Bioscientifica Open Access Policy

Bioscientifica's open-access policy

(Last updated December 2023)

Introduction

Bioscientifica supports open-access publication of research articles through both 'gold' and 'green' models. We publish both fully open-access publications and traditional subscription journals which offer open-access options ('hybrid' journals).

Editorial decision-making regarding the publication of an article in a Bioscientifica journal is entirely independent of the publication model chosen by the author.

Funder requirements

Before submitting an article to a Bioscientifica published journal, authors should carefully check any specific open-access policy from their funding body to ensure that their journal of choice supports publication under a model that meets their funding obligations. If authors are required to publish on a ‘gold’ open-access basis, authors should ensure that they have funding to support publication in their journal of choice before submitting.

Bioscientifica actively monitors developments in research funder mandates and takes all reasonable steps to comply with these. Below we detail two specific examples.

cOAlition / Plan S compliance

All our fully open-access journals are Plan S compliant.

All hybrid journals published by Bioscientifica are Plan S compliant as they offer ‘green’ open access. This grants authors the right to immediately deposit the authors accepted manuscript version of an article to a non-commercial, public repository under a CC BY licence (compliant with the Plan S ‘Rights retention’ route).

For corresponding authors at institutions subscribing to Bioscientifica’s ‘Read and Publish’ transformative deal, all Bioscientifica published hybrid journals are also Plan S compliant because the deal includes complementary gold open-access publication.

PubMed Central (PMC) / Europe PMC / NIH Public Access Policy compliance

Some funders require articles to be deposited in PubMed Central or Europe PMC. Bioscientifica has a Participation Agreement with PMC to help authors meet these requirements.

For articles accepted for publication on a ‘gold’ open-access basis:

• After acceptance Bioscientifica deposits metadata about the authors accepted manuscript in PMC.
• After publication of the Version of Record Bioscientifica deposits the Version of Record in PMC.
• Europe PMC mirrors the information and files present in PMC.

For articles accepted for publication on a subscription basis:

• After acceptance Bioscientifica deposits the authors accepted manuscript of NIH-funded authors with NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS). NIHMS will process the file and contact the author to approve a version for upload to PMC. This enables NIH-funded authors to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.
• Authors with a requirement to deposit their accepted manuscript in Europe PMC are welcome to do so under our ‘green’ open-access policy.

Your open-access options

Table 1 summarises the open-access options applying to each of our publications. More detail about each of the options can be found in this section.

Table 1: Bioscientifica's publications and their open-access options.

'Gold' open access

For 'gold' open access, the Version of Record is made freely available online immediately upon publication. This is the version following typesetting, copy-editing and proofing, and containing reference linking, links to supplementary data and information on any subsequent changes to the scholarly record (including errata and retractions). Authors retain copyright of their articles for 'gold' open access and a range of user licences are available for authors to choose from (Table 2).

Bioscientifica automatically deposits final published versions of all 'gold' open-access articles into PubMed Central (PMC).

'Gold' open access is traditionally funded by the payment of an Article Publication Charge (APC) upon acceptance by the author (or their funder/institution). Details of the APC for each journal may be found in Table 2.

Transformative Agreements

Articles with corresponding authors based at institutions which have purchased Bioscientifica’s transformative ‘Read and Publish’ deal qualify for free 'gold' open-access publication in our hybrid journals.

Author charges for 'gold' open access

The APC payable by authors (or their funders or institutions) upon acceptance for 'gold' open access is summarised in Table 2, along with any discounts and the user licences available. Prices are subject to VAT where applicable.

Table 2: Bioscientifica's licence options and pricing for 'gold' open access.

†If author(s) are eligible for discounted publishing fees or have a discount code these cannot be used cumulatively; only one deduction will be applied per manuscript.

^*Waiver for new journals

1. Bioscientifica is sponsoring the APC through a post-launch phase, after which it will be competitively priced.
2. We reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time.

^**Terms and Conditions for member discounts

• Eligibility for this discount is based on the corresponding author being a member of an Owning or Endorsing Society at the point of submission. For full details please contact the relevant journal editorial office.
• A valid membership number must be disclosed during submission, and will be confirmed by the editorial office. On acceptance members will be sent a discount code to be used at the payment stage.
• All submissions are subject to peer review and the usual acceptance criteria.
• The offer applies to individual members and is not open to corporate members.

Waivers and discounts for low-income economies

Bioscientifica operates a discount and waiver programme† for authors in countries, areas and territories with low-income economies (as defined by Research4Life). These are available for open-access publication in both hybrid and fully open-access journals. Authors must indicate upon first submission if they wish to apply for an APC discount or waiver according to the following criteria:

• Authors from group A economies receive a full APC waiver.
• Authors from group B economies receive a 50% discount on the full APC.

Application of an APC discount or waiver is made by journal staff and is entirely independent of the peer-review process which is managed by the Editorial Board with complete editorial independence.

Refund policy

The author(s) may withdraw their article at any time prior to acceptance without incurring an APC or administration fee.

Post-acceptance article withdrawal is not permitted except in very rare circumstances and will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher, and will be done in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the publication.

Converting to 'gold' open access after publication

Authors may request the conversion of an article, previously published on a subscription basis, to ‘gold’ open access. This is possible with the following conditions:

• The request to convert the article to ‘gold’ open access must be sent to the journal mailbox within one year of the original article publication date.
• The authors will be charged the APC for the journal at the time the request is made. An administrative charge of £200 will also be charged to cover production work and staff time.
• Any subscriber discount price for the APC will only be available if the author’s institution was a subscriber BOTH at the time of original article publication AND when the request is made to convert the article to ‘gold’ open access.

Any charges paid at time of publication (for example colour figure charges) will not be reimbursed or deducted from the APC or administrative charge.

'Delayed' free access

Bioscientifica automatically makes all subscription content freely available online 5 years after publication.

The version made free to access is the Version of Record following typesetting, copyediting and proofing, and containing reference linking, links to supplementary data and information on any subsequent changes to the scholarly record (including errata and retractions).

Articles made free to access though this scheme retain their original re-use licence and so do not automatically have a commercial commons licence.

'Green' open access

For 'green' open access, the authors accepted manuscript version of an article may be immediately uploaded to a non-commercial subject or institutional repository. Our journals make no charge to authors for 'green' open access via non-commercial repositories.

The following disclaimer must be included when depositing articles:

a) prior to final publication
“Disclaimer: this is not the definitive Version of Record of this article. This manuscript has been accepted for publication in [insert name of journal], but the version presented here has not yet been copy-edited, formatted or proofed. Consequently, Bioscientifica accepts no responsibility for any errors or omissions it may contain.”

b) once the Version of Record is published:
"The definitive version is now freely available at [insert DOI link] [insert year of publication]."

For avoidance of doubt, green open access only applies to the authors accepted manuscript version, i.e. the article before typesetting and copyediting.

If authors (or their funders) require that the final Version of Record should be made freely available sooner than 5 years after online publication, authors should opt for 'gold' open access.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding Bioscientifica's publications or open-access policy please do get in touch via [email protected].

We do not hold information on how different institutions are managing their block grants. If you have any queries about how your institution will be supporting APC payments please ask your librarian.

Please contact your funder or institution if you have any queries about their requirements for 'Green' or 'Gold' open access, user licences or the deposit of articles in repositories.