GCRI · Reports
Editorial and corrections
Editorial governance decides how reports are commissioned, reviewed, accepted, published and, when needed, corrected or retracted. Corrections are part of a healthy record. The risk lies in errors that are found and left unfixed, fixed without a notice, or noticed by too few of those who relied on the original. This page sets out how editorial decisions and corrections work, how they are recorded, and how notices travel to downstream users.
Editorial and corrections on the record.
Editorial and corrections: how the risk develops.
Publication governance and corrections. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Errors found late
Many errors surface after publication through reader reports, reanalysis or post-publication review. A clear route for reporting concerns, and a recorded response, decides whether they are acted on.
Silent changes
Editing a published file without a notice breaks the record: readers who cited the original cannot tell what changed. Every substantive change needs a new version and a linked notice.
Notices that do not travel
A correction posted only on the publisher’s page may never reach databases, reference managers or the reports that cite the original. Machine-readable update metadata carries the notice with the work.
Graduated responses
Errata, corrections, expressions of concern and retractions answer different problems. Choosing the wrong one, or delaying the choice, either overstates a minor error or leaves a serious one standing.
Series production desk.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Series production desk
Editorial and corrections · Annual synthesis · Edition 7
Editions in production
| Annual synthesis | Global | Data check | 82 | W17 |
| Country profile 7 | Country | Peer review | 97 | W27 |
| Water outlook | Sectoral | Drafting | 32 | W22 |
| Methods note 4 | Methods | Released | 100 | done |
Data check, annual synthesis
Edition pipeline
- Outlineboard
- Draftauthors
- Data checkevery value
- Peer reviewtwo rounds
- Editorialdecision
- ReleaseDOI
- Correctionsversioned
Editorial rules apply equally to every domain’s evidence.
- HealthIn practiceHealth findings with clinical implications get specialist review.What a reader can checkReview record
- BiodiversityIn practiceIndigenous knowledge appears only with consent.What a reader can checkConsent record
- WaterIn practiceData owners are named on every figure.What a reader can checkAttribution
Editorial practice follows COPE, CRediT (2022) and open licences (Creative Commons 4.0); articles can be tagged in JATS. Citations follow NS-2 of the proposed Nexus Standards.
- Correction requests.
- Reviewer volunteers.
How editorial and corrections is modelled, measured and tested.
The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.
Model, equations and assumptions
The model structure used for editorial and corrections, the assumptions it makes and how each is tested.
Ri = f(Hi, Ei, Vi, Ci)hazard, exposure, vulnerability and coping capacityEAL = ∑k pk · Lkover events k with annual probability pkxt+1 = A xt + B ut + εtA carries the couplings, u the shock, ε the error| Assumption | Why it is made | How it is tested |
|---|---|---|
| Hazard and exposure are independent within an event | Keeps the loss integral tractable | Compare with a copula fit on joint records |
| Couplings are linear near the operating point | Lets shocks propagate through A | Perturb beyond the linear range and compare |
| Vulnerability curves transfer between places | Local curves are rarely available | Validate against observed losses where they exist |
- Inputs
- versioned datasets with provenance
- Outputs
- distributions, never single numbers
- Code
- released with the model card and tests
- Reproduction
- same data, code, environment and seed
What is measured, and how well.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time from concern received to editorial decision | days | per case | Editorial case log | Published statistics |
| Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions issued | count by type | annual | Notices and update metadata | Published statistics |
| Notices deposited as machine-readable update metadata | percent of notices | per notice | Crossref update records | OBSERVED |
| Citing works aware of the notice | percent of citing works | annual | Citation links checked against notices | ESTIMATED |
| Concerns closed with a recorded response to the reporter | percent of cases | annual | Editorial case log | Published statistics |
| Reports with a reviewer and editor record | percent of reports | annual | Review records | Published statistics |
Where the evidence comes from.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| COPE guidelines and case database | Retraction guidelines, flowcharts and anonymised cases of editorial practice | Free to read, CC BY-NC-ND |
| Crossmark and Crossref update metadata | Machine-readable links between works and their corrections or retractions | Open metadata, no reuse restrictions |
| Retraction Watch Database via Crossref | Retractions and expressions of concern across publishers with reasons | Openly available through Crossref, attribution requested |
| PubPeer | Post-publication comments and concerns raised about published work | Terms per PubPeer |
| Problematic Paper Screener | Flags for tortured phrases, generated text and citations to retracted work | Free to use, terms per project |
| NISO CREC recommended practice | Communication of retractions, removals and expressions of concern across systems | Free to read, NISO terms |
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
Reports prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Series editors and the editorial board | Whether a concern warrants a correction, an expression of concern or a retraction | Case record, the evidence of error and the COPE flowchart that applies |
| Research integrity offices at authors’ institutions | Whether an allegation requires an institutional investigation | Referral record and the evidence passed on, following COPE guidance |
| Authors of citing reports and their editors | Whether their own conclusions depend on the corrected work | Notices linked through update metadata and citation links |
| Abstracting, indexing and library services | How to display a work’s correction or retraction status | Machine-readable update metadata and notices |
Outputs this topic produces
- Published editorial policies on review, corrections and appeals
- Correction and retraction notices linked to each affected version
- Update metadata deposited with each notice
- An editorial case log summarised for the annual synthesis
What the series asks.
