Copyrights - THE FUTURE Journals

Future Journals Copyright Statement

Future Journals publishes its own journals (referred to here as Future Journals Journals) and journals owned by third parties (referred to here as Hosted Journals). When we refer to Journals, we include both Future Journals Journals and Hosted Journals.

In this Copyright Statement, Websites (with a capitalized W) refers to all Future Journals websites, including those of Hosted Journals. An Owner means Future Journals as the owner of all Future Journals Journals, or the respective owner of a Hosted Journal.

All content included on these Websites (including Loop), such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, video/audio clips, downloads, data compilations, and software, is the property of the person or entity who or which owned it prior to submission to Future Journals or to a Hosted Journal. If not owned by Future Journals or an Owner of a Hosted Journal, it is licensed to Future Journals Media SA (“Future Journals”), such Owner or its or their licensees and/or subcontractors.

The ownership of the copyright in the text of individual articles (including research articles, opinion articles, book reviews, conference proceedings and abstracts) is not affected by its submission to or publication by Future Journals, whether for itself or for a Hosted Journal. Future Journals benefits from a general license overall content submitted. Hosted Journal Owners benefit from a general license overall content submitted to their respective Hosted Journals. Future Journals, Hosted Journal Owners and all their users benefit from a Creative Commons CC-BY licence overall content, as specified below.

Images and graphics not forming part of user-contributed materials are the property of or are licensed to Future Journals and may not be downloaded or copied without Future Journals’ explicit and specific permission or in accordance with any specific copyright notice attached to that material.

The combination of all content on Future Journals websites, and the look and feel of the Future Journals websites, is the property of Future Journals Media SA.

As an author or contributor, you grant permission to others to reproduce your articles, including any graphics and third-party materials supplied by you, in accordance with the Future Journals Terms and Conditions. The license granted to third parties overall contents of each article, including third-party elements, is a Creative Commons Attribution ("CC BY") licence. The current version is CC-BY, version 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), and the license will automatically be updated as and when updated by the Creative Commons organization.

You may include a requirement to reproduce copyright notices but you may not restrict the right to reproduce the entire article, including third-party graphics. This means that you must obtain any necessary third-party consents and permissions to reproduce third-party materials in your articles submitted to Future Journals.

E-books are subject to the same licensing conditions as the articles within them.

Future Journals or the Owner of the respective Hosted Journal, and are licensed under Creative Commons CC0 terms.

All software used on this site, and the copyright in the code constituting such software, and all intellectual property in all such elements, is the property of or is licensed to Future Journals and its use is restricted in accordance with the Future Journals Terms and Conditions. All copyright, and all rights therein, are protected by national and international copyright laws.

Future Science Association applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to articles and other works we publish. Authors of articles published in Frontiers journals retain copyright on their articles, except for any third-party images and other materials added by Innovative Scientific Information and Services network, which are subject to copyright of their respective owners. If you submit your paper for publication by the Innovative Scientific Information and Services network, you agree to have the CC BY license applied to your work. Under this Open Access license, you as the author agree that anyone can reuse your article in whole or part for any purpose, for free, even for commercial purposes. Anyone may copy, distribute, or reuse the content as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This facilitates freedom in re-use and also ensures that published content can be mined without barriers for the needs of research.

Corrections to published articles. If necessary, corrections of significant errors in published articles will be published in a later issue of the Journal. Within two months after publication, authors are requested to bring any errors to the attention of the managing editor.

Terms and Conditions for Users

These General Conditions create a contract between you and Future Journals which applies to your use of our websites, including those of Hosted Journals as defined below.

Who We Are

Future journals is an award-winning Open Science platform and leading Open Access scholarly publisher. Our mission is to make science open, so that all may live healthy lives on a healthy planet. Founded in 2017 by scientist Walid Nosir.

Future journals publishes its own journals (referred to here as Future journals) and journals owned by third parties (referred to here as Hosted Journals). When we refer to Journals, we include both Future journals Journals and Hosted Journals.

In these terms, Websites (with a capitalised W) refer to all Future journals websites, including those of Hosted Journals. An Owner means Future journals as owner of all Future journals Journals, or the respective owner of a Hosted Journal.

These conditions cover all interactions with Future journals and its websites

These Conditions will continue to apply to all Journals except, for a specific Hosted Journal, to the extent of any clear inconsistency or contradiction with the conditions published for that Journal, which will prevail to the extent of that inconsistency or contradiction, and only in connection with that Hosted Journal.

Hosted Journals may have additional conditions, which, if applicable, will appear on the Website of the Hosted Journal concerned. Hosted Journal Conditions apply only to the Hosted Journal on whose Website they appear.

These terms create a contract between you and Future journals whenever you interact with us, whether or not you are registered. If you interact with a Hosted Journal, your contract is also with the owner of that Hosted Journal.

Interactions can include visits to any Website; the submission, review, acceptance (or rejection) and publication of articles; and use of the Loop network for researchers. Other rules and procedures of Future journals, including the Author Guidelines, Privacy Policy and Copyright Statement, also apply in respect of all Future journals Journals, and also in respect of Hosted Journals, except, in the case of a Hosted Journal, to the extent inconsistent with or contradicted by guidelines, rules, procedures or conditions appearing on the Website of that Hosted Journal.

Other specific terms, such as the applicable conditions for editors, will also apply if you are or become an editor with any Journal.

Our contract with you is personal to you and may not be assigned or transferred by you to any other person.

Your right to use any Website and any related functionality is conditional on your complying with these conditions and all other applicable rules and conditions specified by Future journals. Future journals will also comply with its rules and conditions.

