About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Integrated Security and Safety Science (JISSS) publishes innovative papers that offer a significant contribution – conceptual, theoretical, methodological, or empirical – to all areas of physical security and safety in industries and infrastructures. The primary focus of the journal is on the broad spectrum of security areas, such as terrorism, piracy, theft (e.g. of chemical products), and sabotage. Contributions addressing the broad safety spectrum are also welcomed, as long as a link with security is established. This link can for instance be a component of the methodology and/or results, or this link can be explored in the discussion to facilitate the contribution’s connection to the security and safety field. Contributions could elaborate on possible conflicts between safety and security, and how such conflicts can be managed, or how both domains can complement each other.

Of particular interest are articles that combine science, technology, management strategies and regulations to invent scientifically substantiated yet practical solutions for securing and safeguarding assets in various domains including: the chemical and process industry, oil and gas industry, transportation systems including HAZMAT transportation, power plants (nuclear, LNG, etc.), pipelines, drinking water and water treatment systems, commercial facilities, and government facilities.

The scope of the journal includes, but is not limited to:

  • Security and safety concepts, models and theories
  • Methods and frameworks for integrating security and safety
  • All-hazard approach in emergency management and decision-making
  • Security and safety behaviours, perceptions and communication
  • New emerging security and safety issues and technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence)
  • Data driven applications for (integrating) security and safety
  • Security and safety culture/climate
  • Reliability, vulnerability and resilience related to (integrating) security and safety
  • Public and societal security and safety related to hazardous industries and critical infrastructures
  • Security and safety risk assessment and management in hazardous industries and critical infrastructures
  • Innovative approaches for threat likelihood assessment
  • Attractiveness analysis
  • Cyber security of operation technologies
  • Vulnerability assessment under intentional events
  • Consequence analysis with an emphasis on cascading effects in interdependent and adjacent infrastructures
  • Security-informed and safety-informed decision making and design
  • Privacy issues and concerns linked to security and safety
  • Optimization of security and safety risk management strategies
  • Case studies on security and safety issues

Submissions related to both fundamental questions (concepts, theories, methods) and/or applied problems (problem domains and empirical results) are within the scope of the journal.

The journal accepts contributions in the form of original research papers, review articles, industrial case studies, security and safety recommendations, book reviews, and short communications. Opinion and discussion papers are also encouraged. Registered Reports (prior to data collection) can also be submitted (more information: https://cos.io/rr/).

 

Article Processing Charges

Publishing in JISSS is entirely free, so neither Submission Charges nor Article Processing Charges are required from the authors. The resources needed to run the journal are covered by the institutions where the (associate) editors are employed, mainly in the form of time invested.

 

Open Access Policy

JISSS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. The license means that anyone is free to share (to copy, distribute, and transmit the work), to remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions:

  • The original authors must be given credit
  • For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission
  • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights

 

Copyright Policy

  • Authors retain their copyrights.
  • if you use published images, text or other materials, please be aware of copyright regulations. The TU Delft Copyright helpdesk can provide further information and answer your copyright questions.
  • In case of (alleged or proven) copyright breaches or scientific misconduct (e.g. fabrication of data), <Journal Initials or name> will follow the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

 

Review Policy

The JISSS journal is committed to a transparent review process that adheres to the COPE policy. Editors and reviewers are encouraged to join COPE individually and agree to declare any conflict of interest.

The Editors-in-Chief and the editorial board may contribute to the published content. Still, a rigorous review workflow is implemented to ensure the integrity and quality of the review process. If one of the Editors-in-Chief or an editorial board member is listed as a (co)author, they will not be involved in the review process. They will not access the reviewers' identity in the case of anonymous, single-blind or double-masked reviews. When an Editor-in-Chief is a (co)author, selecting the editor who will handle the paper will fall on the (Co)editor-in-chief or another editor to maintain a fair and unbiased review process.

 

Review Process

Any submitted manuscripts will briefly be reviewed by the journal Editor-in-Chief (EIC) to ensure the compliance with the journal criteria in terms of domain relevance, basic science, and format standards. The manuscripts accepted for peer-review will then be assigned to an Associate Editor (AE), a member of the editorial board with the closest research area as to the topic of the manuscript. The AE will send the paper to at least two reviewers who are an expert in the domain. The reviewers are supposed to provide the AE with their comments in no more than six weeks. In special cases, the AE can ask for the opinion of an additional reviewer.

Reviewers will always be selected from a different university than the affiliations of the authors of the submitted manuscript. Although the authors can suggest their desired reviewers, it is up to the AE whether to send the manuscript to the suggested reviewers. The review process is double-blinded.

 

Research Data

TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly supports that the data underlying the journals are archived in a recognised research data repository in line with the TU Delft Research Data Framework Policy and will support data citation. Please visit this page for more information on policies. 

 

Research Software

TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly encourages the adoption of the TU Delft Research Software Policy. This policy facilitates best practices on management and sharing of research software and facilitates proper recognition of the contribution of TU Delft researchers to software.

