Authors retain copyright in their articles. We do not require a transfer or assignment of copyright as a condition of publication. Authors grant us a non-exclusive licence to publish, distribute and preserve the article, and to deposit its metadata with discovery and registration services.
Articles published from 1 October 2026 onwards, with the agreement of the relevant copyright holders, are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).
This licence permits anyone to copy, redistribute, translate, remix, transform and build upon the licensed material for any purpose, including commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the authors, the original publication is acknowledged, a link to the licence is included, and any changes are indicated. Reuse must not imply endorsement by the authors or the journal.
Adaptations do not have to use the same licence. Users must not impose additional legal or technological restrictions that prevent others from exercising the rights granted under CC BY 4.0.
The applicable licence is stated on each article’s landing page, in its full-text formats and in its publication metadata. Complete terms are available in the CC BY 4.0 legal code.
Effective 1 October 2026, CC BY 4.0 replaces the journal’s previous licensing arrangements for newly published articles whose copyright holders agree to these terms. For manuscripts submitted under an earlier policy, agreement to the new licence will be obtained before publication.
Earlier articles remain available under their originally granted licences, including CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 or CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, where applicable. Changing this policy does not automatically change the licence of an existing article.
With the written agreement of all relevant copyright holders, an earlier article may additionally be made available under CC BY 4.0. Any such change will be documented with its effective date on the article’s landing page and reflected in its full-text files and publication metadata. Previously granted Creative Commons permissions remain valid for users who comply with their terms.
For material licensed under CC BY 4.0, no additional copyright permission is required for uses permitted by that licence, including commercial reuse. Users must comply with its attribution requirements, acknowledge the original publication and include the article’s DOI where available.
For older articles, users should check the licence displayed on the individual article and follow its terms. Uses outside those terms may require separate permission from the relevant copyright holder. Applicable copyright exceptions and limitations remain unaffected.
Third-party material is covered by the article’s Creative Commons licence only where the necessary rights have been secured and the material is not expressly excluded in a credit line. Material identified as excluded remains subject to its own terms; separate permission may be required unless the intended reuse is otherwise authorised or permitted by law.
Authors must establish a lawful basis for reproducing third-party material and clearly identify its source, applicable licence or permission, and any exclusions from the article’s licence in the relevant credit line or caption.
Policy last revised: 3 October 2026.
Authors may deposit the submitted, accepted or published version of their article in any repository or website at any time, with no embargo. See self-archiving and repositories.
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