the they vary significantly, the third reviewer is introduced which provides a decisive recommendation. On average there are approx. 13 reviewers for the total number of articles in each issue.

Reviewers submit an evaluation, which addresses such points as: 1) originality/novelty; 2) significance (impact on a research topic); 3) relevance to EREM; 4) quality of presentation (readability, language, style, organization, etc.); 5) quality of content. Reviewers also identify the main positive and negative aspects and may provide a list of changes which authors have to consider, if necessary.

Reviewers make one of five recommendations:

  • Accept submission (no changes needed);
  • Revisions required (minor revisions supervised by the editor);
  • Resubmit for review (major revisions returned for re-evaluation);
  • Submit elsewhere (quality is enough to be submitted to a different journal);
  • Decline submission.

60 days are given for the authors to revise their manuscripts according to the reviewers’ remarks.

When a revised manuscript is resubmitted, changes in the manuscript must be highlighted and a separate document with a list of changes or a disproof against each point raised by the reviewers must be uploaded.

Plagiarism Policy

EREM protects the rights of authors and investigate claims of plagiarism or misunderstandings of published articles. Submitted articles are checked with duplication-checking software CrossRef. Plagiarism in all its forms, including copying text, figures, data etc. from another source without giving any credits to the original source, constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable. If the fact of plagiarism is estimated, Editorial Team of EREM rejects a manuscript.

Publication Frequency

EREM is published quarterly. Journal issues are published separately.

Open Access Policy

EREM is published open access under the CC-BY 4.0 licence which allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles. The journal provides open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

EREM has been using Open Jounral System (OJS) since 2009.

License

EREM is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.

Copyright

The copyright for the articles in EREM is retained by the author(s) with the first publication right granted to the journal. The authors agree to the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 agreement under which the paper in the Journal is licensed.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The statement is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct guidelines.

Ethical guidelines for journal publication

Journal of Environmental Research, Engineering and Management (EREM) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics while aiming to prohibit any publication malpractice and to ensure the quality of articles. Conformance to standards of ethical behaviour is therefore expected of all parties involved in the act of publishing: Authors, Editors, Reviewers, and the Publisher.

Duties of Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board

Publication decisions

The Editor-in-Chief of EREM is responsible for deciding which of the submitted manuscripts should be published and, therefore, is accountable for the published content. The Editor-in-Chief should make decisions based on the journal's Editorial Board and the Publisher’s (Kaunas University of Technology) policies; and they should be subjected to the requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other Editorial Board members (referred to as editors hereafter) or reviewers when making publication decisions.

The Editor-in-Chief is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint, or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on publication decisions.

Confidentiality

The Editor-in-Chief must not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author(s), editors, reviewers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript should be kept confidential and treated as privileged information which should not be used by editors for their personal advantages (e.g. in their own research) without the explicit written consent of the author(s).

It is the Editor-in-Chief’s responsibility to make sure that there is no conflict of interest for those people involved in reviewing any submitted manuscript. In case of manuscripts in which editors have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the manuscripts, editors should rescue themselves from handling. The Editor-in-Chief should ensure that all the contributors of the journal disclose relevant competing interests.

Fair play

Editorial decisions should be based only on the manuscripts’ intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

The Editor-in-Chief should take reasonably responsive measures whenever ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society).

Duties of reviewers

Promptness

In case, a selected reviewer feels unqualified to review the manuscript or knows that the timely review of the manuscript will be impossible, he/she should immediately notify the editor so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

Any information contained in manuscripts received for review should be kept confidential and be treated as privileged information.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author(s) is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the author(s). Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editor’s-in-Chief attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in reviewers’ own research without the express written consent of the author(s). Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscripts.

Duties of authors

Reporting standards

Authors reporting results of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Originality and acknowledgement of sources

The author(s) should ensure that they have written entirely original works. However, if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, proper acknowledgment must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publications

In general, authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscripts any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief or the publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Publisher’s confirmation

Editorial autonomy

The publisher is committed to ensuring the autonomy of editorial decisions, without influence from advertisers or other commercial partners.

Scientific misconduct

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism the publisher, in close collaboration with the Editorial Board, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question.

Intellectual property and copyright

The publisher protects the intellectual property and copyright of EREM, its imprints, authors and publishing partners by promoting and maintaining each article’s published version of record. The publisher ensures the integrity and transparency of each published article with respect to: conflicts of interest, publication and research funding, publication and research ethics, cases of publication and research misconduct, confidentiality, authorship, article corrections, clarifications and retractions, and timely publication of content.

Indexing and Directories

EREM is accepted for coverage within SCOPUS database (since 2016), EBSCO: Central & Eastern European Academic Source, EBSCO: Environment Complete, and EBSCO: Environment Index (since 2005), also Aerospace Database, Civil Engineering Abstracts, Metadex.

Pricing

Publishing fee of EREM is 20 EUR / journal page for an accepted paper. An author confirms that he / she will pay the fee if a manuscript is accepted for publication.

Hard copy delivery of published issue for author(s) is available upon request for 50 Eur.

Journal History

The journal “Environmental Research, Engineering and Management” has been initiated by the Institute of Environmental Engineering (APINI) and was established in 1995 by Kaunas University of Technology, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuanian Agricultural University, Klaipėda University, Vilnius University, Lithuanian Energy Institute and Engineering Ecology Association, and Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists.

In 2015, a new Editor-in-Chief - assoc. prof. dr. Visvaldas Varžinskas - was approved. Prof. dr. hab. Jurgis Kazimieras Staniškis, who was the Editor-in-Chief of EREM since its establishment, became a Honorary Editor-in-Chief.

Facts and Figures

Based on 2015-2017 data:

  • 38% - rejection rate;
  • 60% - non Lithuanian authors' publications;
  • 96% - research articles;
  • 50% - reviews outside Editorial Board.