Registering with Future journals

One registration suffices for both Future journals Journals and Hosted Journals. You may register by clicking here. To register you must provide at least the minimum information required. You can manage your privacy settings.

Who may register? Natural persons aged 18 or over may register, and you must register in your own name. You may not create more than one profile. By registering with us you promise Future journals, and all other relevant owners that the information you provide is accurate and not misleading.

Future journals may refuse or cancel a registration, at its discretion, with or without notice.

What it means to register as a user of Future journals

By successfully registering with us, you have the following immediate benefits:

you become a registered user of Future journals. One registration allows any user to interact with any Journal. By registering, you automatically become a member of the Loop network.
you may submit articles for peer review to any Journal. You may also submit other content, and you can apply to become an editor or reviewer of a journal.

Registering with Future Journals also means accepting the following:

you have read, understood and agree with these Conditions, Future Journal's Privacy Policy and the Copyright Statement
You must comply with these terms and all other rules and conditions of Future journals. This obligation applies to all users, whether or not registered.
you must comply with all generally accepted academic and scientific norms and Future journals’ own principles, as well as any additional principles of Hosted Journals;
You understand that Future Journals is not obliged to publish any content contributed by you, and that Future Journals may, at its discretion, remove any content of any kind contributed by you, including retracting peer-reviewed articles.
Communications and emails: By registering with Future journals, you consent to receiving email and other communications from Future journals and from the Owners of relevant Hosted Journals.

You may opt out of certain types of messages, such as marketing messages, in your settings, but you may not opt out of messages on matters such as administrative and legal issues, changes in terms and conditions and other necessary communications. If you do not agree to receive such emails and communications, you may not register with Future journals and Future journals may cancel any existing registration.

You must keep your email and other contact details up to date in your registration information.

If you wish to close your account with Future journals, please contact info@theFuture journals.org. Hosted Journals may provide a dedicated support address on their respective websites, but an email can also be addressed to Future journals for support on any Journal.

Privacy, Personal Data and Cookies

Future journals strives to comply, as a minimum, with Swiss and EU laws on privacy and data protection and to apply the principles of recognised cross-border data protection procedures. Our privacy policy provides detailed information on what personal data we collect, how we use it and your rights concerning our processing of your data.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your password. Do not share your password with any other person. If there is any reason to believe your password security may have been breached, change it immediately. Choose strong passwords and avoid obvious passwords. You must notify Future journals immediately if you believe that unauthorized access has been gained to your account. Future journals is not responsible for any damage suffered by you due to insufficient attention to security on your part.

It is important to keep your personal information up to date. Please check it regularly.

Be aware that your public profile may be viewed by anyone visiting your profile on the Future journals website, in any country.

Ownership of Website, Software and Content; Trademarks

Future journals is the owner of the Future journalsin.org website, the software constituting that website and of all copyright and other intellectual property rights in those assets.

The owner of each Hosted Journal is the owner of the combination of content of the Website for any Hosted Journal(s) owned by it. Future journals is the owner of the combination of all content on Future journals Websites, and of the look and feel of its Websites.

Neither Future journals nor, unless otherwise specifically stated for a Journal, the owner of Hosted Journals owns, or claims ownership of, the copyright in articles you submit to any Journal – you (or your employer or funder) continue(s) to own the copyright in your articles. See below and the copyright statement for more information.

“Future journals In” and “Loop” are registered trademarks of Future journals Media SA. The names of Hosted Journals may constitute trade marks belonging to the owners of those Hosted Journals.

Licences (Permissions) You Grant as an Author

When you submit an article (which includes the article abstract but excludes article metadata, as defined below) to any Journal, you grant to Future journals and/or to the Hosted Journal owner and to the world at large a permanent, non-cancellable, free-of-charge, worldwide licence (permission) to publish, display, store, copy, adapt and re-use that article – including any third-party materials – and to create derivative works from it. You can not terminate that licence. You must ensure that you have all necessary permissions from the owner of the copyright in your article, which may be your employer or funder, and from all other third parties who own the copyright in any aspect of your article. Ownership by the third party of the copyright can still be notified on the relevant materials, and attribution must be made in accordance with usual scholarly practices.

The license (permission) you grant over your article (including the abstract any third-party materials included in your article) is, unless otherwise stated for an article or for the relevant Journal, a Creative Commons attribution license (known as a “CC-BY” licence). You can not terminate that license. For some governmental or international governmental organizations, the license may be another, similar, license.

In summary, the CC-BY license means that anyone may copy, re-publish, adapt and/or re-use your content and create derivative works from it, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, without charge, but must clearly attribute the work to you and any co-authors, and they must cite Future journals as the original publishers of that content. Complete information can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

You agree that as the Creative Commons organization updates the CC-BY license, the licence terms granted by you are automatically updated to the new version.

Reproduction of all or part of an article is also subject to compliance with usual academic attribution practices, which must be scrupulously complied with in addition to the CC-BY requirements.

Licence over certain article and journal metadata. Article and journal metadata, as defined in this paragraph, are the property of future journals or of the owner of the relevant Hosted Journal, and are subject to a Creative Commons CC0 license. “Article and journal metadata” means the following elements, to the extent applicable, in relation to the journal or each article, as applicable: Publisher, journal name, journal abbreviation, ISSN, DOI, article ID, subject, article type, article title, article URL, author names, contributor group, author note, author affiliation, Orcid and Loop Profile URLs, corresponding author's email address, publication date, acceptance date, submission date, volume number, volume ID, issue number, issue ID, permissions, copyright statement, copyright year, copyright holder, license information, creative commons URL, conflict of interest statement, keyword group, figure count, table count, equation count, reference count, page count, word count, supplementary material count, funding statement, funder / contract / sponsor / grant and number, citation, product information, conference information. No elements other than those listed in this paragraph are included in article or journal metadata, and nor are they licensed under CC0 terms, unless confirmed by Future journals or Hosted Journal Owner.

