Article Processing Charges

The charge

There is no submission fee, no peer-review fee, no page charge, no color-figure charge and no charge to readers. Everything the journal publishes is free to read from the day it appears.

What it pays for

The journal has no subscription income, so the charge covers the whole cost of taking a manuscript from submission to a permanent published record.

• Editorial handling. Screening, reviewer identification and invitation, and the management of review through to decision.
• Originality and integrity screening before review.
• Production. Copyediting, typesetting, figure preparation and author proofs.
• Registration. A permanent Crossref DOI with full metadata, including the license and any author ORCID iD, which is what makes the article discoverable and citable.
• Open access in perpetuity under CC BY 4.0, with copyright retained by the authors.
• Preservation. Commitment of the content to the Portico archive so the record survives independently of the publisher.

When it falls due, and billing

1. Submission. There is no submission fee or peer-review fee. An APC falls due after acceptance. Withdrawal charges follow the policy below.
2. Review and decision. There is no peer-review fee. Editorial decisions remain independent of payment. The withdrawal terms below apply when authors withdraw a manuscript.
3. Acceptance. The charge falls due. An invoice is issued and production begins.
4. Payment. Invoices can be addressed to the author, a department, an institution, a hospital or a grant office. Receipts and the documentation institutions need for reporting are provided on request.

Withdrawing a manuscript

Authors should contact the editorial office promptly and wait for written confirmation before submitting the work elsewhere.

Manuscripts withdrawn within 3 days of submission are not subject to a withdrawal charge.

Manuscripts withdrawn more than 3 days after submission incur a withdrawal charge equal to 30% of the journal’s APC.

Authors must receive official withdrawal confirmation before submitting the manuscript to another journal.

Charges and editorial decisions

Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, membership, service or role, and of an author’s ability to pay. The charge does not affect whether a manuscript is sent for review, who reviews it, how it is assessed, how quickly it is handled, or whether it is accepted.

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Editorial policies · Instructions for authors · Submit a manuscript

Across the journal

Peer review

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

Journal pages