Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay processing your submission.

All word limits include referencing and citation.

Artificial Intelligence

Authors should refer to the publisher's guidelines on acceptable use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. All submissions must comply with these guidelines.

Structure

Title page

To ensure anonymous peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file.

The names of all authors, affiliations, contact details, biography (optional), and the corresponding author details must be completed online as part of the submission process. All authors must fit within the journal's definition of an author, detailed in our authorship guidelines.

Author names should include a forename and a surname. Forenames should not consist only of initials.

• J. Bloggs is not preferred. The full name, Joe Bloggs is required (this will enhance the 'findability' of your publication).

The affiliation should ideally include ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’. However, only the Institution and Country are mandatory.

Abstract

Research articles and review articles must include an abstract of no more than 250 words. Other article types ,ay include an abstract where appropriate. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

Main text

The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research presented.

Up to three level headings may be used and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.

Data Accessibility

If data, structured methods or code used in the research project have been made openly available, a statement should be added to inform the reader how/where to access these files. This should include the repository location and the DOI linking to it. Read our reproducibility guide for more information on best practice and maximising the impact of your open data.

If it is not possible to use a repository then the journal can host supplementary files. Such files must be listed in the Data Accessibility section, with a corresponding number, title and optional description. Ideally, the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.

e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.

Supplementary files will not be typeset so they must be provided in their final form and must be submitted for review during the original submission process. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication by the publisher.

NOTE: If data used in the research project has not been made available, a statement confirming this should be added, along with reasoning why.

The journal's data policy is available on the Editorial Policies page.

Ethics and consent (if applicable)

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian) and added to this statement. If a study involving human subjects/tissue/data was exempt from requiring ethical approval, a confirmation statement from the relevant body should be included within the submission.

Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, see the ICMJE Recommendations for Protection of Research Participants.

Acknowledgements (optional)

Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list.

Funding Information (if applicable)

Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.

Competing interests

If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. See our guidelines for competing interests. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.

References

All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file. References must be formatted using the Vancouver style and cited numerically in the text in order of appearance.

Permissions

The author is responsible for obtaining all permissions required prior to submission of the manuscript. Permission and owner details should be mentioned for all third-party content included in the submission or used in the research.

If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, it is the author's responsibility to check the license and obtain the necessary permissions. Statements confirming that permission was granted should be included in the Materials and Methods section.

Language & Text

Capitalisation

For the submission title:

Capitalise all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although). Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.

• Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan

Headings within the main text:

First level headings in the text should follow the same rule as the main title.

For lower-level subheadings, only capitalise first letter and proper nouns.

Headings should be under 75 characters.

Spelling

Submissions must be made in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

• Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

• World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar

American or English grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above). For instance, you may use a serial comma or not.

• red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue

Font

The font used should be commonly available and in an easily readable size. This may be changed during the typesetting process.

Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.

Bold or italicised text to emphasise a point are permitted, although should be restricted to minimal occurrences to maximise their impact.

Lists

Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.

Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

Quotation marks

Use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.

Authors using American spelling may use double quotation marks, provided usage is consistent throughout the manuscript.

Quotations that are longer than four lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting a signiciant amount of material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

Acronyms & Abbreviations

With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. In order to enhance understanding and accessibility for all readers, any abbreviations should be defined when they are first mentioned. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.

• Research completed by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows …

A number of abbreviations are so common that they do not require the full text on the first instance. Examples of these can be found in standard style guides, e.g. in the ICMJE Recommendations.

Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.

• USA, not U.S.A

Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.

• e.g., i.e., etc.

Use of footnotes/endnotes

Use endnotes rather than footnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication). These will appear at the end of the main text, before ‘References’.

All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

Avoid using notes for purposes of referencing, with in-text citations used instead. If in-text citations cannot be used, a source can be cited as part of a note.

Please insert the endnote marker after the end punctuation.

Hyperlinks

Our accessibility policy determines that links, when used within the article, should ideally be descriptive and understandable from the link text alone or from its context. This is crucial for screen readers, so please avoid “click here” or “read more” links, but instead e.g. “View PMC page”. 

Links, like images, also require alt text to improve clarity, especially when the link text alone isn’t descriptive enough. Please provide us with one for each link to assist with improving overall accessibility. It should be short and clear - e.g. “View the article [article title]” if you’re linking to another article.

