■  Why do Science Park Journals have article-processing charges?

Open access publishing is not without costs. Science Park Journals defrays these costs through article-processing charges because it does not have subscription charges for its research content. The company instead believes that immediate, worldwide, barrier-free, open access to the full text of research articles is in the best interests of the scientific community.

 

■  What do the article-processing charges pay for?

Immediate, worldwide open access to the full article text

Developing and maintaining electronic tools for peer review and publication

Preparation in various formats for online publication

Securing inclusion in CrossRef, enabling electronic citation in other journals that are available.

 

■ Does Science Park Journals offer discounts on article-processing charges?

Science Park Journals offers various discounts on APCs. The discounts are exclusive of each other and cannot be accumulated.

 

■ How much is Scientific Research and Impact (SRI) article-processing charges? Science Park Journals Charges APC of $430

Publication is not contingent upon the author's ability to pay the charges. Neither is acceptance to pay the handling fee a guarantee that the paper will be accepted for publication. If you do not have funds to pay the above fees, you may still request (in advance) that the editorial office waive some of the handling fee under special circumstances. SRI do not want payment of fees to prevent the publication of worthy work.

 ■ How do Science Park Journals charges compare with other publishers?

Science Park Journals article-processing charges are extremely competitive. In general, Science Park Journals charges are amongst the lowest of any publisher offering open access publication

 

■  Why a flat charge rather than one based on page numbers?

The size of an article is a poor indicator of the actual amount of work involved in obtaining peer reviews and in preparing the article for publication. A more useful discriminator might be the state an article is in when submitted, and its complexity, but the lack of objective tools to measure these has led us to conclude that a flat fee is the fairest approach at this stage.

 

■  Who is responsible for making the payment?

Whoever submits the manuscript is responsible for making or arranging the payment (for instance, via his or her institution).

 

The submitting author needs to arrange payment of the article-processing charge unless a waiver has been granted, or your institution has covered the cost through a membership scheme.

 

The submitting author must confirm, at the time of submission, that they will organize payment should the article be accepted for publication.

 

Following peer review, once a manuscript has received editorial acceptance in principle, the article-processing charge becomes payable and formatting checks on the manuscript will commence. Once formatting checks are completed, and payment of the article-processing charge has been received, the article will be published.

 

■  Payment can be made by the following method:

Invoice payment (Bank Transfer) is due after receiving editorial acceptance in principle.

Prompt payment is advised as the article will not be published until payment is received.

 

■ Can charges be waived if the author cannot pay?

Individual waiver requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis and may be granted in cases of lack of funds. To apply for a waiver please request one during the submission process. A decision on the waiver will normally be made within two working days. Submission of the article to the journal can then be completed.

 

■  Will the APC rate I am given at submission change?

The APC payable for an article is determined at the time payment has to be agreed as part of the submission process. This means if the APC goes up between submission and publication, you still pay the lower APC.

 

■ Change rate

If the exchange rates change between submission and publication, an author still pays the amount in their applicable currency that they agreed to pay on submission.

 

■  Membership

If an institution ceases to be a Member between submission and publication of an author’s article, they still receive Membership benefits. Conversely, if an institution becomes a member after the author submits an article, that article will not in general be covered by the Membership.

 

For more details on membership visit