Environmental and Climate Technologies

Please submit your manuscripts to Environmental and Climate Technologies via email to Online submission system: ect-journals.rtu.lv/

Peer review process

Manuscripts are first evaluated by one of the Editors. The initial evaluation is based on the following criteria (where applicable): originality and timeliness, clarity of writing, appropriateness of research methods, validity of data, strength of the conclusions and whether the data support them, and whether the topic falls within the scope of the journal.
Manuscripts that do not meet these criteria are rejected promptly. Manuscripts that do meet criteria are sent to two peer reviewers with relevant expertise for evaluation, using journal’ internal database of reviewers. Reviewers are requested to finish reviews within 2 weeks. Authors can suggest reviewers for their specific topic when they submit the paper, but it is Editor’s decision to select reviewers for each article.

The journal uses single-blind peer review: authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Once two reviews have been received, Editor makes a final decision: Accept Submission; Revisions Required; Resubmit for Review or Decline Submission. Editor sends the decision together with both peer reviews to the author.

The author remains responsible for corrections of the paper after the reviews, otherwise Editor can decline the submission.

The primary check of a submission can take up to 2 weeks. The peer-review process can take 2-4 weeks, but it depends on a topic and availability of reviewers. In some cases, the reviewing process may take a longer time. After the author has received two reviews and the Editor decision, the author has 2 weeks for completing revisions. Further steps depend on the Editor decision.

Authors are able to check the progress of their manuscript through the submission system at any time. Normally it takes from 4 to 8 months to get your paper published.

Short information about Journal Owner

The ECT Journal is owned by Riga Technical University (RTU), Latvia. RTU is the largest university in Latvia. University has more than 15 000 students, 600 of them are doctoral students and 2300 are international students from 80 countries. RTU has more than 1200 publications in SCOPUS. RTU owns 23 scientific journals and proceedings.

Article Publication Charges

Starting February 2023, editors of the journal Environmental and Climate Technologies have introduced an Article Processing Charge (APC) of 500 EUR paid by authors or their institutions for all papers accepted after peer-review. In order to publish the paper, authors will have to pay EUR 500 after receiving positive review. Articles published in the journal will be fully available for online readers free of charge.

General keywords related to the journal’s scope to narrow the target audience down:
Sustainable technology development; Renewable energy resources; Heat and power generation; Bioeconomy; Energy and resource efficiency; Carbon markets; Energy and environmental modelling; Life cycle analysis; Pollution prevention.

Allegation of misconduct

All cases of misconduct during pre-publication or post-publication will be considered by Journal’s Editor-in-Chief. Misconduct includes plagiarism, peer review manipulation, withdrawal of the paper at proof stage etc. Each case will be solved individually; the author or reviewer will be contacted directly by e-mail. In specific cases Editor can also contact the organization of the author/reviewer or co-authors if necessary.

Authorship and contributorship

Each person who has made a significant contribution to an article should be named as an author. Authorship means full responsibility for the published work and has important academic, social and financial consequences. There are several criteria for authorship: analysis and interpretation of the data, design of the work, revision of intellectual content, approval of the final version and responsibility for all aspects and any part of the work.

Corresponding author should be able to identify which specific parts of the work the co-authors are responsible for.　We suggest to include contributorship in the published work, specifying the input and responsibility of each author. Persons/organisations who do not qualify as contributors for authorship (e.g. funding, scientific advisors and data collection) should be named in the acknowledgements section.

Complains

If any person has a complaint against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher, he/she is asked to contact directly Editorial board of the Journal using its official e-mail: ect@rtu.lv. Each complaint will be revised and discussed between the owner, Editors and Publisher to resolve it.

Conflict of interest

A Conflict of Interest is defined as a situation where personal relationships (e.g. friend, colleague or family), business relationships (e.g. working in a competing company), or financial influences (e.g. funding) affect the judgement or objective interpretation of the results during the publication process of the journal. Authors of the manuscript submitted for publication in the ECT journal declare a potential conflict of interests in order to allow editors and reviewers to consider, whether it may influence the reviewing of the manuscript. Having a conflict of interests is not in itself unethical; such interests are almost inevitable. Nevertheless, it can directly or indirectly influence the author’s objective interpretation of the results of his research or those of others.

Editorial Board of the ECT journal will not reject papers simply because of the existing conflict of interest. The declaration of a conflict of interests will provide transparency of interpretation of the results. The corresponding author fills in the Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form in the name of co-authors after having received authorisation from them.

Ethical oversight

The ECT journal is following transparency policy based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Editors evaluate whether the submitted manuscript conforms to generally accepted ethical standards. It is their responsibility to ensure that published articles will not have a negative impact on the journal’s and any third-party reputation. Authors confirm that they have made significant contribution to the manuscript and they are responsible for the published work. The author declares a conflict of interest to provide transparency of interpretation of the results.

If any problem regarding ethics arises, editor of the journal will contact the corresponding author to resolve it.

Journal management

The ECT Journal is fully owned by Riga Technical University. The ECT editorial team ensures full cycle of article processing, e. g. language and technical editing, layout production and proofreading. The approval from the author is required after each change made to the manuscript. The Publisher provides both publishing electronically and in print. Editors use the latest licensed Adobe and Microsoft programs. Two copies of the printed journal are sent to the corresponding author. All costs of the Journal production are fully covered by Riga Technical University. The process of the manuscript’s pre-check, peer-review, Editors decision and revision is described in detail in the chapter “Peer review process”. Journal managing and editorial staff members are well trained in their roles and are experts in the field. Staff satisfaction is very important for us.

Intellectual property

Copyright Notice
Authors who publish with the ECT journal agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of the first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in the ECT journal.

b) Authors are able to enter separate, additional contractual arrangements for non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the ECT journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of the published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

License to publish
The author signs License to Publish and warrants that the submitted article is original, written by the stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third-party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.

Open Access Statement
The journal is an Open Access journal that allows a free unlimited access to all its contents without any restrictions upon publication to all users.

Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the ECT journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Post-publication discussions and corrections

Any pre- and post-publication discussion, article corrections etc. are advised to be facilitated through e-mail to the Editors ect@rtu.lv.