It isn’t necessary to provide alt text for links in the reference list (e.g. DOIs) as this will be added by the production team.

Data & Symbols

Symbols

Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.

Hyphenation, em and en dashes

There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.

Em dashes (—) and en dashes (–) should be avoided in running text. Where a dash is needed for parenthetical emphasis or interruption, authors may use a standard hyphen (-) with spaces on either side, or restructure the sentence using commas, parentheses, or semicolons.

• The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…

En dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.

• 10-25 years
• pp. 10-65

Numbers

For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words, except where numbers are used with units of measurement, symbols, percentages, or in scientific or technical contexts, where figures should be used. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.

Large whole numbers may be expressed either in words or figures, provided usage is consistent throughout the manuscript.

If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.

• Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.

If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.

• This study confirmed that 5% of…

If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.

• Fifteen examples were found to exist…
• The result showed that 15 examples existed…

Do not use a comma for a decimal place.

• 2.43 NOT 2,43

Numbers that are less than zero must have ‘0’ precede the decimal point.

• 0.24 NOT .24

Units of measurement

Symbols following a figure to denote a unit of measurement must be taken from the latest SI brochure. See http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf for the full brochure.

Formula

Formulae must be proofed carefully by the author. Editors will not edit formulae. If special software has been used to create formulae, the way it is laid out is the way they will appear in the publication.

Figures & Tables

Figures

Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

Please avoid using scans/images of text if possible, since these are not machine-readable and are thereby inherently inaccessible. We permit this only in cases where a scan/image of a text is required for the content of the article. Please reach out to the production editors after the article has been accepted to discuss these requirements.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

• Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
• Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Each figure must have accompanying alt text, which is different from the title or caption. This will function as a textual substitute for the image, in cases where this is needed, and should be a short description of the image. We recommend the alt text is concise and typically no longer than 15 words. For guidance on how to write appropriate alt text, see the WebAIM guide: https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

Figure titles, legends and alt text should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

• Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file does need to include text (see above) then please present the font as FS ME or a sans serif alternative (e.g. Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana). This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).

Tables

Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

In order to enhance understanding and accessibility for all readers (including screen readers), tables should be kept as simple as possible without compromising the value of presenting the table.

All tables must be cited within the main text, and numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed above the table.

Tables should not include:

• Rotated text
• Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
• Images
• Vertical or diagonal lines
• Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

References

Numeric in-text citations

Every use of information from other sources must be cited in the text so that it is clear that external material has been used. Each time a reference is being cited it should be represented by sequential numbers in square brackets, which should be within punctuation. Each citation should be a unique number unless it has been previously cited. In such cases, the original citation number should be presented. The reference list at the end of the publication will reflect this numbered list, with full reference data for each entry.

• This is citing an existing source [1].

If citing multiple sources at the same point, separate the citations with a comma.

• This is citing multiple existing sources [2,3,4].

Reference list

All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.

All reading materials should be included in ‘References’ – works which have not been cited within the main text, but which the author wishes to share with the reader, must be cited as additional information in endnotes explaining the relevance of the work. This will ensure that all works within the reference list are cited within the text.

NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.

NOTE: DOIs should be included for all reference entries, where possible.

Reference format

This journal uses the Vancouver system – see below for examples of how to format:

• Books:

Author AA, Author BB. Title. Place of publication: Publisher; Year. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Leaver BL, Ehrman M, Shekhtman, B. Achieving success in second language acquisition. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press; 2005.

• Chapters within books:

Author AA. Chapter title. In: Editor A, Editor B (eds.) Title of book. Series title and number and edition (if appropriate). Place of publication: Publisher; Year. Page numbers. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Jacobs GM, Hall S. Implementing cooperative learning. In Richards JC & Renandya WA (Eds.) Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press. 2002. pp. 52-58.

• Journal articles:

Author AA, Author BB. Article title. Journal title. Year; Volume(issue): Pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Radford M. Aesthetic and religious awareness among pupils: Similarities and differences. British Journal of Music Education. 2001; 18(2): 151-159. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0265051701000249

• Newspaper articles (online):

Author A. Article title. Newspaper. Day Month Year of publication. URL (assessed day month year).

McMahon S. Fund new Victorian era. Herald Sun. (19 July 2010). https://www.heraldsun.com.au/ (assessed 02 March 2012).