You may not reproduce or publish any content in any forum (online or not) which advocates any political, religious, anti-religious, racist, extremist, violent or disrespectful viewpoints. If you post any Website content in such a forum, you must remove it immediately on request by Future journals.

You may also not reproduce any content from any website in order to denigrate Future journals, any clients of Future journals, or any journal.

The same CC-BY license also applies to any other content, such as reviews, opinions, conference abstracts and blog posts, which you may submit to Future journals.

You irrevocably grant us permission to use, and to permit others to use, any non-patented ideas set out in your content or in any message sent or submitted to Future journals, without any charge and without restriction, for any purpose in any part of the world.

It is your responsibility to comply with the conditions of any third-party website on which you may post content originally published on any website. Future journals and the owners of hosted journals are not bound by the conditions of any third-party website.

Conditions for submission of articles for peer-reviewed publication

Submission of the article

If published, your article will in principle remain published permanently, with your personal details and those of your co-authors, as well as those of the reviewers and handling editors, on the journal’s Website, and will be stored and made public in archives, repositories, and potentially other places. By submitting, reviewing, or accepting editorial responsibilities for an article, you consent to a limited amount of your personal data being thus published.

When you submit an article to any Journal, you promise that

The article is not under consideration by any other journal. if it has been submitted for consideration elsewhere, it has been definitively rejected and is no longer being considered for publication.
The article will not be submitted for publication elsewhere unless either published or rejected by Future journals.
If rejected by one Journal, your article may be automatically submitted to another Journal by Future journals.
You have the explicit consent of all co-authors to submit the article and to accept these conditions, including the granting of the CC-BY or other applicable license, on behalf of all co-authors.
You have the authorization of all copyright owners (which may include your employer or funder and any owners of third-party graphics) to submit the article and to grant the CC-BY or other applicable license over the article;
an article submitted to report original research is an original contribution, meaning it contains content that has not been previously published in its current form (except for manuscripts deposited as pre-prints in established community-validated pre-print services).
the article does not contain any non-attributed content from any existing source, including the authors’ own existing material.
all contributors have been adequately acknowledged.
the article and all authors meet the authorship criteria as outlined in the author guidelines
the article complies with all the rules on content set out below:
all findings have been verified in accordance with the highest scientific standards in the relevant field.
all research involving regulated animals (i.e. all live vertebrates and higher invertebrates) has been conducted in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines, all applicable legislation and guidelines and accepted best practices, and the approval body has been identified in the article.
research involving human subjects has been conducted in accordance with the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, you have identified the approval body in the article and the article states clearly that informed written consent was obtained from all participants.
the article clearly declares any financial, commercial or other relationships which may be considered to represent a potential conflict of interest; and
you have disclosed all relevant facts to future journals concerning the author(s), the article, the underlying research, any relevant third-party rights and any actual or potential conflicts of interest.

Acceptance and Rejection

Acceptance is at Future journals’ (or the Hosted Journal owner’s) discretion in accordance with its rules and processes. Once accepted, an article will in principle be published; on rare occasions, an issue causing rejection may arise or be discovered, in which case the article may be rejected prior to publication despite having been previously accepted.

Publication

There is no prior right to publication. Articles submitted will be subjected to ethical and technical checks and then to our rigorous and interactive peer-review process, which will require your cooperation.

If the article is published, you will become liable to pay the applicable article publication charge (APC), or to ensure that it is paid. Current APCs can be seen here for Future journals Journals, and on each relevant Website for Hosted Journals.

Peer-review processes are designed to ensure scientific rigour. They do not include checks for the satisfaction of the other requirements (such as copyright permissions on images and graphics, for example).

Disclosure of inventions

You must ensure that all patent applications have been filed prior to submission of your article. Publication of an article is likely to reduce or cancel the patentability of any unpatented ideas in that article.

Time for publication

If Future journals unjustifiably, for reasons caused entirely by its own negligence, fails to publish an article in a Journal within a reasonable period of its final acceptance and payment by the author, Future journals shall refund the publication fee, to the exclusion of any other liability of Future journals for such failure.

The Published Article

Once published, an article can not be removed except by decision of the Owner of the Journal, in accordance with accepted retraction processes. The article is likely to be archived and referenced in a number of archives and repositories.

Articles published in Future journals Journals will be published with the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s) and the names of the reviewers who endorsed publication during the peer review, as well as that of the handling editor.

Future journals and Hosted Journals reserve the right to remove any content, and to retract peer-reviewed articles, which in its view breach any applicable conditions and/or which they or we consider to be inappropriate in any way. Such removal does not entitle the author to reimbursement of APCs.

Future journals and owners of Hosted Journals are not liable for the acts or statements of others.

Disputes

We have mediation processes for settling disputes related to articles, and we mutually promise to exhaust those possibilities prior to commencing any judicial dispute resolution mechanisms.

Your Rights as a User; Restrictions on Your Rights

As a user, registered or not, you may use all open functionalities of the Websites if you comply with all applicable conditions and rules. Some functionality may be restricted to registered users or to certain types of users (such as editors).

You may benefit from the CC-BY licence (or other licences as may be indicated for specific Journals or articles) over articles and other content, and from a CC0 licence for certain article metadata, all as described elsewhere in these Conditions.

