Terms of Service & Publishing Ethics

1. Acceptance of Terms & Institutional Governance

International Conference Summit (ICS) ("the Platform", "we", "our", or "us") operates as an open scholarly dissemination platform and conference management ecosystem. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of all websites, APIs, manuscript submission portals, peer review systems, and conference proceedings managed by the platform.

If you are accessing or using the platform on behalf of a university, research institute, corporation, or government agency, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms.

2. Manuscript Submission, Originality & Anti-Plagiarism Declarations

When submitting a manuscript for consideration, corresponding and co-authors explicitly declare and warrant that:

• Originality: The manuscript represents entirely original scholarly research that has not been previously published elsewhere, in whole or in part, in any peer-reviewed journal or formal conference proceedings.
• Concurrent Submissions: The manuscript is not currently under consideration, review, or evaluation by any other journal, publisher, or conference organizer.
• Authorship Integrity: All listed individuals qualify for academic authorship according to ICMJE and IEEE authorship guidelines (substantial contribution to conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis; drafting or revising; and approval of final version). All contributing authors must be accurately attributed.
• Anti-Plagiarism Screening: All submitted manuscripts are subject to automated similarity detection (Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate). Submissions exhibiting plagiarism, duplicate publication, or text recycling without attribution will be summarily rejected and reported to institutional ethics boards.
• Data Availability & Reproducibility: Authors agree to provide raw datasets, simulation code, and methodological artifacts upon reasonable editorial request to substantiate scientific conclusions.

3. Peer Review Integrity & Confidentiality

Peer review is the bedrock of scientific rigor. All manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review:

• Reviewer Obligations: Appointed peer reviewers agree to maintain absolute confidentiality regarding all manuscript contents, data, and author identities. Reviewers must disclose any financial, professional, or personal conflict of interest immediately upon receiving a review assignment.
• Prohibition on AI Data Ingestion: Reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading confidential unpublished manuscripts into public third-party generative artificial intelligence tools that may retain or train on author intellectual property.
• Editorial Independence: Editorial decisions (Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, Reject) are determined solely on technical merit, scientific methodology, experimental validation, and originality, completely independent of commercial, national, or organizational influence.

4. Intellectual Property, Copyright & CC-BY 4.0 Open Access Attribution

International Conference Summit (ICS) is committed to open science and unencumbered global research access:

• Author Retained Copyright: Authors retain full copyright ownership of their original research manuscripts.
• Creative Commons License: All accepted and published research papers are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). This permits anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the work for any purpose, even commercially, provided appropriate credit is given to original authors and International Conference Summit (ICS) as the venue of initial publication.
• Permanent Archiving: Authors grant the platform a non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual worldwide license to publish, index, archive, translate, and preserve the final published version of record (VOR) across public digital archives, CrossRef, and partner indexing databases.

5. Article Processing Charges (APC) & Fee Waivers

To sustain high-quality editorial infrastructure, DOI minting, digital preservation, and open access dissemination without subscription paywalls, an Article Processing Charge (APC) applies upon manuscript acceptance:

• No Submission Fee: Manuscript submission and peer evaluation are completely free. APC fees are only invoiced after formal acceptance by the editorial board.
• Fee Waivers: In accordance with our global equity policy, full 100% fee waivers are automatically granted to corresponding authors affiliated with institutions in Research4Life Group A economies; 50% discounts are granted for Group B economies.
• No Pay-to-Publish: Payment of an APC does not guarantee publication or influence editorial decisions in any way.

6. Corrections, Retractions & Archival Preservation

Scientific records must be permanent and truthful. The platform adheres to COPE retraction guidelines:

• Corrigenda / Errata: Significant unintentional errors will be addressed by publishing a linked, formal erratum or corrigendum without altering the original digital object identifier (DOI).
• Retractions: Articles proven to involve academic fraud, fabricated data, severe copyright infringement, or compromised peer review will be formally retracted. Retracted articles will remain accessible with a prominent watermark and linked retraction statement explaining the editorial findings.

7. Member Account Security & Conduct

Users must maintain the confidentiality of their credentials and session tokens. Impersonation of researchers, fabricating institutional affiliations, falsifying ORCID profiles, or attempting unauthorized access to reviewer communications will result in immediate termination of account privileges and referral to institutional authorities.

8. Contact Information

For inquiries regarding publishing ethics, institutional agreements, or terms interpretation, contact the Editorial Ethics Directorate: