1. General Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Editorial Board of the scientific journal is pleased to announce a call for papers for publication in Issue No. 72 (2027). We invite researchers, academics, doctoral candidates, early-career scholars, and practitioners working in forensic science, criminalistics, criminal procedure, and related fields to submit original research articles.

Key dates:

• Manuscript submission deadline: January 31, 2027.
• Scheduled publication date (online/print): May 2027.

Manuscript processing stages:

1. Initial screening: Verification of compliance with the journal’s scope, technical requirements, and text originality requirements, including a plagiarism check.
2. Double-blind peer review: Each manuscript is evaluated by independent experts in the relevant field, with the identities of both authors and reviewers concealed during the review process.
3. Final decision: Notification of authors regarding acceptance of the article for publication.

Important information for authors: Each publication is assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Manuscripts are accepted exclusively through the electronic submission system available on our website. Only one article by the same author, either individually authored or co-authored, may be published in a single issue of the journal.

2. Submission Procedure

To submit a manuscript, authors must:

• complete the author application form;
• prepare the manuscript in accordance with the journal’s author guidelines;
• submit the manuscript and all accompanying files exclusively through the journal’s Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.

OJS is used to manage manuscript submission, peer review, revisions, editorial decisions, and author–editor correspondence. The system maintains a record of manuscript versions and editorial communication throughout the publication process.

3. Length and Technical Requirements

The recommended manuscript length is 20,000–40,000 characters, including the abstract, reference list, tables, illustrations, etc. The article must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document with the following formatting:

• font — Times New Roman;
• font size — 14 pt;
• line spacing — 1.5;
• page margins: top — 2 cm, bottom — 2 cm, left — 3 cm, right — 1.5 cm.

Pages must not be numbered. Manuscripts exceeding the specified length limits will be returned to the authors without consideration.

The elements of the article must appear in the following order:

• DOI — assigned by the Editorial Board after acceptance; authors should leave this field blank when submitting the manuscript.
• Journal thematic section — the author must select one thematic section that most accurately corresponds to the content of the manuscript:
  • general theoretical issues of criminal procedure, criminalistics, and forensic science;
  • forensic techniques, tactics, and crime investigation methodology;
  • forensic examination: scientific developments, methods, methodologies, and technologies;
  • application of scientific and practical developments in forensic practice;
  • international practices in forensic science and forensic examination.
• Author information in English — full name, academic degree, academic title, position, place of employment (institution), ORCID provided as an active hyperlink, and email address.
• Article title in English — no more than 14 words and without abbreviations. The title must accurately reflect the content of the study.
• Bibliographic citation of the article in English (“To cite this article”) — prepared in accordance with the format provided in the journal template.

• Abstract in English — at least 1,800 characters. The abstract must include the following structural elements:

  • Problem statement;
  • Purpose of the study;
  • Research methods;
  • Scientific novelty;
  • Conclusions.

  The names of these structural elements must be highlighted in bold within the abstract.

• Keywords in English — up to 10 terms.

The main text of the article must include the following structural sections:

• Statement of the problem;
• Analysis of recent research and publications;
• Purpose of the study;
• Presentation of the main material;
• Conclusions.

Each of these elements must be clearly identified by the corresponding heading in the manuscript.

5. Illustrative Materials

Tables and figures must:

• be numbered consecutively;
• have appropriate titles or captions;
• be center-aligned.

Table titles must be placed above the table, while figure captions must be placed below the figure.

Illustrative materials must also be submitted as separate files. Recommended formats include TIFF, JPEG/JPG, PNG, EPS, SVG, or PDF.

All illustrative materials must be of sufficient quality and resolution for publication.

6. In-Text Citations

In-text citations must follow the APA (American Psychological Association) style.

References in the text must be placed in parentheses and include the author’s surname, year of publication, and, where applicable, the page number(s), for example:

(Shepitko, 2020, p. 5)
(Romaniuk & Ablamskyi, 2024, pp. 140–150)

For sources with three or more authors, use the first author’s surname followed by et al., for example:

(Casino et al., 2022)

Numbered citations such as [1] or [1, p. 5] are not permitted.

7. References 

The manuscript must contain one reference list only, entitled References.