If you are a registered user, you may create links to Future journals Websites from other respectable websites, but not from any website which does not comply with the requirements of these conditions. Future journals, and/or any Journal owner, may remove any links and/or to require their removal, and you must comply with such a request. Future journals and Journal owners are not responsible for the content of third-party websites.

Uploading of videos and similar materials is subject to all related rules, including third-party and intellectual property rules. Be aware of the warranties you give concerning your right to upload any content.

Rules on Content

All content submitted to any Website, whether or not peer-reviewed, must comply with these rules. This is your responsibility when you submit any article or content.

All content must:

be accurate or be genuinely believed to be accurate after duly rigorous investigation
only state opinions which are genuinely held
comply with all generally accepted scientific and academic norms and with all accepted citation rules and norms, and must give appropriate credit for contributions
comply with all accepted ethical rules and norms, including any ethical guidelines of Future journals or of the Journal in question
not infringe any intellectual property rights (including copyright, moral rights and database rights) of any person
be the subject of any necessary consents and authorisations
not breach any conditions of any website or other forum from which that content was copied or derived, or to which you provide a link, or from which you have provided a link to our website
not be defamatory
not be malicious, offensive, discriminatory, threatening, racist, extremist; not promote hatred or violence or denigrate any person, group of people or set of beliefs, or provide any link to any such material
only be for the purpose of furthering scientific and academic discourse in good faith, and in particular not be for the purpose, or have the effect, of promoting any commercial offering, service, product or interest, without the prior explicit agreement of Future journals or the owner of the relevant Journal
not give a false impression that it emanates from Future journals or any Journal or is approved by Future journals or the relevant Journal owner, or otherwise be misleading in any way
not be pornographic or indecent
remain polite and respectful, especially when disagreeing
not ascribe any negative psychological or other labels or descriptions to any named or identifiable person or group of people, without the specific, informed consent of the person or people concerned to such label or description being ascribed to him/her/them
not be for the purpose, or have the primary effect, of promoting any political, societal, religious or anti-religious views
not disclose confidential information, including personal data of others, without the consent of the owner of that information or data
comply with all applicable laws
not advocate, refer to or provide a link to any website or content which would itself infringe any of these principles.

Future journals and/or another relevant Journal Owner may remove any content, or retract peer-reviewed articles, at their respective discretion. You may also request deletion of content, such requests will be considered in their context. A place-holder may be inserted to indicate that a comment has been deleted. Deleted comments may be retained for the record.

Future journals and other Journal Owners are not responsible for content posted by their users, including the content of peer-reviewed articles.

Content you post will by default be visible to others. You may alter your settings to reduce access to your content (but not to peer-reviewed articles) by editing the default settings for each post you make.

Any content posted by you may be commented on, copied, quoted and linked to by others.

If you believe any content on a Future journals Website breaches any of these requirements, please contact us at info@Futurejournals.org. Where the suspected breach occurs on a Hosted Journal Website, please refer to that Journal’s Website for the relevant contact address.

Advertising, Commercial Promotion and Sponsorships

Sponsorship programmes: Future journals has sponsorship programmes for Future journals Research Topics and other areas. Sponsorships must comply with strict ethical rules. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact us at info@thefuture journals.org.

Promotional Messages: Messages and other content promoting a commercial offering are not permitted without the explicit written agreement of the relevant Journal Owner.

Advertising: Future journals does not currently accept advertisements. Some Hosted Journals may accept advertisements; please go to the relevant Journal Website for information.

Availability; Viruses and Attacks; Bugs and Errors

Future journals endeavours, through active maintenance, to ensure that Websites remain available, bug-free and error-free, but the need for planned and emergency maintenance and the nature of software development mean that no absolute guarantee can be given. We will do what we can to give adequate warning of any planned downtime and to minimise unplanned downtime.

We may from time to time withdraw services. Withdrawn services may or may not be replaced with others.

You are strongly advised to keep back-ups of any content which you do not wish to lose.

Future journals adopts industry-standard measures to minimise the risk of attacks, viruses, other harmful code and hackers. Given that our platform exists to permit the contribution of content, and given the constant efforts of those with ill intent, we can not guarantee that any Website, or links posted by users, will be free from third-party viruses and other malicious third-party software or that we will always be successful in preventing attacks from succeeding. We will continue in our efforts both to prevent such occurrences and to minimise their impact on us and on our users.

Prohibited Activities

The following activities are prohibited on all Websites, and can result in your registration being suspended or terminated, which Future journals expressly reserves the right to do, and in your being liable for damages to Future journals, other Journal Owners and/or to other third parties.

Gaining or attempting to gain access to another user’s account without that user’s explicit and informed permission
Disguising your identity when interacting in any way on any Websites
Any activity which is designed to, or is likely to, cause any harm or damage to Future journals, to other Journal Owners, to any of Future journals’ suppliers or to any users of Future journals’ facilities
Any attempt to copy, hack or reverse-engineer the code forming any Website or any functionality offered by any Website
Any act intended or likely to cause any damage to any Website, its availability on the internet, its underlying software or the reputation of Future journals or any other Journal Owner, including (but not limited to) denial of service attacks
Uploading or placing on any Website, or on any website to which you provide links, of any virus or other harmful or undesirable code
Any fraudulent, harmful or illegal activity
Any attempt to gain unauthorised access to databases or other resources of Future journals or its suppliers
Posting or linking to any content which does not comply in all respects with the content requirements set out in these conditions
Posting of any personal information of any other person without that person’s explicit informed consent
The posting of any commercial or promotional content, or any content which includes promotion of any commercial or business offering, without a specific agreement with Future journals in that respect
The mounting or promotion of any pyramid scheme or other multi-level marketing scheme
Reproduction, duplication, copying or re-selling any part of any Future journals website except for good-faith reliance on explicit licences or as otherwise specifically permitted by these Conditions or following the specific and explicit agreement of Future journals.

