About the Journal

Field and Content

The journal "SOCIAL WORK – Review of Social Sciences" is a scientific publication of the Hellenic Association of Social Workers (HASW). It stands as the only Social Work journal in Greece, aiming to promote, disseminate, and critically analyze contemporary trends and issues in social work and related social sciences.

The journal features articles on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:

The articles published in the journal concern the following topics:

  • History and Comparative Social Work
  • Theoretical Models of Social Work
  • Community Social Work
  • Family Social Work
  • Group Social Work
  • School Social Work
  • Clinical Social Work
  • Intercultural Social Work
  • Radical Social Work
  • Social work with vulnerable and socially excluded people
  • Social Work in the Judicial and Penitentiary System
  • Health/Social Work Issues in Medical Care
  • Psychotherapy and Counselling
  • Ethics and Code of Conduct
  • Human Rights
  • Gender Issues and Equality Policies
  • Child Protection
  • Delinquency/ Deviance
  • Adoption and Foster Care
  • Adults, Children and Adolescents Mental Health
  • Addictions
  • Elderly
  • Humanitarian and Social Crises
  • Social and Solidarity Economy
  • Individual and Group Supervision
  • Other topics of Social Sciences and Humanities

 

History

The journal "SOCIAL WORK – Review of Social Sciences" has been published quarterly by the Hellenic Association of Social Workers since 1986. From 1986 to 2013, it was available in print (ISSN 1105-4018), and since 2014, it has been published electronically.

As of 2023, the journal is hosted on the electronic publishing platform of the National Documentation Centre (NDC), an integrated digital service for the publication and distribution of open-access scientific and thematic journals. This decision was made by the Board of Directors of ASWG.

 

Review Process

The reviewer’s role is critical in ensuring the credibility and validity of the articles published in the journal. Reviewers are expected to evaluate submissions transparently and within the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (Publication Ethics, COPE, Available at: https://publicationethics.org/files/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers-v2_0.pdf)

Reviewers assess submissions based on the journal’s standards and predefined criteria for quality, completeness, and scientific reliability. They provide constructive feedback, suggest improvements, and make recommendations to the Editorial Committee regarding the acceptance, rejection, or revision of articles. While reviewers play a significant role, the final decision rests with the Editorial Committee.

The editorial committee employs a rigorous double-blind review process involving two independent reviewers for each submission.

Reviewers are expected to:

  • Uphold strict scientific evaluation standards.
  • Support the scientific integrity and credibility of the journal to maintain its quality.
  • Communicate with authors using professional, respectful, and scientific language. Reviews should focus on the work and avoid personal criticism of the author.
  • Maintain confidentiality regarding the reviewed texts. They must not share or disclose any part of the submission without authorization from the Editorial Committee.
  • Keep any information or ideas gained during the review process confidential and refrain from using it for personal benefit.

If reviewers identify a conflict of interest with an assigned text, they are obligated to inform the Editorial Committee and recuse themselves from the evaluation.

Eligible reviewers include social workers and professionals from related scientific fields with recognized academic or professional expertise, a history of publications in relevant fields (e.g., Scopus, ORCID, Google Scholar), and demonstrated contributions to their discipline through research or other scientific work.

 

Publication Ethics  

The *Social Work – Review of Social Sciences* journal follows the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)  and is committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical behavior in all stages of the publication process.

Duties of editors
Editors are responsible for the content and overall quality of the journal. They must:

  • Make publication decisions based solely on the scientific merit, originality, and relevance of submissions.
  • Ensure a fair and transparent double-blind peer review process.
  • Avoid any conflicts of interest related to submitted manuscripts.
  • Maintain confidentiality regarding submitted materials.
  • Take appropriate measures when ethical complaints are raised, including investigation and correction or retraction if necessary.

Duties of Reviewers
Reviewers must:

  • Provide objective, constructive, and timely feedback to assist authors in improving their work.
  • Treat all manuscripts as confidential documents.
  • Declare any conflicts of interest that could affect their impartiality.
  • Report any suspected cases of plagiarism, data falsification, or other unethical research conduct.

Duties of authors
Authors must:

  • Submit original work that has not been previously published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
  • Properly acknowledge and cite all sources that have influenced their research.
  • Ensure that all listed authors have made a significant contribution to the research and are aware of the final version submitted.
  • Disclose any financial or personal conflicts of interest that could influence the results or interpretation.
  • Obtain ethical approval for studies involving human participants or animals, when applicable.

Duties of Publisher
The publisher ensures that:

  • The journal strictly adheres to COPE’s Core Practices.
  • Content remains permanently accessible and archived.
  • Corrections, clarifications, or retractions are issued when necessary.
  • The editorial team and reviewers act independently from commercial or political interests.

Handling of Ethical Misconduct
In cases of alleged misconduct (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication, authorship disputes), the editorial board will follow the COPE flowcharts to handle the situation with transparency, fairness, and due diligence.

COPE Membership and Reference
The journal aligns with the COPE Core Practices available at: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

 

Policy on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) tools cannot be credited as authors. Their use is permitted only for supportive tasks (e.g., language editing), subject to the following conditions:

  1. Full Accountability: Authors are solely responsible for the accuracy, validity, and originality of the final content.
  2. Disclosure: The use of any AI tool must be explicitly disclosed in a separate section at the end of the manuscript, specifying the tool used and the purpose of its application.

 

Plagiarism  Policy

The journal maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy against plagiarism to ensure research integrity and protect intellectual property rights.

All submitted manuscripts may be checked using specialized plagiarism detection software. If plagiarism, unauthorized use of third-party copyright material, insufficient attribution, or authorship disputes are identified, the journal reserves the right to reject the submission and take appropriate action (e.g., retraction), in accordance with international ethical standards.

 

Publication Fees

Publication in the journal is entirely free of charge. Authors are not required to pay any submission, processing, production, or publication fees (APCs). All articles are Open Access and are made freely available to the public immediately upon publication.

 

ePublisher

The National Documentation Centre (www.ekt.gr) is a national infrastructure. Since 1980, it actively engages in the collection, organization and dissemination of scientific and technological information in Greece and internationally. EKT’s strategic priority is the aggregation, organized online dissemination and preservation of quality-assured scholarly and educational content in a single research infrastructure.

EKT’s vision is 'Access to Knowledge'. To this end, it implements Open Access policies in research, supports the transfer and dissemination of scientific knowledge, collaborates with research, education and cultural institutions for the aggregation, organization and dissemination of digital content and provides innovative services in scientific information.

EKT provides reliable ePublishing services as part of its scholarly content aggregation and dissemination activities. Its integrated online ePublishing environment is developed with open-source interoperable technology. This affords the incorporation of EKT’s infrastructures into the continuously developing international infrastructure environment.

EKT’s ePublishing services (http://epublishing.ekt.gr/) are directed to public and extended public institution publishers of accredited scholarly journals. They include, most significantly, the organization, documentation and organized dissemination of metadata and content of scholarly journals, the training and consulting services on issues such as intellectual property, the standardization of editorial processes according to internationally accepted standards, the inclusion of content and metadata in international content indexers and harvesters via interoperable systems.