Copyright Policy

Authors grant the publisher a non-exclusive right to first publication. This model is consistent with current DOAJ recommendations and avoids conflict between copyright ownership and open licensing. It also aligns with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME, 2022), which require that copyright and licensing terms be clearly described on the journal website and on each published article.

Copyright Ownership

Unless a different lawful arrangement applies because of employment, institutional policy, government status, or another written agreement, authors retain copyright for open access publication in their published articles. The copyright holder and year shall be displayed on every article in the form “© [Year] The Author(s)” (or the applicable holder), consistently in the HTML version, the PDF version and the article-level metadata deposited with Crossref and indexing services.

Publication Agreement

Before publication the corresponding author, acting with the authority of all co-authors, completes a Licence to Publish agreement that records the copyright holder, the rights granted to the publisher under this Policy, the Creative Commons licence to be applied, and the author warranties below. The agreement is retained by the publisher for the life of the article and is available to authors on request. Where an author’s employer or funder holds copyright, the agreement is signed by, or on behalf of, that copyright holder.

Rights Retained by Authors

In addition to the rights granted to all users under the applicable Creative Commons licence, authors retain the right, without seeking permission from the publisher, to:

• reproduce the article, in whole or in part, in a thesis or dissertation, in teaching, in institutional or personal websites and in a compilation of the author’s own works;

• deposit any version of the article in an institutional, subject, funder or general-purpose repository without embargo, as set out in the Repository and Self-Archiving Policy;

• prepare translations, adaptations and derivative works and to grant others permission to do so, provided the original publication is cited and, where the article licence restricts derivatives, the author’s own status as copyright holder is relied upon;

• use the article for text and data mining and to permit its use in the training of research tools, subject to the licence terms;

• receive proper attribution as author in every reuse of the work.

Rights Granted to the Publisher

By publishing with the journal, authors grant the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish, distribute, preserve, index, archive, display, and identify itself as the original publisher of the article, including the right to make the Version of Record available under the applicable open licence.

Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce third-party text, figures, tables, photographs, datasets, instruments, or other material where required. Material not covered by the article’s open licence must be clearly identified with its separate copyright and permission status. Copies of permission letters or licences must be retained by the authors and supplied to the editorial office on request. Where third-party material is used under a statutory exception (e.g., fair dealing), this must be stated in the manuscript.

Author Warranties

• The submitted work is original and the authors have authority to publish it.

• The work does not knowingly infringe copyright, privacy, confidentiality, contractual, or other third-party rights.

• All necessary permissions have been obtained and acknowledgements are accurate.

• All authors have approved the publication arrangement.

• The work is not under consideration by another publication, has not been previously published in substantially the same form (other than as a preprint or thesis disclosed at submission), and does not constitute redundant or duplicate publication.

• Any use of generative artificial-intelligence tools in preparing text, images, code or analyses is disclosed in the manuscript; such tools are not listed as authors and cannot hold or assign copyright, and the authors take full responsibility for the accuracy and originality of the content.

• Images and data have not been manipulated or fabricated in a manner that misrepresents the underlying results.

• All persons who meet ICMJE authorship criteria are listed as authors and no author has been added or omitted without the written consent of all authors.

Government, Crown and Employer-Owned Works

Where an author is unable to hold or license copyright because the work was produced in the course of official duties (for example, works of government employees, Crown copyright or works made for hire), the author must indicate this at submission. The article will carry an appropriate copyright statement for that holder, and the publisher will apply the most open licence that the holder permits. Such articles remain freely accessible and are identified in the article-level metadata.

Copyright Notice and Licence Display

Every article shall display, in a standard position in both the HTML and PDF versions, (a) the copyright holder and year, (b) the full name of the Creative Commons licence and its URL, and (c) the article DOI. The same information is deposited as machine-readable metadata (including the Crossref licence element and start date) so that indexing and aggregation services can read the rights status automatically. Copyright and licence statements on the journal website, in author guidelines and on articles must be identical in substance.

Moral Rights

Nothing in this Policy affects the moral rights of authors, including the right to be identified as the author of the work and the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work, as recognised under Section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 and equivalent laws in other jurisdictions.

Non-Article Content

Copyright in the journal as a compilation, including its title, logo, design, layout, and editorial matter not authored by external contributors, is held by the publisher. Editorials, commissioned reviews and other content written by editors or staff are published under the same Creative Commons licence as research articles unless a different licence is clearly stated on the item.

Copyright Disputes

Questions concerning ownership, permissions, or alleged infringement will be reviewed by the publisher and editorial office. Publication may be delayed or content restricted while a credible dispute is investigated. Complaints alleging infringement should be sent to the editorial office contact published on the journal website. The publisher will acknowledge receipt within five working days, follow the relevant COPE flowcharts (for example, on suspected plagiarism or redundant publication) and the journal’s Complaints and Appeals procedure, and inform the complainant and the authors of the outcome. Where infringement is confirmed after publication, the article will be corrected or retracted in accordance with the Corrections and Retractions Policy and COPE Retraction Guidelines; the article and its DOI will not be silently removed.

Policy Review

This Policy is reviewed at least annually by the publisher and the Editors-in-Chief, and whenever relevant law, funder requirements or indexing criteria change. The version number and date of last revision are shown on the journal website. Substantive changes are announced to authors and apply only to manuscripts submitted after the effective date.