Text and Data Mining; Bulk Downloading

Text and data mining of public content are permitted for the legitimate purpose of enrichment of external collections of scientific literature. However, we may need to restrict this activity if it hinders the performance of one or more Websites. If you encounter problems, please feel free to contact our technical support: info@thefuturejournals.org.

Text and data mined, and content downloaded in bulk or individually from any Website, remain subject to the relevant licence (CC-BY, CC0 or other relevant licence), and all attribution and other conditions of such licences must be complied with. To the extent that any such text or data constitutes or includes Personal Data, all applicable data protection laws must also be complied with. Further information on text and data mining and bulk content downloads for research purposes and for repositories and databases can be found here.

Breach of these Conditions

Breach of any of these conditions by Future journals, another Journal Owner or you would be a breach of our contract.

Exclusion of Users

We expressly reserve the right to refuse applications to register and/or to suspend or cancel the accounts of users, at our discretion.

Amendment of Conditions

These Conditions, and other conditions and rules of Future journals and/or of any Journal or collection of Journals, will be amended from time to time. Amendments will be communicated in the manner appearing most appropriate to Future journals. This may include email and/or notification at login. For this reason you should log out and log back in frequently from and to your Future journals account to ensure you are aware of changes to Conditions. Amendments take effect upon that communication being made available to you, whether or not you actually log in to receive the information.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

YOUR USE OF FUTURE JOURNALS AND/OR HOSTED JOURNAL WEBSITES OR ANY WEBSITE TO WHICH THEY ARE LINKED IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. ALL WEBSITES AND THEIR CONTENT ARE PROVIDED FOR USE ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. FUTURE JOURNALS AND JOURNAL OWNERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO ANY WEBSITES, THEIR AVAILABILITY OR THEIR CONTENTS AND HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, RELATING TO THE FUTURE JOURNALS WEBSITES, HOSTED JOURNAL WEBSITES OR THEIR RESPECTIVE CONTENT, OR ANY WEBSITE TO WHICH THEY ARE LINKED. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM FUTURE JOURNALS OR THROUGH OR FROM ANY WEBSITE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THESE CONDITIONS FOR WEBSITE USE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, FUTURE JOURNALS STRONGLY RECOMMENDS THAT YOU INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY ANY INFORMATION UPON WHICH YOU CHOOSE TO RELY.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

IN NO EVENT SHALL FUTURE JOURNALS, JOURNAL OWNERS, OR THEIR RESPECTIVE LICENSEES, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, SUPPLIERS OR CONTRACTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY NATURE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY CONSEQUENTIAL LOSS, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF INCOME OR PROFIT, LOSS OF OR DAMAGE TO PROPERTY, LOSS OF GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, CLAIMS OF THIRD PARTIES, OR ANY OTHER LOSS, COST, CLAIM OR EXPENSE OF ANY KIND OR CHARACTER ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF ANY WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT OR ANY WEBSITE TO OR FROM WHICH ANY LINKS MAY BE ESTABLISHED.

Nothing in these Conditions for Website Use shall limit or exclude, or be interpreted as intending to limit or exclude, liability for gross negligence (as defined under Swiss law) or for deliberate wrongdoing, or for any other matter for which, under any applicable law, liability can not be limited or excluded.

Deadline for bringing claims

Any claim against Future journals or any Journal Owner must be brought within one year of your becoming aware of the existence of that claim.

Failure to enforce rights

Forbearance from enforcement of rights in the event of a breach of these Conditions does not prevent future enforcement of that right.

No Implied Third-Party Rights

Owners of Hosted Journals are third-party beneficiaries of your obligations under these Conditions. Except as stated in the preceding sentence, no third party (except your co-authors on submission of an article) obtains any rights from your contract with Future journals, which is personal to you.

Force Majeure

Neither you nor Future journals, nor any owner of a Hosted Journal, are / is liable for failure to fulfil obligations due to circumstances beyond the reasonable control of the affected party, but both you and Future journals undertake to take all reasonable measures to limit the duration and effect of those circumstances and to find other ways of fulfilling your or its obligations.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

Your agreement with Future journals, including these conditions and all other matters referred to above, is governed exclusively by the laws of Switzerland. You and Future journals agree to seek in good faith to resolve any disputes through good-faith discussion, negotiation and mediation before resorting to litigation. Any dispute not so resolved shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Future journals does not accept any other jurisdiction unless otherwise explicitly agreed by it in writing. You will consent to any action by us taken to stop or prevent you from bringing an action in breach of this clause, and to indemnify us for our costs in bringing such an action.

These General Conditions for Use of Future journals websites come into effect on 16th December, 2023.

Privacy Policy

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Who are we?

Future journals is an open science platform and leading open access scholarly publisher. Our mission is to make science open, so that all may live healthy lives on a healthy planet. More than ever, science and technology are needed to engineer solutions to move us towards a sustainable society. To do this we seek to engage with the world’s research community to serve each researcher as best we can. Being able to understand your research interests, speciality and publications helps us in this task.

This Privacy Policy describes how we ensure that you, our users and researchers around the world, understand what Personal Data we collect, how we use it and under what conditions we entrust it to third parties, and it explains the choices you have.

