Process and policies
The International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (ICAF) and the University of Extremadura are committed to and take pride in the integrity of their publications. We strive to meet the goals and needs of our editors, authors, and readers, and to continually improve, which is why we are particularly rigorous at every stage of the publication process and with our policies.
Editorial and Peer Review Processes
At the International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (ICAF), we are committed to providing academic content of the highest quality. To ensure rigor, impartiality, and ethical standards, all manuscripts follow a structured editorial process. Upon receiving a manuscript, the Editorial Team conducts a preliminary review to verify thematic relevance, alignment with the journal’s objectives, compliance with formatting requirements (length, structure, references, language), and the absence of ethical issues, plagiarism, or conflicts of interest. Only manuscripts that meet these criteria advance to peer review.
Selected manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review, meaning that authors do not know the identities of the reviewers, and vice versa. Reviewers evaluate the relevance, originality, and contribution to knowledge, methodological rigor, and clarity in presenting results, as well as adherence to ethical standards: proper authorship attribution, accurate referencing, and absence of conflicts of interest. Reviewers submit their reports and recommendations to the editorial team, which coordinates the suggested revisions with the authors.
The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision to accept, reject, or request further revisions. The decision is based on the academic and ethical assessment of the reviewers, the manuscript’s contribution to the field, and compliance with editorial standards. The entire process respects the confidentiality of both authors and reviewers.
Reviewers are expected to follow the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers, ensuring transparency, integrity, and accountability in every evaluation.
This process guarantees that each manuscript is assessed fairly, objectively, and ethically, ensuring that only high-quality academic content that contributes to scientific knowledge and meets international ethical standards is published.
Complaints and Appeals
Academic papers are always (and should be) subject to the scrutiny of the academic community. It is not uncommon for a published work to require some kind of correction, especially when it falls into established facts. This exchange is healthy for academic advancement and should be encouraged. In these cases, the issues should be treated as letters to the editor, either in print or electronically. The director must be available to respond in a timely manner, but also to gather evidence that will allow him to make an informed decision and accept or reject the proposed correction. If the journal itself makes a mistake, it must publish an errata. In cases where an article is considered to suffer from extensive and irreparable errors, a retraction should be made.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is understood as the use of another person’s work, in whole or in part, without proper acknowledgment, and constitutes a serious violation of academic ethics and integrity. It can take many forms, including: quoting or paraphrasing without the appropriate reference; copying and pasting from print or digital sources without attribution; using ideas, data, methodologies, or results from other authors without citation; presenting someone else’s work as one’s own; or failing to recognize co-authors. Likewise, all supporting materials—such as images, tables, figures, codes, and diagrams—must include proper attribution to their original authors.
To safeguard the originality of its content, Archives in Food, Culture and Nutrition (AFOCUN) employs the specialized software Turnitin Similarity, which is applied at two stages of the editorial process: upon submission of the manuscript and, if necessary, after the incorporation of revisions.
Plagiarism is strictly prohibited in this journal. If plagiarism is suspected—whether in whole or in part—the editorial team will conduct the necessary investigation. In confirmed cases of plagiarism, the journal reserves the right to reject the submission, retract a published article, and adopt any additional measures deemed appropriate.
The Editorial Committee will act in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, specifically the COPE Guidelines on Suspected Plagiarism in a Submitted Manuscript and the COPE Guidelines on Suspected Plagiarism in a Published Paper, to ensure that all decisions are consistent with recognized international standards of editorial ethics.
"Self-plagiarism"
Redundant publication or "self-plagiarism," as it is more commonly called, occurs when an author publishes the same work or a significant portion of it more than once. This can happen even if the media or language are not the sameThese duplicate publications should only be allowed if they improve scientific research in some way. Even in these cases, authors should be careful to obtain consent from the publishers and publisher and reference the original work. As with plagiarism, we hope that any suspected cases of "self-plagiarism" will be reported so that the journal's editors can do their due diligence.
Conflicts of interest
The International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (ICAF) and University of Extremadura make every effort to ensure that its journals and/or authors are free from any undue influence. Any person involved in the publication process is obliged to declare in advance any possible conflict of interest that could, in any way, compromise the objectivity and/or integrity of the work. Conflicts of interest can be of various kinds: financial, personal, professional, contractual, etc. ..... Anyone who suspects an undeclared conflict of interest is also advised to report it to the relevant publisher.
Ethical oversight
Consent to publication
Our publisher will never publish any content without the consent of its authors nor will it do so if there are doubts about the integrity of the work, authorship or any unresolved conflicts of interest. Any questions that may arise on this topic should be reported immediately to the editor of the relevant journal.
Open access to all
The International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (ICAF) and University of Extremadura strive to offer free and accessible academic content to all parts of the world. We believe that knowledge and research should be interchangeable and available to all in order to drive and promote academic research and enable developing countries to easily access research content. We also encourage researchers from these countries to submit their research to our journals.
