The 2026 COPE China Seminar, jointly organized by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Society of China University Journals (CUJS), convened in Beijing on June 17, 2026, addressing core issues including academic publishing ecosystem governance in the context of AI, collaborative prevention of research misconduct, and publication ethics standards. A practical case study titled "24hreview: A Pre-Submission Integrity Safeguard Layer for Publishers" drew significant attention, showcasing the platform's positioning and outcomes as a public infrastructure asset in the academic integrity sphere.
In her opening address, COPE Chair Nancy Chescheir reaffirmed COPE's core mission to uphold the integrity of the scholarly record by resolving publication ethics challenges through collaborative discussion, education, training, and professional leadership. She expressed appreciation for innovative explorations undertaken by China's publishing and research communities in research integrity and publication ethics, expressing confidence that global professional engagement in governance would continuously refine available tools and mechanisms.
The 24hreview initiative represents a tangible response to COPE's vision, translating principles into implementable industry infrastructure. The platform emerged from a CUJS survey of 1,036 Chinese researchers, which revealed that while only 19.64% of authors were familiar with COPE policies and guidelines, 86.7% supported pre-submission checks, and 31.6% explicitly expected professional pre-submission screening channels provided by publishers. The survey identified three structural gaps in the current publication ethics safeguarding system: late-stage screening (18.6%), limited capacity of individual journals (18.3%), and a lack of shared mechanisms and self-check tools (16.1%). The case report noted, "This is not a failure of individual editors or publishers, but a systemic structural gap that requires coordinated industry-wide solutions."
24hreview is positioned not as an author self-check tool, but as a dedicated integrity safeguard layer for publishers. Working at the pre-submission stage—before a manuscript formally reaches the publisher—it helps ensure that every submission entering the publisher's workflow has already passed standardized academic integrity checks. Its three core features include standardized screening dimensions, integration with existing submission systems, and completion of front-end checks within 24 hours while supporting publishing efficiency. Launched in 2024 under the auspices of CUJS, the platform first piloted the approach together with Wiley, a leading global publisher. The number of participating journals has since grown from an initial 8 to about 80. The pilot showed that the model is straightforward and convenient to implement, integrates smoothly with publishers' existing submission workflows, and reliably verifies the integrity of manuscripts at the pre-submission stage, strengthening integrity assurance across participating journals.
Multiple presentations throughout the COPE China Seminar converged on a common direction: addressing increasingly complex research integrity challenges requires transcending the capacity boundaries of individual journals or publishers and building a coordinated industry governance system. For more details, the original source can be found at https://www.cujs.org.cn/site/content/8650.html.