1.2 Matters covered by this Policy

This Privacy Policy is provided by Future journals Media SA (“Future journals”, “we”, “us”). We publish our own journals (referred to here as Future journals Journals) and journals owned by third parties (referred to here as Hosted Journals). When we refer to Journals, we include both Future journals Journals and Hosted Journals. We are responsible for the processing of personal data (data controller) for the purposes of data protection legislation, except to the extent we are processing personal data on behalf of Hosted Journals, in which capacity we are a data processor.

In these Privacy Policy, Websites (with a capitalised W) refers to all websites owned or managed by Future journals, including those of Hosted Journals.

This Privacy Policy applies to Personal Data collected by Future journals, for itself and for Hosted Journals, of registered users, of visitors to the Websites and of other individuals with whom we interact.

2.0 Definitions

These terms are used in this Privacy Policy:

Personal Data: means any information relating to a natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, through that information.

Processing: means any operation which is performed on personal data, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, dislosure, adaptation, alteration, deletion or any kind of disclosure or other use.

3.0 Information we collect and how we collect it

3.1 Information you give us or authorise us to receive from third parties

Registration with Future journals or a Hosted Journal is effected through Loop, Future journals’ open research network.

To use certain features of the Future journals platform (including for Hosted Journals), users must register with Future journals.

When you create a Future journals account, you provide us with Personal Data, including full name, email address, affiliation, your email choices and a password. You also have the option to include certain additional information about yourself in your Future journals account, such as a brief bio, your publications, secondary email address, profile picture.

You may also choose to connect, via your Future journals account, with other registered users. Future journals stores this information as part of its networking service. Your connections are visible to Future journals and, unless you have opted not to make this public, to other Future journals registered users. This service enables you to be kept up to date with new publications in your areas of interest and to connect with colleagues.

You may register with Future journals via your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter profile. We will store the name, profile picture and email address from that external profile. We do not ask for or collect any additional information from those platforms, and we do not transfer any information to them as part of the registration process. The external party will know that you are registering with Future journals. Its use of that information is governed by its own privacy policy.

You can, if you wish, link your ORCiD profile with your Future journals account. If you choose to do this we will add your ORCiD and your ORCiD-listed publications to your Future journals account.

If you, as a Future journals registered user, undertake an activity with a Journal, such as submitting a manuscript, co-authoring or reviewing an article, or becoming an editor, your contributions will be linked to your Future journals account. This maximises the impact of your professional achievements and credits you for your contributions.

We do not collect or store any payment information such as credit card numbers. We keep a record of the invoices, which do not include any sensitive payment information. We use an industry–approved secure third-party payment system to facilitate payments on our website.

3.2 We collect information when you visit the Websites

This information includes:

Geo-location data.We record (via IP addresses and time stamp) from where in the world you are accessing the Websites. This does not identify any individual (unless you are a registered user and logged in) and allows us to consolidate this data to understand where readership is located, and to provide impact metrics services, such as for your article or research topic.
Log data.Your device may send information to any website you visit. We record this information when you visit the Websites. It includes your IP address, the browser used and its settings, the date and time of your visit, and data on how you used the websites you visited.
Device information.We collect information about the type of device you are using, its operating system, browser type and version to ensure that the Websites operate properly with your device. The information is sent by your device, and the type of information will vary depending on the device’s manufacturer.
Registered users’ browsing history data on the Websites.We collect this data only from individuals registered with us to help us understand the interests of our users and personalize their experience.
Information concerning your interactions with us.We remember your interactions with us. This may include emails we receive from you, acceptance of terms and conditions, submission of content, acceptance of reviewer or editor roles, participation in the review process, acceptances and rejections of articles, Future journals surveys you may complete and any other interaction between you and Future journals.

3.3 Information from Cookies and other Tracking Technologies

We and our analytics service providers use cookies or similar technologies to:

Manage your login preferences,
Administer the Websites,
Analyze and improve your experience on the Websites,
Target our messages so that you only receive information relevant to you.

Cookies do not identify you, but we may link your IP address to a cookie on your browser.

As of 21 January 2021, through the cookie banner on the Websites you will be able to either enable or disable the targeting, functional and performance cookies.

For more information on what cookies we use, please click here.

3.4 Information collected from publications, conference activities and other public sources.

We collect publicly available information about researchers from subscription services, publications, articles, and conferences. We receive suggestions for potential contributors from our editors who are thought leaders in their areas of academic expertise.

We only collect information relevant to professional research activities, such as name, institutional affiliation, contact details, publications, academic activities and specialisation(s), editorships and awards.

This enables us to provide researchers with high-quality publishing services, such as identifying the most suited expert reviewers for articles or building world-class editorial boards.

3.5 Information collected from the Hosted Journals’ own managers.

If you manage a Hosted Journal for its owner, we may collect your full name, email addresses and role for the purpose of managing our publishing relationship.

4.0 What do we do with the information we collect?

We use the information we collect for the purposes described below.

Provide services for you and to the research community, including creating and managing your account (for registered users), providing our publishing, and networking services and providing relevant research-related news and information to you within your areas of expertise and interest.
Invite you to participate in Future journals activities and/or those of Hosted Journals, particularly to review relevant articles within your area of specialisation, to contribute to cutting-edge research topics or special issues, and possibly to join an editorial board or to meet at a conference. The information we collect about your professional activities enables us to ensure that only relevant invitations are sent to you.
Identify and disambiguate. To ensure that, where the same name is shared by more than one person, we are dealing with the right person in the publishing operations of our business.
Understand the user experience of the Websites and our editorial processes, in order to train our people, improve our services, website and processes, and to imagine new services, so that your experience with Future journals can be the best possible.
Comply with your privacy and email preferences.
Issue invoicesfor your APC payments.
Understand the geographical locations and institutional affiliations of our users.
Inform youof Future journals and Hosted Journal activities, events and opportunities.
Answer your queries and provide you with support and service.
Conduct surveysaimed at providing you with a better service.We do not sell Personal Data to others. We share Personal Data with our contractors only to the extent necessary to permit them to perform their role in facilitating the delivery of Future journals’ services and subject to suitable protective agreements.