The References section must include all sources cited in the manuscript and must be arranged alphabetically by the surname of the first author. The list must not be numbered.

Bibliographic entries must be prepared in accordance with APA style.

For sources originally published in Ukrainian or another language using a non-Latin script:

• authors’ names and bibliographic details must be transliterated into Latin script;
• the title of the source must be transliterated;
• an English translation of the title must be provided immediately after the transliterated title in square brackets;
• the title of a Ukrainian-language journal or other periodical must also be transliterated, followed by its English translation in square brackets;
• the language of the original source must be indicated at the end of the entry, for example: [in Ukrainian], [in Chinese].

Sources originally published in English must be cited in English and marked [in English].

Where a DOI has been assigned to a source, it must be provided as an active hyperlink.

The References section must include only sources cited in the manuscript, and every source cited in the text must appear in the References section.

Example:

Hlynska, N. V. (Ed.). (2024). Kontseptualni osnovy tsyfrovizatsii kryminalnoho provadzhennia Ukrainy [Conceptual foundations of digitalization of criminal proceedings in Ukraine]. Kharkiv: Pravo. https://doi.org/10.31359/9786178612139 [in Ukrainian].

Casino, F., Pina, C., López-Aguilar, P., Batista, E., Solanas, A., & Patsakis, C. (2022). SoK: Cross-border criminal investigations and digital evidence. Journal of Cybersecurity, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyac014 [in English].

8. Academic Integrity

Only original research articles independently prepared by the author(s), not previously published and not simultaneously submitted to another scholarly journal, will be considered.

The author(s) are responsible for:

• the accuracy of the facts, data, and research results presented;
• proper citation of all sources used;
• the accuracy and completeness of bibliographic references;
• proper attribution of authorship;
• compliance with the rights and contributions of all co-authors.

The following are not permitted:

• academic plagiarism;
• self-plagiarism without proper citation;
• fabrication of data or research results;
• falsification or manipulation of data or research results;
• misappropriation or denial of authorship;
• use of texts, ideas, data, illustrations, or research results created by others without proper attribution.

If generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools or other automated content-generation systems were used in preparing the manuscript, the author(s) must inform the Editorial Board and appropriately disclose the nature and extent of such use.

The Editorial Board reviews submitted manuscripts for compliance with academic integrity requirements.

If indications of academic integrity violations are identified, the Editorial Board reserves the right to:

• decline to accept the manuscript for consideration;
• return the manuscript to the author(s) for revision or clarification;
• reject the manuscript.

9. Requirements for the Source Base

The use and citation of the following sources are not permitted:

• Russian-language sources;
• sources published in the territory of the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus.

An exception may be made where the use of such sources is directly required by the specific subject matter of the research and is supported by a separate scholarly justification.

10. Open Data Policy

The journal supports the FAIR principles — Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability.

Authors are encouraged to deposit research data underlying their findings in trusted repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, Harvard Dataverse, or recognized institutional repositories. Where possible, the repository should provide a persistent identifier, preferably a DOI.

All manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement, which must be placed before the References section.

Where research data have been deposited in an external repository, authors must provide a link to the dataset and its DOI or other persistent identifier, where available.

Where research data cannot be made publicly available for ethical, legal, confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, or other justified reasons, this must be clearly stated in the Data Availability Statement.

Where no separate research dataset was generated or analysed for the study, authors must also explicitly state this.

Examples of acceptable statements include:

Data Availability Statement: The data supporting the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [DOI or persistent identifier].

Data Availability Statement: All data necessary to substantiate the conclusions of this study are presented in the article.

Data Availability Statement: No separate dataset was generated or analysed for this study.

Data Availability Statement: The data supporting the findings of this study are not publicly available due to legal, ethical, or confidentiality restrictions.

The Editorial Board verifies the availability of the dataset links and persistent identifiers provided by the authors and, where applicable, integrates them into the article metadata through the OJS system to facilitate indexing and discoverability.

11. Final Provisions

Manuscripts submitted in violation of the established requirements may be returned to the authors for revision or rejected by the Editorial Board.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to make editorial, linguistic, stylistic, and proofreading corrections to submitted manuscripts without altering their scholarly content.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the final manuscript complies with all journal requirements before submission.