• Newspaper articles (print):

Author A. Article title. Newspaper. Day month year of publication: page number.

Parker K. Plea for languages. Koori Mail, 3 December 2008: 19-20.

• Conference papers:

Author A. Title of paper. In: Editor AA, Editor BB. (eds.) Conference proceedings title, Place of publication: Publisher; Year. Page numbers.

Wittke M. Design, construction, supervision and long-term behaviour of tunnels in swelling rock. In: Van Cotthem A, Charlier R, Thimus JF, Tshibangu JP. (eds.) Eurock2006: multiphysics coupling and long term behaviour in rock mechanics: proceedings of the International Symposium of the International Society for Rock Mechanics, EUROCK2006, 9-12 May 2006, Liège, Belgium. London: Taylor & Francis; 2006. 125-156.

• Organisational publications/Grey literature:

Organisation. Title. Series/publication number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year. Retrieved from (if online).

Department of Health. Choosing Health: making healthier choices easier, CM6374. London: Stationery Office; 2001.

• Theses and dissertations:

Author AA. Thesis title. Type of thesis. Academic institution; Year. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Murray BP. Prior knowledge, two teaching approaches for metacognition: Main idea and summarization strategies in reading. PhD thesis. Fordham University, New York. 2008.

• Webpages / PDFs:

Author AA. Title of work. URL (accessed date month year).

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australia's health 2004. https://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10014 (accessed 20 May 2013).

This journal uses the Chicago ‘author-year’ reference system – see below for examples of how to format (for more information, visit The Chicago Manual of Style Online):

• Books:

Last name, First name. Year. Title. Place of publication: Publisher. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin. Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. 2007. The War: An Intimate History, 1941–1945. New York: Knopf.

• Chapters within books:

Last name, First name. Year. “Chapter title.” In Book title, edited by Editor name, Page numbers, Place of publication: Publisher. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Kelly, John D. 2010. “Seeing Red: Mao Fetishism, Pax Americana, and the Moral Economy of War.” In Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, edited by John D. Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui, Sean T. Mitchell, and Jeremy Walton, 67–83. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Journal articles:

Last name, First name. Year. “Article title.” Journal title Volume(issue): Page numbers. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. 2009. “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social Network.” American Journal of Sociology 115:405–50. Accessed February 28, 2010. doi:10.1086/599247.

• Newspaper articles (online):

Last name, First name. Year. “Article title.” Newspaper title, Month Date. Accessed Month Date Year. URL.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, and Robert Pear. 2010. “Wary Centrists Posing Challenge in Health Care Vote.” New York Times, February 27. Accessed February 28, 2010. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28health.html.

• Newspaper articles (print):

Last name, First name. Year. “Article title.” Newspaper title, Month Date.

Mendelsohn, Daniel. 2010. “But Enough about Me.” New Yorker, January 25.

• Conference papers:

Last name, First name. Year. “Title.” Paper presented at Conference name, Conference location, Month Date.

Adelman, Rachel. 2009. “ ‘Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’: God’s Footstool in the Aramaic Targumim and Midrashic Tradition.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 21–24.

• Organisational publications/Grey literature:

Organisation. Year. “Title.” Series/publication number. Retrieved from (if online).

World Bank. 2008. “Textbooks and school library provision in secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa.” World Bank Working Paper No. 126. Africa Human Development Series. Retrieved from EBL database.

• Theses and dissertations:

Last name, First name. Year. “Title.” PhD diss., University name. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Choi, Mihwa. 2008. “Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern Song Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.

• Websites:

Author/Organisation. Year. “Title.” Accessed Month Date. URL

McDonald’s Corporation. 2008. “McDonald’s Happy Meal Toy Safety Facts.” Accessed July 19. https://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about/factsheets.html.

This journal uses the Chicago ‘notes reference system – see below for examples of how to format (for more information, visit The Chicago Manual of Style Online). The below are for the Bibliography:

• Books:

[Last Name], [First Name]. [book title]. [PubLocation]:[Publisher], [year]. doi:[DOI].

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006.

• Chapters within books:

[Last Name], [First Name]. “[chapter title].” In [book title], edited by [Editor First Name] [Editor Last Name], [page range]. [Publisher Location]:[Publisher], [year]. doi:[DOI]. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Gould, Glenn. “Streisand as Schwarzkopf.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 308-311. New York: Vintage, 1984.