We combine the information obtained from different sources so that we can propose opportunities which are relevant to each user’s research activities, interests and qualifications. While some of this process is automated, decisions are not.

4.1 Grounds for processing personal data.

We may collect and process your Personal Data based on:

1. A contractual relationship with you.
2. Your consent to do so for a specific purpose, such as adding additional information to your Future journals account or accepting to receive our newsletters.
3. Our legitimate business interest, for example in maintaining the publishing record, subcontracting aspects of our operations to third parties, marketing and promoting our services, and potentially in defending ourself in legal disputes.

5.0 How we share information

5.1 Sharing with the Public

When you register, some basic information, such as your name and institutional affiliation, is made public on your Future journals profile. You can choose whether to add other information. Anyone, including non-registered users, can see the information you make public.

You can choose to set your Future journals profile to Private if you do not wish your data to be visible to the public. When set to private, only your name, affiliation and country will be visible; all other data will be hidden.

When we publish an article of which you are an author, editor or reviewer, your name is published with the article. This is part of the Future journals mission to improve peer-review through transparency and accountability, and to credit and acknowledge your contribution. Anyone can see your name in connection with that article. Your name and association with that article cannot be removed or deleted unless required by accepted scholarly publishing practice.

5.2 Sharing with our contractors

We may share your information with our contractors , with appropriate data protection safeguards, to assist us in performing some of our processes (for example, a contractor may host Future journals’ servers, help our teams support you and answer your requests, assist us in delivering our typesetting and copy-editing services or facilitate relationship management). Contractors have access on a “need to know basis” and only to specific, relevant sets of data necessary to help us deliver our services to you. We require contractors to agree to maintain the confidentiality and security of your information and not to use it for other purposes.

5.3 Sharing with other publishing-industry bodies

5.3.1 Sharing with public research repository bodies

We work with numerous public research repositories, scholarly databases and other organisations to archive research articles and/or their metadata, as well as databases to enable plagiarism checks. These relationships provide additional discoverability and a further guarantee of a permanent record of those articles, or enable plagiarism checks to be handled efficiently. With some repositories only the metadata is provided, which includes information identifying the authors and reviewers of an article. You can find further information on third parties we work with here.

5.3.2 Sharing with owners of Hosted Journals

Personal Data of registered users of each Hosted Journal is available to both the Hosted Journal’s Owner and to Future journals.

We enable our Hosted Journals to identify suitable expert reviewers for articles and help them build editorial boards.

5.3.3 Sharing with research institutions and consortia

Future journals cooperates with research institutions and national consortia to make publishing and payment processes easier for them and their researchers. We share information concerning article titles, authors and fees. The data provided is shared securely and only with the authorized personnel of the institution.

5.4 Data disclosures to governmental authorities

If we are required by law, or we are served with a warrant, court order, or subpoena, we may be asked to provide your information to regulators, enforcement agents, courts and/or other government entities. When this happens we will assess the validity of the request and comply where required to do so.

5.5 Other

5.5.1 Disputes and Court Proceedings

In the unlikely event were are involved in disputes or court proceedings, we may provide your information if we need to do so in connection with legal proceedings. We will only do so in a lawful manner. We may also use and share your information to enforce our Terms and Conditions (including investigation of potential violations). To the extent possible in the relevant situation, we will promptly provide information about any such disclosures to you.

5.5.2 Corporate Reorganisation

If Future journals is involved in a merger, acquisition, joint venture, dissolution, merger or other corporate restructuring, we will give you notice (by posting on the Future journals Website and those of Hosted Journals), and the option to opt-out of the transfer, before your data is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

6.0 International transfers of data

Future journals operates globally, and your information may be transferred to other Future journals entities and to third parties outside your home country. The privacy protections and the rights of authorities to access your information in these countries may not be the same as in your home country.

When we transfer information outside the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland we take additional measures. These include relying on the European Commission and Swiss government’s adequacy decisions issued for certain countries, as applicable, for data transfers to countries outside the EEA. Additionally, in the absence of an adequacy decision we include the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission and the Swiss data protection authority in our contracts with non-EEA third parties that receive information from us.

By using the Websites, or creating an account and/or subscribing to mailing lists, or permitting the deposit and/or publication of Personal Data on or through your Future journals account, you agree that (i) your Personal Data may be transferred to our facilities and those of the third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy and (ii) any claims of any kind that you have regarding this Privacy Policy and our use and sharing of data shall be resolved in accordance with the procedures set forth in section 10.1.

7.0 Choices you have about your information

Except for certain limited basic information as described above, you control the settings for visibility and sharing of the information on your Future journals account. To that end, we provide you with multiple choices about your privacy and the ability to control how your Personal Data is used. Your Future journals Account has built-in Privacy Settings that will enable you to control the visibility and use of your data.

7.1 Your account Privacy Settings

If you are a registered user, you decide how much information is displayed on your Future journals profile and whether to keep the profile private or public. Additionally, you can decide how journals you registered with will be using your information.

You should review your Personal Data and your privacy settings regularly. To do that, go to the privacy settings in your Future journals account.

