Advertising Policy

GeoHuman: People, Place, and Power

GeoHuman: People, Place, and Power is committed to maintaining editorial independence, transparency, and integrity in all publication activities. This Advertising Policy explains whether and how the journal accepts advertising, sponsorship, promotional materials, or other forms of paid visibility on the journal website, published content, or related communication channels.

Advertising, sponsorship, or promotional support must not influence editorial decisions, peer review, manuscript acceptance, publication timing, article visibility, or the scholarly content published by the journal.

1. General Policy

At present, GeoHuman: People, Place, and Power does not accept commercial advertising on its journal website, article pages, published PDF files, email communications, or official social media channels.

The journal may display non-commercial announcements that are directly relevant to scholarly communication, academic events, research dissemination, calls for papers, special issues, conferences, workshops, or institutional activities related to the journal’s aims and scope.

Any announcement displayed by the journal must be accurate, relevant, transparent, and clearly separated from editorial content.

2. Purpose

This policy aims to ensure that any advertising, sponsorship, announcement, or promotional content associated with the journal is handled ethically and transparently.

The policy is designed to:

1. Protect editorial independence.
2. Prevent conflicts of interest.
3. Avoid misleading authors, readers, reviewers, and institutions.
4. Maintain the credibility of the journal.
5. Ensure clear separation between advertising and scholarly content.
6. Align journal practices with international standards of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.

3. Scope

This policy applies to all forms of advertising, sponsorship, announcements, promotional content, or paid visibility that may appear in or be associated with:

1. The journal website.
2. OJS pages.
3. Article landing pages.
4. Full-text PDF files.
5. Email newsletters.
6. Calls for papers.
7. Social media posts.
8. Conference or event pages.
9. Special issue announcements.
10. Publisher websites or platforms related to the journal.

4. Editorial Independence

Advertising, sponsorship, or promotional support must not influence:

1. Editorial decisions.
2. Peer review outcomes.
3. Reviewer selection.
4. Manuscript acceptance or rejection.
5. Publication schedule.
6. Article order within an issue.
7. Article visibility or promotion.
8. Journal policy.
9. Editorial board appointment.
10. Retraction, correction, or complaint handling.

The Editor-in-Chief and editorial team retain full authority over editorial content and publication decisions.

5. Separation Between Advertising and Editorial Content

Any permitted announcement, sponsorship statement, or promotional content must be clearly separated from editorial content.

The journal will not allow advertising or promotional material to be presented in a way that may be confused with:

1. Peer-reviewed articles.
2. Editorial notes.
3. Review articles.
4. Research content.
5. Journal policy statements.
6. Author guidelines.
7. Peer review reports.
8. Indexing information.
9. Article metrics.
10. Publication ethics statements.

Advertising or sponsored content, if any, must be clearly labelled as “Advertisement,” “Sponsored Announcement,” or “Non-Editorial Announcement.”

6. Types of Advertising or Announcements Considered

Although the journal does not currently accept commercial advertising, the following non-commercial or academic announcements may be considered:

1. Academic conferences relevant to the journal’s aims and scope.
2. Research workshops.
3. Scholarly seminars.
4. Calls for special issue proposals approved by the editorial board.
5. Academic book announcements relevant to geography, spatial studies, environmental governance, GIS, human geography, or related fields.
6. Institutional research events.
7. Training related to scholarly writing, research methods, geospatial analysis, or publication ethics.
8. Announcements from academic associations or research networks.
9. Journal-related announcements issued by the publisher.
10. Open science, data sharing, or research integrity events.

All announcements must be reviewed before publication.

7. Prohibited Advertising

The journal does not accept advertisements or promotional materials that:

1. Mislead authors, readers, or institutions.
2. Claim false indexing status.
3. Promote fake impact factors or misleading metrics.
4. Promise guaranteed publication.
5. Promote predatory publishing services.
6. Promote paper mills, ghostwriting, citation manipulation, or unethical authorship services.
7. Promote plagiarism, data fabrication, or publication misconduct.
8. Promote products or services unrelated to the journal’s academic scope.
9. Contain discriminatory, offensive, illegal, or harmful content.
10. Violate copyright, privacy, or intellectual property rights.
11. Misuse the names of universities, editors, reviewers, authors, or indexing agencies.
12. Create a conflict of interest with the journal’s editorial activities.
13. Suggest that payment can influence editorial decisions.
14. Promote political campaigning, partisan propaganda, or ideological persuasion unrelated to academic discourse.
15. Promote gambling, tobacco, weapons, pornography, illegal substances, or other inappropriate products or services.

