Principles of Transparency Checklist

1. The name of the journal
The Journal name, European Journal of Midwifery is unique and can not be confused with any of the other journals in the field.

2. Website
Our journal's website has been developed with care so as to ensure high ethical and professional standards. Constant updating is performed to enhance website utility, ease navigation, and maintain the information available as the most recent. The journal's website has the e-ISSN: 2585-2906.

3. Publishing schedule
The publishing schedule for this journal is continuous and grouped into monthly issues.

4. Archiving
To ensure digital preservation for the future, our electronic publications are archived with Portico. Portico is a third-party preservation service supported by both libraries and publishers to ensure that scholarly content published in electronic form will remain accessible for the long term. Archiving is also provided by PubMed Central.

5. Copyright
Copyright is clearly described on the journal's web site, and licensing terms are indicated on all published PDFs and HTMLs.
Authors submitting their work to the European Journal of Midwifery retain the copyright and full publishing rights of their work without restrictions.

6. Licensing
The default license for articles published in the European Journal of Midwifery is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).
Authors are also able to choose between the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) or the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-ND 4.0). Each article's abstract and summary, as available on the website (PDFs and HTMLs), has a dedicated “license” tab with a direct link to the licensing requirements of that article. For all the above licenses, authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.

7. Publication ethics and related editorial policies
We have clear policies on handling potential conflicts of interest of editors, authors, and reviewers - all are requested to either complete ICMJE forms or declare no conflict of interest. The Authorship & COI tab provides further information.
The journal has policies on publication ethics that can be found via the following link.

8. Peer review process
Peer review is double blind within our journal. Every original article is peer reviewed by a minimum of two external experts and one member of the editorial board.
The external peer review reports are then evaluated by a member of the editorial board or/and the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), who then makes a decision on the manuscript. All articles have a specific provenance (commissioned vs. non-commissioned) and a peer review tab (internally vs. externally).
Authors may suggest external reviewers who are qualified to peer review the manuscript, provided that they have not collaborated closely in the near past and that they are not from the same institution. Authors may also note peer reviewers whom they would not prefer to review this paper. While the authors' suggestions are taken into account, the Editorial Office reserves the right to handle double blind peer review at its discretion. Any manuscripts received for review will be treated as confidential documents.
External peer reviewers are requested to report on the ethical aspects of the manuscript they are allocated to review and are also requested to report on the novelty, the impact, the statistical analysis, the references, and potential conflicts of interest. A specific peer review form is provided with closed and open-ended questions so as to rate the manuscript and provide comments.
Reviewers are also requested to consider the following, should they proceed with a review for the journal:

• According to COPE, reviewers are strictly advised not to contact the authors directly without the permission of the journal.
• In case of active collaboration with the authors of a manuscript, reviewers are suggested not to proceed with a review as this raises concerns about potential conflict of interest, and journal credibility may be at stake.
• Discrimination based on non-scientific criteria is clearly unacceptable (e.g. gender or nationality).

9. Access
The European Journal of Midwifery is freely available to readers with no subscription or pay-per-view fees. The number of direct downloads for each article is noted next to the article's abstract.

10. Ownership and management
The journal is operated and managed by European Publishing.

11. Advisory body
Our journal has an editorial board whose members are recognized leading experts in the area of midwifery at a regional and international level. The full names and affiliations of the journal's editors are provided from the Editorial Board page. The editorial board is the final governing body of the journal.

12. Editorial team/contact information
We provide the full names and affiliations of the journal's editors as well as full address and contact information for the editorial office and the publisher, under the Contact us tab.

13. Author fees
An Article Processing Charge is being levied for all articles published in the journal, with the exception of those submitted from LIC. Detailed information on the amount of the APC can be found here. There are no fees or any Article Processing Charges (APC) required for submission, editorial processing, page processing, or withdrawing of an article.

14. Other revenue
Revenue is obtained through the application of Article Processing Charges. At the time of submission, for complete transparency regarding APCs, authors are mandated to accept the clearly written APCs or state that they have a waiver. Upon acceptance, a pro forma invoice is created, and upon publication, a final invoice is issued. APCs are payable within 30 days of the invoice date.

15. Advertising
The journal does not accept advertisements.

16. Direct marketing
We do not engage in direct solicitation of articles. To us, the best promotion of a journal is through the maintenance of high standards, quality manuscripts and vigorous double-blind peer review. In cases of very prominent researchers in the field, the journal does send one-to-one personal invitations for commissioned manuscripts or guest editorials. In this event, the manuscript/editorial is noted as "commissioned" in the footnote of the PDF and in HTML format.

Repository policy
The journal's open access policy is registered under Jisc, an online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world.