Editorial independence, authorship and publication ethics.

Relationship with ORTST

ORTST is IAMRegen’s official publishing partner under a signed MOU and lists IAMRegen as an affiliated association/society; it is independent, is not owned by IAMRegen and is not IAMRegen’s exclusive publication venue.

IAMRegen may prepare and submit abstracts, reviews, expert opinions, consensus reports and other scholarly work, but submission, invitation or partnership does not guarantee peer review, acceptance, publication, indexing, citation or favourable editorial treatment.

IAMRegen controls its internal designation of an official organisational output; ORTST controls journal editorial decisions under its policies; internal approval is not peer review, and journal publication is not institutional endorsement of every IAMRegen activity.

Declared overlapping editorial roles and recusal

Professor Feza Korkusuz is Editor-in-Chief of ORTST and IAMRegen President-Elect / Scientific Advisory Board Chair. Professor Paul Lee is an ORTST Section Editor and IAMRegen President. These roles are legitimate strengths when declared and rigorously managed.

For an IAMRegen-originated submission in which either person is an author, contributor, organisational decision-maker or otherwise has an actual, potential or perceived competing interest, that person must not act as handling or decision editor. An unconflicted editor designated under the journal’s processes controls desk assessment, reviewer selection, correspondence and decision; a conflicted editor may receive only the information available to an ordinary author and must not access confidential reviews, identify reviewers or influence the decision.

The submission cover letter must identify the IAMRegen–ORTST relationship, the overlapping roles, each recusal and the independent handling arrangement, and the published article must include appropriate affiliations, competing interests and funding. IAMRegen maintains an internal recusal/handling log, and any suspected interference is referred to ORTST’s complaint process and the IAMRegen Publication Integrity Lead/trustees as appropriate.

Authorship and contributorship

Authorship follows all four ICMJE criteria, and Delphi participation alone does not satisfy them:

• a substantial contribution to conception/design or acquisition/analysis/interpretation; drafting or critical intellectual review; final approval; and accountability for the work;
• all authors must have a genuine opportunity to meet the drafting/review and final-approval criteria; author order is agreed transparently by the author group and is not bought, promised by membership or imposed by a sponsor;
• contributor roles should be recorded using CRediT where suitable; participants not meeting authorship criteria may be listed as group collaborators or acknowledged with permission and their contribution described;
• completing both Delphi rounds and attending the in-person Congress qualifies a participant for collaborator status for that consensus project; it does not by itself satisfy authorship criteria;
• administrative support, funding acquisition, general supervision, membership, payment, attendance or senior status alone do not justify authorship. Guest, gift, honorary, ghost and purchased authorship are prohibited.

Research and reporting integrity

Every scholarly output is expected to:

• register or publish the applicable protocol before analysis, and disclose deviations;
• obtain ethics approval, exemption or a documented determination where required;
• use appropriate reporting guidelines and describe evidence, methods, missing data, uncertainty and limitations;
• retain an auditable record of data, analysis, statement versions, votes, authorship decisions and approvals;
• declare funding, sponsor role, relationships and data access — sponsors may not veto publication or alter conclusions;
• obtain consent for identifiable case information or images and comply with local law and journal requirements;
• correct material errors promptly and cooperate with expressions of concern, corrections or retractions.

Peer review, AI and official outputs

Manuscripts and peer-review material are confidential privileged communications; IAMRegen reviewers and editors must not use them for personal advantage or upload them to an external AI system where confidentiality is not assured without explicit permission. Reviewers declare conflicts, decline where necessary, assess fairly and promptly, and distinguish evidence from opinion.

AI tools cannot be authors; human authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, citations, confidentiality, permissions and bias, and any use must be disclosed. No confidential manuscript, patient, participant, peer-review or commercially restricted information may be entered into a public or unapproved AI system, and AI-generated citations, claims, images and analyses must be verified by a competent human.

A page or publication is labelled "official IAMRegen output" only after approval through the relevant delegated scientific process; named opinion pieces that are not official positions must say so, and unlabelled AI-generated filler content must not be used to create the appearance of authority. Each official output shows named authors, qualifications, reviewers, version, evidence/review date, funding, conflicts, references, intended audience and correction/update route.