Research with humans or animals
Publishers should strive to ensure that the research they publish has been conducted in accordance with relevant internationally accepted guidelines (e.g. the Helsinki Declaration for Clinical Research, the AERA and BERA Guidelines for Educational Research). Journal editors should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g., research ethics committee, institutional review board) where it exists. However, editors should recognize that such approval does not guarantee that research is ethical.
Confidentiality
Journals must obey the confidentiality laws of their own jurisdiction. However, regardless of local laws, they must always protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions. All names, addresses, emails, and other personal information provided will be used exclusively for the purposes of publication. No information will be provided to third parties or for any other use other than the above. It may be possible to publish individual information without explicit consent if public interest considerations outweigh the potential harms, consent cannot be obtained, and publication is unlikely to be objected to by a reasonable person. In any case, the journal's policy on the processing of personal data must be clearly indicated.
Intellectual property
Journal editors must be attentive to intellectual property issues and work together with their editor to manage potential infringements of intellectual property laws and conventions. It is important to note that the intellectual property laws of the local jurisdiction are sovereign.
All content published in Archives in Food, Culture and Nutrition (AFOCUN) is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) for open access. This license allows others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the work, even for commercial purposes, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, registering the work under the corresponding attribution license. This allows third parties to use the published content as long as the authorship of the work and the original publication in this journal are acknowledged.
For more information about the license terms, see the official link: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Archives in Food, Culture and Nutrition respects the intellectual and proprietary rights (copyright) of published works and allows authors to freely use their own published works, always within the limits of applicable law.
Digital Preservation Policy
Archives in Food, Culture and Nutrition (AFOCUN) aims to preserve all the documents it houses digitally in the long term. To this end, it develops an action plan that includes basic measures to ensure the digital durability of scientific material:
- Backups
- Storage of documentation in the institutional repository of the University of Extremadura, responsible for guaranteeing the conservation and preservation of the scientific content of the UEX (https://dehesa.unex.es/)
- Conversion of formats to more secure ones
- Regular file integrity checks to prevent file corruption
- Monitoring of the technological environment to anticipate possible migrations of obsolete formats or software
- Digital preservation metadata
- Using DOIs in Your New Materials
For the purposes of digital preservation, the deposit of documents with easily readable formats (such as PDF) is encouraged. In the event that it is not possible to maintain the usability of all existing formats, the journal undertakes to return the files to their authors. The digital preservation policy will be reviewed annually by the journal Archives in Food, Culture and Nutrition (AFOCUN).
Generative artificial intelligence policy
Archives on Food, Culture and Nutrition (AFOCUN) recognizes the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools in scientific research and scholarly publishing. The journal permits their responsible use, provided that transparency, scientific integrity, confidentiality, and author responsibility are maintained.
Use of generative artificial intelligence by authors
Authors must disclose any use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools during the preparation of a manuscript. Such tools may be used for purposes such as language editing, improving readability, translation, or assistance with the organization of text, provided that the authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and final content of the manuscript. The use of GenAI to generate, modify, analyze, or interpret scientific content, including text, data, analyses, results, interpretations, images, figures, or other research outputs, must be explicitly disclosed.
GenAI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors, as they cannot assume responsibility for the work, disclose conflicts of interest, or meet the requirements for authorship. Authors remain fully responsible for the content of their manuscript.
Authors must carefully review and verify any content generated or modified with the assistance of GenAI, including factual information, references, citations, data, images, and interpretations. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the manuscript does not contain inaccurate, fabricated, biased, or misleading information generated by such tools.
Use of generative artificial intelligence in peer review
Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts submitted to AFOCUN. They should not upload manuscripts, substantial portions of manuscripts, unpublished data, personal information, or other confidential material to publicly accessible GenAI tools.
Reviewers remain fully responsible for the content and recommendations contained in their peer-review reports. Any use of GenAI must not compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or independence of the peer-review process.
Use of generative artificial intelligence by editors
Editors and members of the editorial team must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and unpublished research.
Editors should not upload manuscripts, unpublished data, personal information, or other confidential material to GenAI tools when such use could compromise confidentiality, intellectual property, or the integrity of the editorial process.
Any use of GenAI by editors in editorial or publishing activities must be conducted responsibly and must not replace human editorial judgment or accountability.
Disclosure of generative artificial intelligence use
When GenAI has been used in a substantive or relevant manner during the preparation of a manuscript, authors should include a statement in the manuscript describing the tool used and the purpose of its use.
The following wording may be used:
“During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [name of tool] for [briefly describe the purpose]. The authors reviewed and verified the content generated or modified with the assistance of the tool and take full responsibility for the final content of the manuscript.”
If no GenAI tools have been used, authors may include the following statement:
“The authors declare that no generative artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.”
Research integrity and author responsibility
The use of GenAI does not relieve authors, reviewers, or editors of their ethical, scientific, and professional responsibilities. Archives in Food, Culture and Nutrition (AFOCUN) expects all parties involved in the publication process to use GenAI tools in accordance with the principles of transparency, academic integrity, confidentiality, originality, and responsible research conduct.
Failure to disclose relevant use of GenAI, or inappropriate use of such tools, may be considered by the journal within its procedures concerning research integrity and publication ethics.
