Open Access
Environment & Science is an open-access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.
Copyright and Licensing
For papers published in Environment & Science, authors retain the copyright. All papers are licensed under CC BY 4.0 license which requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for non-commercial purposes only. This allows the authors to maintain complete control over their intellectual property while ensuring the widest possible dissemination and impact of their research.
In exceptional circumstances (funder requirements, authors’ employer requirements) a different license may be applied. This will be approved at the discretion of the publisher and indicated in the text of the paper.
Publication Ethics
Authorship and Contributorship
Environment & Science supports and adopts the standards on authorship set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). To qualify for an authorship, an individual must meet all the requirements outlined below:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.
For research articles with more than one author, a paragraph describing the contributions of each author should be provided. The journal adheres to the contributor roles as defined by CRediT. Role definitions and additional details are described here.
Complaints and Appeals
Environment & Science will handle complaints and appeals following the guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This applies both to pre- and post-publication issues. All concerns should be addressed directly to Editorial Office at office@environmentandscience.com
Conflicts of Interest
Authors are requested to disclose interests directly or indirectly related to the submitted manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to funding, employment, financial and non-financial interests. The Editorial Office reserves the right to request the authors to sign the disclosure form, as recommended by the ICMJE.
Reviewers are obliged to report potential conflicts of interest that could compromise, conflict or influence the validity of the peer review process, including but not limited to previous collaboration, personal relationship with any of the authors listed in the manuscript, and others. Reviewers are forbidden to contact the authors directly and disclose their identities.
The authors and reviewers who fail to disclose conflicts of interest will be blacklisted from the journal.
Data sharing and reproducibility
Environment & Science follows the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines (TOP). Authors are encouraged to share or make available any data and materials supporting the results of their research. Data should not be shared if it violates legal, ethical, privacy, or security concerns.
Authors are advised to deposit data as supplementary material to their paper, or in a public repository with a digital object identifier (DOI). If data cannot be made publicly available, the authors should state the reason in the Data Availability Statement. Otherwise, the Data Availability Statement should contain information about where data associated with a paper can be found and how it can be accessed.
Ethical oversight
Environment & Science focuses on COPE’s definition of ethical oversight, “Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”.
The authors are required to verify that appropriate ethical procedures have been followed. All research involving human participants or animals must have prior approval from a relevant ethical review board or institutional review board. Authors must include proof of ethical approval in their manuscript, specifying the name of the review board and the approval number. For studies involving human participants, a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants and how it was obtained is required. Authors are also responsible for ensuring that their research adheres to all applicable ethical standards, including international guidelines such as the Declaration of Helsinki for studies on humans and the ARRIVE guidelines for animal research.
Intellectual property
When submitting a manuscript to Environment & Science, the authors agree to publish their work under the journal’s policies on copyright and licensing. The authors are responsible for ensuring that the manuscript does not contain any confidential or copyrighted information without permission to use it. For the usage of published copyrighted material, the authors are required to obtain usage permission and state the license and permission in the text of the manuscript.
Disputes over copyright in published or unpublished papers (during peer review) should be addressed directly to the Editorial Office at office@environmentandscience.com.
Post-publication discussions and corrections
Science & Environment recognizes the importance of post-publication discussions. Readers are encouraged to share their opinions through letters to the Editorial Office, or on an external moderated site, such as PubPeer. Post-publication discussions may be published online after peer review and are accompanied by a response from the original authors, should they choose to provide one. Raised concerns will be investigated according to the COPE guidelines on post-publication discussions and corrections. Depending on the severity of the issue, the investigations may result in an Editor’s Note, Expression of Concern, Correction or Retraction. The aim is not to target an individual author or a group of authors, but instead to ensure transparency.