• Journal articles:

[Last Name], [First Name]. “[article title].” [journal title] [vol], no. [iss] ([year]): [page range]. doi:[DOI].

Novak, William J. “The Myth of the Weak American State.” American Historical Review 113 no. 3 (2008): 14. doi:10.1086/ahr.133.3.14.

• Newspaper articles (online):

[Last Name], First Name], Year. “Title”. Newspaper title, Month, Date.

Mendelsohn, Daniel. 2010. “But Enough about Me.” New Yorker, January 25.

• Newspaper articles (print):

[Last Name], First Name], Year. “Title”. Newspaper title, Month, Date. Accessed Month Date, Year. URL

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, and Robert Pear. 2010. “Wary Centrists Posing Challenge in Health Care Vote.” New York Times, February 27. Accessed February 28, 2010. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28health.html.

• Conference papers:

[Last Name], [First Name]. Year. “Title”. Paper presented at [conference title], Location, Month, Date.

Adelman, Rachel. 2009. “ ‘Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’: God’s Footstool in the Aramaic Targumim and Midrashic Tradition.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 21–24.

• Theses and dissertations:

[Last Name], [First Name]. Year. “Title”. PhD diss., University Name. doi:[DOI].

Choi, Mihwa.2008. “Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern Song Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.

• Websites:

[Author/Organisation]. Year. “Title”. Accessed Month Date. URL

McDonald’s Corporation. 2008. “McDonald’s Happy Meal Toy Safety Facts.” Accessed July 19. https://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about/factsheets.html.

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

• The author(s) agree to the payment terms detailed on the journal website, which will be applied if this submission is accepted for publication by the journal. Any waiver request must be made at the time of submission via the Comments to the Editor (below). Unless a waiver is granted, in writing, by the journal then the author(s) accepts that an Article Processing Charge (APC) will be invoiced post-acceptance.
• The submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
• All third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal. Authors acknowledge their responsibility to gain all permissions prior to submission.
• All authors qualify as authors, as defined in the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. Every effort has been made to ensure that the submission is ready for peer review according to the journal's review policy. The author acknowledges that they are responsible for appropriately blinding their files in accordance with the journal’s peer review policy.
• Research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and in adherence to the legal requirements of the study country, with the name of the committee and reference number of approval included within the submitted file. Otherwise, a statement that ethics approval was not required has been added to the file.
• All funding statements and acknowledgements have been added to the manuscript.
• All patients included within case reports or other article types in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified have signed informed consent forms, or had had their legal guardian do so, giving permission to publish the submitted content under a CC-BY licence.

• The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID, as per the journal policy.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms. If a submission is rejected or withdrawn prior to publication, all rights return to the author(s):

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Should any author(s) require that the published article deviate from the above (e.g. copyright needs to reside with your employer or an alternative license is required - e.g. authors who are Crown employees), you must add this request to your cover letter to the editor. The submitting author is responsible for requesting (and following up) this deviation from the standard licensing agreement. All deviations from the above must be agreed in writing as early as possible in the submission process and must be in place before the article is sent for typesetting.

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. For further information, see the full privacy policy.

Articles accepted for publication will be asked to pay an Article Publication Charge (APC) to cover publication costs. This can normally be sourced from your funder or institution. This fee covers all publication costs (editorial processes; web hosting; indexing; marketing; archiving; DOI registration etc.) and ensures that all of the content is fully open access. This approach maximises the potential readership of publications and allows the journal to be run in a sustainable way.

Many institutions have funds available to support open access publications by their staff, therefore we ask that you contact the relevant body to cover the APC.

If you do not know about your institution’s policy on open access funding, please contact your departmental/faculty administrators and institution library, as funds may be available to you.

If published, you will receive an APC request email along with information on how payment can be arranged.

Tax will be added to all fees charged, when applicable (includes VAT/Sales tax or any other applicable taxes).

WAIVERS

If you do not have funds available to pay the APC (e.g., because your institution/funder will not cover the fee) then we may be able to offer a discount or full waiver. Should you need to discuss waiver options or the APC in general, please ensure that you contact the editor as early as possible. Editorial decisions are made independently from the ability to pay the APC. Waiver requests must be received as part of the submission information (e.g. in the cover letter).