Research publishing depends on trust that findings were not shaped by those who funded, hosted or would be affected by them, and that errors will be fixed openly. Publication ethics has developed practices for this over decades: separation of editorial and commercial roles, disclosure of interests, clear authorship criteria and visible corrections. Reports applies them to risk evidence, where the consequences of error can be large.
- Who has final responsibility for each edition, and how is that responsibility separated from funding and hosting?
- Which interests must be declared, by whom, and what happens when a conflict is found?
- Who qualifies as an author, and how is the use of software agents or models disclosed?
- How are errors reported, assessed and corrected, and how are readers told?
What the series covers.
Four controls protect the integrity of each edition.
No bought findings
No one can buy or block a finding; funding and hosting are disclosed and carry no editorial rights.
Declared and acted on
Authors, reviewers and editors declare interests; conflicted people step back from the decision.
Visible and permanent
Corrections create new versions; superseded versions stay available and marked.
These controls matter most when findings are inconvenient. A report that identifies a weakness in a sector, a country or a technology may face pressure from those affected. Clear rules, applied the same way to every series and every funder, are what allow editors to publish evidence-based findings and to correct their own mistakes without loss of credibility.
How editions are built, and their limits.
- 01
Authorship
Authors made a substantial contribution and can answer for the content. Agent or model assistance is disclosed and never listed as authorship.
- 02
Error reports
Anyone can report an error through corrections. Each report receives a reference and is assessed on evidence.
- 03
Integrity concerns
Concerns go to the integrity concern form and are reviewed by someone not responsible for the contested decision.
- 04
Retraction
Where a finding cannot stand, the edition is marked accordingly and kept on the record with the reason.
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
- 01Data engineering, interoperability and stewardshipStructured publishing in JATS XML · Persistent identifiers across the recordApplied here
- 02Probability and statisticsMeta-analysis with heterogeneity stated · Small-study and publication biasApplied here
- 03Uncertainty quantification and model validationCalibrated language in assessments · Certainty of evidence ratingsApplied here
Where this page’s references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
What is the difference between a correction and a retraction?
What is an expression of concern?
How can I report a possible error?
Are retracted reports deleted?
How quickly are corrections made?
Are minor typographical fixes recorded?
Can an author block a correction?
Is AI used in writing reports?
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium’s quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
- EmailGateway GW-GCRISend it from this pageEvidence, a correction, a case, a method, a review, a translation or profile input. It arrives tagged with this page, so the editor who owns it receives it.
- ZenodoOpen depositDeposit it and submit to the communityPublish your own record on Zenodo with your ORCID iD, then submit it to the Reports community there. Curators review it; the DOI stays yours.
- ReportsGCRISee every way to contributeThe contribution types, how each is reviewed, what credit you receive, the licence and what is never accepted.
Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.
Bring a method, a dataset or a question.
Information and enquiries are open today. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.
Legal documents.
Maps, data and figures on this site are shown for context and general information. They are not advice, forecasts or warnings; the limits of the information are set out in the Disclaimers and Data Notices.