Affiliation Policy

Affiliation Policy

Agricultural Science Horizons (ASH), published by the Gondars Institute of Research and Skill Development (GIRSD), is committed to ensuring the accuracy, transparency, and integrity of author affiliation information. Institutional affiliations are essential components of scholarly communication because they establish the academic, professional, or organizational context in which research was conducted.

This policy establishes clear requirements for reporting author affiliations and aims to prevent inaccurate, misleading, or fraudulent institutional representations.

The policy aligns with internationally recognized best practices in scholarly publishing and supports transparency standards commonly expected by reputable indexing and abstracting services, including DOAJ, Scopus, and Web of Science.

1. Definition of Author Affiliation

An affiliation refers to the institution, organization, university, research center, company, governmental body, hospital, laboratory, or other recognized entity with which an author was officially associated while conducting the research or preparing the manuscript.

Affiliations should accurately reflect the institutional environment that supported or facilitated the scholarly work.

2. Accuracy of Affiliation Information

Authors must provide complete, accurate, and current affiliation information at the time of manuscript submission.

Institutional names should be written in their official form and include the relevant department, faculty, school, institute, center, organization, city, state or province where applicable, and country.

Authors are responsible for verifying all affiliation details before submission.

3. Eligibility to Claim an Affiliation

Authors may only claim affiliations with institutions where they held a legitimate academic, research, employment, visiting, fellowship, contractual, or officially recognized association during the conduct of the research.

Affiliations must not be assigned solely for prestige, promotional purposes, or to artificially increase the perceived credibility of a manuscript.

4. Multiple Affiliations

Authors who legitimately hold appointments at more than one institution may list multiple affiliations.

Each listed affiliation must have a genuine connection to the research being reported and must accurately represent the author's official relationship with the institution.

The order of affiliations should be determined by the authors prior to submission.

5. Independent Researchers

Authors who are not formally associated with an institution may identify themselves as independent researchers.

Independent researchers should not create unofficial affiliations or use institutional names without authorization.

6. Changes in Affiliation After Submission

If an author changes institutions after manuscript submission or after publication, the affiliation associated with the research should ordinarily remain unchanged because it reflects where the work was conducted.

Current addresses may be added separately when appropriate without replacing the original affiliation.

7. Institutional Authorization and Verification

The journal reserves the right to verify author affiliations whenever concerns arise regarding their authenticity or accuracy.

Authors may be requested to provide supporting documentation, institutional email addresses, appointment letters, or other evidence confirming their association with an institution.

False or misleading affiliation information may result in editorial action.

8. Prohibited Practices

Agricultural Science Horizons strictly prohibits fabricated affiliations, purchased affiliations, honorary affiliations, unauthorized use of institutional names, misrepresentation of institutional relationships, and any attempt to deceive readers, reviewers, or indexing services.

Authors must not use affiliations that cannot be independently verified.

9. Editorial Actions for Affiliation Misrepresentation

If inaccurate or fraudulent affiliation information is identified before publication, the editorial process may be suspended until the matter is resolved.

If such issues are discovered after publication, the journal may issue corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or institutional notifications depending on the severity of the case.

Additional editorial restrictions may also be imposed when necessary.

10. Author Identifiers and Research Profiles

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide persistent researcher identifiers, such as ORCID iDs, to improve author identification, institutional transparency, and research discoverability.

The use of institutional email addresses is also encouraged whenever available.

11. Shared Responsibility

All co-authors share responsibility for ensuring that affiliation information presented in the manuscript is accurate and truthful.

The corresponding author is responsible for confirming affiliation details before final submission.

12. Policy Review and International Alignment

This policy may be periodically reviewed and updated to reflect evolving international publishing standards and best practices in scholarly communication.

Agricultural Science Horizons and GIRSD remain committed to maintaining transparency, accountability, and trust in the scholarly record.

13. Official Affiliation Statement

All authors must provide accurate and verifiable institutional affiliations that genuinely reflect where the research was conducted. Fabricated, misleading, purchased, or unauthorized affiliations are strictly prohibited.