 

Publication Ethics

Editors, authors, and publisher adopt the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the fair data principles. The journal adheres to the COPE Core Practices and the principles of transparency described in the Declaration on transparent editorial policies for academic journals.

 

Code of Conduct

Check TU Delft OPEN Publishing code of conduct and integrity policy.

 

Similarity Check

A similarity check is part of the TU Delft OPEN Publishing standard publication procedure. Authors submitting their article to the JISSS should expect their work to go through a similarity analysis at any workflow stage. All articles submitted are checked with iThenticate software. The editor and publisher carefully analyse the reports. In case of suspected plagiarism, the authors will have two weeks to explain.

The journal also checks for AI-generated content. Articles will only be accepted if using AI-generated tools is part of the work. 

 

Use of AI

The use of AI technologies in writing/summarising is gaining popularity and is expanding. When used responsibly and appropriately in research, it can facilitate innovation. However, authors/editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the quality and content of their manuscripts. With this in mind and with reference to the COPE Position Statement of 13 February 2023, authors are required not to list AI tools as a co-author because these tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work, and they need to be transparent in disclosing in the materials and methods of the manuscript how the AI tool was used and which tool was used (such as ChatGPT and other generative (language-based) AI tools for generation of images, etc.) in the writing of their manuscripts. If applicable, disclosure needs to take place at the bottom of the References section, in the Acknowledgements section, and separately in the cover letter submitted before the review process. This policy is subject to review based on new developments to include the COPE Position Statement.

 

Complaints and Appeals

Complaints

Complaints such as misconduct, authorship dispute or suspected conflict of interest should be brought to the attention of the publisher (publishing-lib@tudelft.nl) or the editorial board.

 

Author Appeal

If an author wishes to appeal an editorial decision, the author may contact the journal's Editors-in-Chief. Their appeal decisions are final. This means that discussing or negotiating the final decision will be without effect and can be ignored.  

 

Conflict of Interest

All COIs will be handled as follows by the journal in the first instance, then the publisher:

  • Disclosure: Anyone (editors, reviewers, authors and any other relevant parties) involved in the publishing process should disclose any potential conflicts of interest they may have
  • Evaluation: After disclosing the potential COI, it needs to be examined to determine its importance and possible impact on the publication process.
  • Management: An identified COI requires appropriate steps. Those steps may include stepping back from specific duties or decisions, removal from the publication process, or taking other actions to reduce the conflict.
  • Transparency: Any identified conflicts of interest should be transparently disclosed to relevant parties, including readers, authors, and reviewers.
  • COI can be mentioned after the section Acknowledgment of the publication

 

Publication Notices and Changes

Any changes to the published content will be accompanied by a post-publication notice that will be permanently linked to the original content.

Publication notices include errors introduced by the journal (erratum), an author error (corrigendum), adding a (small) document to a published work to provide additional information (addendum), and retraction.

The Editors-in-Chief and the publisher handle publication notices through the following steps:

  • Review the proposed changes to the published content to determine if they are necessary and appropriate.
  • Preparing a post-publication notice that accurately reflects the changes made to the content.
  • Linking the post-publication notice to the original content clearly and prominently.
  • Distributing the updated content and the post-publication notice to relevant parties, including subscribers, indexers, and other databases.
  • Monitoring the impact of the changes on the academic record and making any necessary further updates or corrections.

 

Authorship

All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. For authors’ disputes, see the “Complaints and Appeals” section.

How to add extra authors before publication:

  • All co-authors must agree to add new (co)authors to the publication
  • Agreement must be collected and sent to the editor with an explanation

 

Guest Editors / Special Issues

JISSS requires an agreement between the Guest Editor(s) and the Editors-in-Chief where the Guest Editor(s)’s role is clearly defined. Guest Editors are subject to the same rules as journal editors and adhere to TU Delft OPEN Publishing policies.

 

Metadata

JISSS grants you the right to publish the metadata of the series, issues and articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0).

 

Indexing

JISSS with ISSN 2667-0429 is indexed by Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources (ROAD), Sherpa Romeo, The Keepers, Google Scholar and WorldCat.

 

Archiving

This journal utilises the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries. It permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Authors can deposit a Submitted version, an Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript) and a Published version (Version of record) of their work in an institutional or any other repository they choose.

TU Delft OPEN Publishing is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research. We work in partnership with organisations and maintain our digital archive.

 

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in our published content are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing.  

The responsibility for the content provided is exclusively of the author(s) concerned. TU Delft OPEN Publishing, JISSS, the editors and reviewers are not responsible for errors in the contents or any consequences arising from the use of the information.

The opinions expressed in the publications of  JISSS do not necessarily represent the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing and the editors.  

We follow an Open Access publishing principle, in which the author(s) are the sole owners of the copyright of the content published. The author(s) of the concerned article are responsible for any omissions or copyright violations. Our responsibility is to remove the concerned article from the journal once the query is raised.

 

ISSN

2667-0429 online 

(previous ISSN 2468-4546 Journal of Integrated Security Science)

 

Publisher

TU Delft OPEN Publishing