7.2 Your Rights

In addition to the privacy settings in your Future journals account, you also have the right to:

Be informed of the Personal Data we collect, process and store. This Privacy Policy, which is accessible via the Future journals webiste, provides you with all of this information in an accessible way.
Request access to your Personal Data stored by us or a third party, where this is technically feasible. Our intention is to respond to any request for information within a month of the request.
Require that your information be corrected. If you are registered, you can directly update your registration information by logging in to your Future journals account.
Object to us processing your Personal Data. You can ask us to stop using your Personal Data, including when we use your Personal Data to send you emails or promotional notifications concerning our services. If you opt out of receiving promotional messages, we will continue to send service emails if you are registered with us.
Request that your Personal Data be deleted. In certain circumstances, we may consider we have an overriding need to retain all or some information to continue to provide our services as a responsible publisher.
Withdraw the consent for the processing of your Personal Data which is based on your consent.

If you are a registered user, you should regularly check your registration information to ensure it is up to date and, to the extent you wish, complete.

8.0 How we protect your information

Future journals takes a variety of technical, physical, organizational and administrative measures to provide an appropriate level of protection for your information against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized access, loss, destruction, alteration, disclosure or use.

We define access rights to information and we use technology to limit access to those who are authorized. We ensure that our servers have adequate security. We control physical access to our premises. We have in place, and we apply, an IT and data security policy. We work to ensure that our contractors have in place appropriate security measures and process data in accordance with applicable laws.

8.1 Your responsibility for securing your Future journals account and Personal Data

Your access to some of our services and content may be password protected. You share the responsibility of maintaining the security of your information. You will be responsible for any action, activities, and access to the Websites and platform that were taken through your username and password, and which occur before you notify us of their loss or having been compromised. Please follow best practices to help keep your information secure, such as:

Keep your username(s) and password(s) strictly confidential and do not disclose them to anyone
Use unique passwords for each website that you use, including Future journals
Sign out of your Future journals account at the end of each session and close your browser window when you have finished your work, especially if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place.

8.2 How long we keep your information

We keep your Personal Data to enable your continued use of our platform and publishing services, and for as long as it is required in order to fulfill the relevant purposes described in this Privacy Policy, to comply with our obligations as a scholarly publisher or as may be required by law.

9.0 Age limits and children

Future journals is for professional researchers and those interested in science, and is for people aged 18 and over. People under the age of 18 should not register with Future journals.

Where individuals aged less than 18 are involved in Future journals for Young Minds, Future journals only communicates with them via parents, guardians, teachers or science mentors.

Upon the explicit consent of the child’s parents or guardians Future journals collects only the first name, the age and the avatar picture of the young reviewer. This data is solely used to acknowledge the young reviewer’s contributions to the review of the article when it is published on the Future journals for Young Minds website.

Future journals Copyright Statement

Future journals publish its own journals (referred to here as The Future journals) and journals owned by third parties (referred to here as Hosted Journals). When we refer to Journals, we include both Future journals and Hosted Journals.

In this Copyright Statement, Websites (with a capitalized W) refers to all Future journals websites, including those of Hosted Journals. An Owner means Future journals as owner of all Future journals, or the respective owner of a Hosted Journal.

All content included on these Websites (including Loop), such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, video/audio clips, downloads, data compilations and software, is the property of the person or entity who or which owned it prior to submission to Future journals or to a Hosted Journal. If not owned by Future journals or an Owner of a Hosted Journal, it is licensed to Future journals Media SA (“Future journals”), such Owner or its or their licensees and/or subcontractors.

The ownership of copyright in the text of individual articles (including research articles, opinion articles, book reviews, conference proceedings and abstracts) is not affected by its submission to or publication by Future journals, whether for itself or for a Hosted Journal. Future journals benefits from a general license over all content submitted. Hosted Journal Owners benefit from a general license over all content submitted to their respective Hosted Journals. Future journals, Hosted Journal Owners and all their users benefit from a Creative Commons CC-BY licence over all content, as specified below.

Images and graphics not forming part of user-contributed materials are the property of or are licensed to Future journals and may not be downloaded or copied without Future journals’ explicit and specific permission or in accordance with any specific copyright notice attached to that material.

The combination of all content on Future journals websites, and the look and feel of the Future journals websites, is the property of Future journals Media SA.

As an author or contributor you grant permission to others to reproduce your articles, including any graphics and third-party materials supplied by you, in accordance with the Future journals Terms and Conditions. The license granted to third parties over all contents of each article, including third-party elements, is a Creative Commons Attribution ("CC BY") licence. The current version is CC-BY, version 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), and the license will automatically be updated as and when updated by the Creative Commons organization.

E-books are subject to the same licensing conditions as the articles within them.

Articles published prior to 25th May 2018: Please note that reproduction of third-party graphics and other third-party materials contained in articles published prior to 25th May 2018 may be subject to third-party notices prohibiting their reproduction without permission. You must comply with those notices.

Articles published prior to July 2012: The licence granted for these articles may be different and you should check the pdf version of any article to establish what licence was granted. If an article carries only a non-commercial licence and you wish to obtain a commercial licence, please contact Future journals at info@thefuturejournals.org.

Article metadata, as defined in Future journals’ terms and conditions, are the property of Future journals or the Owner of the respective Hosted Journal, and are licensed under Creative Commons CC0 terms.

All software used on this site, and the copyright in the code constituting such software, and all intellectual property in all such elements, is the property of or is licensed to Future journals and its use is restricted in accordance with the Future journals Terms and Conditions. All copyright, and all rights therein, are protected by national and international copyright laws.

Please also see the Future journals Terms and Conditions.

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