Below, we provide a "Principles of Transparency Checklist" for our journals and scholarly publishing activities as per the OASPA guidelines.

1. Web site
Each 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, including updates from social media, recently published articles and events. An ‘Aims & Scope’ statement is included on each journal website, and the readership is clearly defined.

2. The names of the journal
The names of the journals within our portfolio are unique and cannot be confused with any of the other journals in the field.

3. Peer review process
All journal content is clearly marked as peer-reviewed or not. Final article PDFs contain a description of the peer review process (internal or external) and provenance (commissioned or non-commissioned) for that article. Peer review is double-blind within our journals, with the exception of Pneumon (single-blind). Every original article is peer-reviewed by a minimum of two external experts and one member of the editorial board. In all cases, the manuscript is also reviewed by an Editor-in-Chief. Letters to the Editor and editorials are peer-reviewed internally. All journal content is clearly marked as whether peer-reviewed or not (internally vs. externally peer-reviewed). All articles have a specific provenance and peer review tab (commissioned vs. non-commissioned).
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 who 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 on the novelty, impact, statistical analysis, 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.

4. Ownership and management
The ownership of each journal within our portfolio is clearly stated on the website of each journal.

5. Governing Body of the Journals
Our journals each have an editorial board whose members are recognized and identifiable experts in the area of their field, either at a regional and/or international level. The full names and affiliations of the journal's editors are provided on the "Editorial Board" page of each journal. The editorial board and Editor-in-Chief are the final governing bodies of each journal.

6. Editorial team/contact information
We provide the full names and affiliations of the journal's editors, as well as full addresses and contact information for the editorial office, the publisher, and the scientific societies responsible for the journal's content- when published on behalf of a scientific society.

7. Copyright and Licensing
Copyright is clearly described on each journal's website, and licensing terms are indicated on all published PDFs. Authors submitting their work to our journals retain the copyright of their work under the Creative Commons License. Each article abstract and summary, as available on the website, has a dedicated “license” tab with a direct link to the licensing requirements of that article.

8. Author fees
Article Processing Charges (APCs) are clearly defined within each journal's “Open Access” and the “Instructions to Authors” tab. Further details can be found HERE.

9. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct
Both European Publishing (as the publisher) and the Editors of the journals (as the governing bodies of the journals) take affirmative action to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. All authors are requested to complete and upload ICMJE conflict of interest forms upon acceptance of the article in one of our journals. All manuscripts undergo Ithenticate plagiarism detection after each round of peer review. In the event that the journal's publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal - COPE's guidelines outlined HERE will be followed when dealing with allegations.

10. Publication Ethics
We have clear policies on handling potential conflicts of interest among editors, authors, and reviewers; all are requested to either complete ICMJE forms or declare no conflict of interest. The "Authorship & COI" tab within each journal website provides further information. All journals have written policies on publishing ethics on their websites. These are clearly visible on each website within a “Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement” tab, and refer to: i) Journal policies on authorship and contributorship; ii) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals; iii) Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests; iv) Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility; v) Journal’s policy on ethical oversight; vi) Journal’s policy on intellectual property; and vii) Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections. Further details on our Research Integrity policies can be found HERE.

11. Publishing schedule
The publishing schedule for our journals is continuous. However, manuscripts are grouped into issues.

12. Access
Our journals are open-access journals and, hence, freely available to readers with no subscription or pay-per-view fees. The number of direct downloads and full-text views of each article are noted next to the article's abstract under the "stats" tab. These refer to direct downloads from the journal website and do not indicate access from other websites or databases (which may be substantially larger)

13. Archiving
Our electronic publications are archived with Portico to ensure digital preservation for the future. Portico is a third-party preservation service supported by libraries and publishers to ensure that scholarly content published in electronic form will remain accessible for the long term. Further information on our collaboration with PORTICO can be found HERE

14. Revenue sources
European Publishing obtains revenue from multiple sources that offset the cost of the published articles with no Article Processing Charges (APCs). European Publishing has also received support from its affiliate scientific organizations within the scope of Operating Grants from the European Commission and subsidies of personnel costs via the Smart Specialisation Strategy of Crete (S3), an innovation policy concept to support regional prioritization in innovative sectors, fields, or technologies. Further detail on these revenue sources can be found HERE.

15. Advertising
Our journals currently do not accept advertisements, with the exception of Pneumon. Advertising is subject to the below pre-conditions. a) Our users should be able to immediately tell the difference between advertising and editorial material. b) Advertisements for products with therapeutic claims but no marketing authorization or CE marking (or local equivalent) should be filed, with all claims supported by full-length research papers published in peer-reviewed publications. c) Sponsored content should be explicitly marked. d) Advertising and sponsorship are not permitted to affect editorial decisions. e) We do not accept tobacco-related advertising or sponsorship or products and services from tobacco businesses or their foundations. f) Editorial control is exercised over advertising and sponsorship. Further detail on our advertising policies can be found HERE.

16. Direct marketing
We do not engage in email solicitation of articles. To us, the best promotion of a journal is through the maintenance of high standards, quality manuscripts, and vigorous but fair peer review. In cases of prominent researchers or hot research topics, our editors may send direct one-to-one personal invitations to 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.