SciPost Journals: Terms and Conditions

These complement the SciPost Terms and Conditions.

General

SciPost expects the following from submitters:

The manuscript which is submitted for publication has not been published before except in the form of an abstract or electronic preprint or other similar formats which have not undergone peer review. It is also not under consideration elsewhere for peer-reviewed publication.
Each submission will automatically be checked for plagiarism: SciPost is a Participating Publisher of Crossref's Similarity Check. In their own interest, authors should avoid any ambiguous case by clearly quoting and citing original sources.
The submission has been approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the relevant authorities and/or institutes where the work was carried out.
In the case of acceptance for publication, the authors agree to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. This means that you are free to use, reproduce and distribute the articles and related content (unless otherwise noted), for commercial and noncommercial purposes, subject to the citation of the original source in accordance with the CC-BY license, in particular section 3a.
The authors have secured the right to reproduce any material in their work which has already been published elsewhere.
The authors agree with the license and copyright agreement.
The authors have agreed to and are in compliance with the general author obligations.
The authors of a given manuscript are formally represented by the author having submitted the manuscript.
During the evaluation phase, Editorial Fellows will follow the Editorial College by-laws and referees will follow the code of conduct for referees.
The SciPost Administration reserves the right to remove or censor reports or comments if they contain inappropriate material or if they are insufficiently substantial in nature or of insufficient direct relevance to the manuscript under consideration.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks etc. in the published articles of SciPost journals, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.
The Fellows of the Editorial College do their best to shepherd the refereeing process as carefully as possible but cannot assume legal responsibility for the outcome and aftermath of acceptance or rejection.
While the contents of the journals is believed to be true and accurate on the date each article is published, neither the authors, the Editorial Fellows, Stichting SciPost or any of its officers and Board members can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may have occurred. SciPost makes no guarantee, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Any opinions expressed in SciPost journals are the views of the authors and are not the views of SciPost.

Open Access policy

All SciPost Journals are Open Access which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of Open Access.

License and copyright agreement

The following license and copyright agreement is valid for any article published in any SciPost journal and web portal.

Author's certification

By submitting their manuscript, the authors certify the following:

They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these agreements.
The work described has not been published before except in the form of an abstract or electronic preprint or other similar formats which have not undergone peer review; it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; its publication has been approved by the responsible authorities, tacitly or explicitly, of the institutes where the work was performed.
They have secured the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
They agree to the following license and copyright agreement:

Copyright

The copyright of any article is retained by the author(s). More information on the transfer of copyright can be found below.
Authors grant SciPost a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
Authors grant SciPost commercial rights to produce hardcopy volumes of the journal for purchase by libraries and individuals.
Authors grant any third party the right to use the article freely under the stipulation that the original authors are given credit and the appropriate citation details are mentioned.
The article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. Unless otherwise stated, any associated published material is distributed under the same license. If one or more authors are US government employees, the paper can be published under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

You are free to

Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material.

for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution - You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

No additional restrictions - You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:

You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.

No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

View the full legal code of the license.

Copyright transfers

Many authors have strict regulations in their employment contract regarding their publications. A transfer of copyright to the institution or company is common as well as the reservation of specific usage rights. In open-access publications in combination with the Creative Commons License, a transfer of the copyright to the institution is possible as it belongs to the author anyway.

Any usage rights are regulated through the Creative Commons License. As SciPost uses the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, anyone (the author, his/her institution/company, the publisher, as well as the public) is free to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work as long as the original author is given credit (see above). Therefore, specific usage rights cannot be reserved by the author or his/her institution/company, and the publisher cannot include the statement "all rights reserved" in any published paper.

A copyright transfer from the author to his/her institution/company can be expressed in a special "copyright statement" at the end of the publication. Authors are asked to include the following sentence: "The author's copyright for this publication has been transferred to [institution/company]".

Reproduction requests

All articles published by SciPost are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (see details above) together with an author copyright. Therefore, there is no need from the publisher's side to give permission for the reproduction of articles. We suggest contacting the author to inform him/her about the further usage of the material. However, as the author decided to publish the scientific results under the CC-BY licence, he/she consented to share the work under the condition that the original authors be given credit.

Author obligations

The primary obligation of the author(s) is to present a scientifically accurate account of the research performed, as concisely and objectively as possible, and with a discussion on its significance.
A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to original sources of information to permit peers to reproduce the work.
Conciseness should not come at the expense of scientific accuracy and completeness.
The abstract should be comprehensive and in faithful correspondence to the contents of the paper.
Papers must be written in English, and authors should pay attention to correct spelling and grammar. Insufficient quality of spelling and grammar constitutes a sufficient reason for rejection.
Authors should cite all publications which have been influential in performing the reported work, and which can orient the reader to the earlier work necessary to understand the reported investigation. Privately obtained information (conversation, correspondence or discussion) should not be used or reported in the work without explicit permission from the originator. Information obtained while performing confidential services such as reporting on manuscripts or grant applications should be treated similarly.
Fragmentation of research papers is to be avoided. Scientists should organize publications such that each paper gives a complete account of a particular project.
Authors should not submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal.
Criticisms of earlier literature can be justified; personal criticism shall however never be considered appropriate.
Only persons who have significantly contributed to the research and to the redaction of the manuscript should be listed as authors. The submitting author attests to the fact that other named authors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission. Deceased persons who meet the criteria for co-authorship should be included, with a footnote reporting the date of death. In no case should fictitious names be listed as co-authors. The submitter accepts the responsibility of having included all appropriate persons as co-authors, and none that are inappropriate.

Referee code of conduct

Contributors asked to referee should promptly accept or decline the task assigned to them.
Following acceptance, the referee should provide a report within the allocated refereeing period. It is preferable to deliver a shorter report within the expected time than no report at all.
A Contributor should not referee a paper authored or co-authored by someone with whom the referee has a personal or professional (hierarchic) connection if this has the potential to bias the judgement.
A Contributor should not referee a paper authored or co-authored by someone with whom the referee has published in the preceding three years.
A Contributor should not agree to referee if there is any doubt on a possible conflict of interest issuing from close links between the work to be refereed and the Contributor's own work.
A Contributor who feels insufficiently qualified to fulfill a given refereeing task should decline it as promptly as possible.
Reports should be objective and evidence-based, and focus primarily on the scientific validity, significance and originality of the manuscript under consideration.
Judgements provided should be supported by sufficient evidence in the form of explanations or references to other works, in order to make them clearly understandable. Any claim of preexisting material must be accompanied with the relevant citation.
A Referee should also assess the level of clarity of the manuscript, as well as its general formatting and level of grammar.

Corrections and retractions

SciPost pursues the following policy for making corrections to its peer-reviewed content:

Modification of a paper: SciPost reserves the right to replace a published paper if purely technical corrections are necessary (e.g. corrupt file or incorrect bibliographical entry). In such cases, archives and indices are informed. Under no circumstances will the content be changed.
Corrigendum: notification of an important error made by the author(s) or by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the published, peer-reviewed work or the reputation of the author or the journal. Corrigenda are represented by a formal online notice.
Retraction: authors or, in specific cases, SciPost can decide to formally withdraw a published journal article. The article stays online but the reader is notified about the retraction. Such retractions are most often accompanied by an editorial note explaining the background.
Marked as fraud: in the unlikely case that SciPost is notified that a published journal article turns out to be a fraud, the paper stays online but is formally withdrawn. The reader is notified about the status and fraud papers are always accompanied by an editorial note pointing out the malpractice.

All corrections and retractions can be traced through our participation in Crossref's Crossmark service, as detailed on our Crossmark Policy Page.