8. Decision-Making Authority

All decisions regarding advertising, sponsorship, or non-editorial announcements are made by the Publisher in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief.

The editorial team has the right to reject, remove, or request revision of any advertisement or announcement that may compromise the journal’s integrity, independence, reputation, or compliance with publication ethics.

Editors, reviewers, authors, or third parties may not independently place advertising or promotional content on behalf of the journal without approval from the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.

9. Reader Behaviour and Targeting

The journal does not use reader behaviour, browsing history, manuscript submission history, or author data to display targeted advertisements.

The journal does not sell, rent, or share author, reviewer, editor, or reader data to advertisers or third parties for advertising purposes.

If the journal uses website analytics, such tools are used only to understand general website performance and improve accessibility, not to target users with advertising.

10. Sponsorship

The journal may receive institutional sponsorship, grants, subsidies, or non-commercial support for publication infrastructure, website maintenance, editorial development, capacity building, or open access publishing.

Any sponsorship must be transparently disclosed where relevant.

Sponsorship must not influence:

1. Editorial decision-making.
2. Peer review.
3. Article selection.
4. Publication timing.
5. Journal policy.
6. Reviewer or editor appointments.
7. The conclusions of published research.

Sponsors may not control or interfere with editorial content.

11. Sponsored Supplements and Special Issues

Sponsored supplements or special issues, if any, must follow the same editorial standards as regular journal issues.

All manuscripts in sponsored supplements or special issues must undergo the journal’s standard peer review process.

The journal will clearly disclose the source of sponsorship for any sponsored issue, supplement, or thematic collection.

Guest editors, sponsors, or partner institutions may not guarantee acceptance or bypass the peer review process.

12. Advertising in Published Articles

The journal does not place commercial advertisements within the body of published articles.

The journal does not allow advertisements to appear in a way that interrupts, alters, or influences scholarly content.

Published PDF files must contain only article metadata, scholarly content, editorial information, copyright, license, acknowledgements, funding statements, conflict of interest statements, and other necessary publication information.

13. Advertising and Conflicts of Interest

Any relationship between advertisers, sponsors, authors, editors, reviewers, or institutions must be disclosed when relevant.

If an advertisement, sponsorship, or announcement creates a potential conflict of interest, the journal may reject or remove the material.

The journal will not accept advertising from any party that is involved in an active editorial decision concerning a manuscript if the relationship may compromise or appear to compromise editorial independence.

14. Accuracy of Advertising Claims

All permitted advertisements or announcements must be accurate and verifiable.

The journal will not accept claims that cannot be substantiated.

The journal will not publish promotional content that falsely implies endorsement by the journal, publisher, editorial board, indexing agencies, universities, or scholarly organizations.

15. Removal of Advertising or Announcements

The journal reserves the right to remove any advertisement, sponsorship statement, or announcement if it is found to be inaccurate, misleading, inappropriate, unethical, outdated, or inconsistent with this policy.

Removal may occur without prior notice when necessary to protect the integrity of the journal.

16. Complaints

Readers, authors, reviewers, editors, or institutions may submit complaints about advertising, sponsorship, or promotional content associated with the journal.

Complaints should be sent to the editorial office.

The journal will review complaints and take appropriate corrective action, which may include:

1. Correcting inaccurate information.
2. Removing misleading content.
3. Issuing clarification.
4. Updating this policy.
5. Reviewing the approval process for announcements or advertising.
6. Rejecting future advertisements from the same source.

17. Review of Policy

This Advertising Policy is reviewed periodically by the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief to ensure that the journal’s practices remain transparent, ethical, and consistent with international standards of scholarly publishing.