Open Access Policy, Copyright and Licensing
Open Access Policy
The editorial open access policy of the journal is developed based on the recommendations and standards of the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access.
The journal adopts the concept of “open access” as defined in the official documents of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. “Open access” to peer-reviewed scholarly literature refers to free public access via the Internet, allowing any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers, except those inherent in gaining access to the Internet itself.
The only restriction on reproduction and distribution is compliance with copyright law, which ensures that authors retain control over the integrity of their work and receive proper attribution and citation.
The journal aims to promote global open access to scientific information and research. The publisher provides readers, researchers, and institutions with free online access to all published materials (e.g., to read, download, distribute, print, and reproduce in any medium, provided the content is not altered and not used for commercial purposes), in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The license requires proper citation of the original work. Commercial use of published materials requires written permission from the Publisher.
The journal provides immediate open access to all published content, making research results freely available to the public and supporting global knowledge exchange. This means that:
- every Internet user has free and unrestricted access to the full text of all published articles;
- manuscripts are freely available without subscription or financial barriers;
- all materials are made available online immediately after publication, without delay.
The journal supports open scientific exchange and encourages authors to apply best practices in sharing and archiving research data. Authors are encouraged to share research data, including but not limited to protocols, analytical methods, raw data, processed data, code, software, algorithms, and educational materials.
Data should be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) so that other researchers can locate and reuse it effectively.
Authors are encouraged to store data and code in reliable repositories that ensure long-term reuse. If this is not possible, authors should provide data upon reasonable request. Research materials necessary for replication should be clearly described in the manuscript. The data policy applies to the minimum dataset supporting the main findings of the study. Generated data should be openly available and properly cited according to journal guidelines.
The journal’s data policy is based on the TOP Guidelines (Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines).
In cases where ethical, legal, or privacy concerns exist, data should not be publicly shared. Authors must specify data availability at submission. They must ensure compliance with participant consent and guarantee that data publication does not compromise anonymity or violate data protection laws.
Where access is restricted due to confidentiality or legal requirements, authors must clearly justify the restrictions and provide data to reviewers upon request for evaluation purposes.
The journal recognizes that some institutions and funding agencies require limited data retention periods after project completion. However, the journal encourages long-term archiving in trusted repositories or provision of minimal datasets for transparency and reproducibility.
Authors are encouraged to cite all datasets stored in external repositories, including primary datasets and any additional datasets used in the study. Previously published datasets must be cited both as data sources and as related research publications.
Ethical Review Policy
The journal’s policy regarding ethical approval for research involving humans, animals, biological materials, and confidential data is based on the current legislation of Ukraine, including the Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Human Rights in Biomedical Research,” the Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection,” and the Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Animals from Cruelty,” as well as international ethical standards (Declaration of Helsinki, ARRIVE guidelines, etc.).
The journal recognizes the priority of ethical standards in research involving humans, animals, biological materials, and personal or confidential data.
Authors must provide proof of approval from an authorized ethics committee when research involves:
- human participants;
- human biological materials;
- animals or animal-derived materials;
- processing of personal, sensitive, or confidential data;
- compliance with relevant national or international bioethics regulations.
The ethical approval must include:
- full name of the approving institution;
- date and protocol number;
- type of informed consent (for human studies).
Authors must confirm that informed consent was obtained voluntarily, without coercion, and in a form understandable to participants.
Publishing identifiable personal data or visual materials without written consent is strictly prohibited.
Animal research must comply with the 3R principles (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement). Authors must describe housing conditions, protocols used, and measures taken to minimize animal suffering.
Processing of confidential and personal data must comply with the Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection” and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Data must be anonymized or de-identified. Authors must describe data protection mechanisms and access procedures.
The Editorial Board reserves the right to request copies of ethical approvals, informed consent forms, study protocols, or other documentation. The journal may reject manuscripts in which ethical requirements are not met or are insufficiently documented.
Licensing Policy for Copyrighted Works
Authors retain copyright while granting the journal the right to publish and distribute original scientific articles containing results of experimental and theoretical research, provided the work is not under consideration elsewhere.
All materials are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Submission of a manuscript implies acceptance of the agreement terms. By submitting, the author confirms that the material:
- does not violate the copyrights of other individuals or organizations;
- has not been previously published and is not under consideration elsewhere.
Rights granted to the journal include:
- publication of the article in English;
- distribution of print and electronic versions (website, databases, repositories, etc.).
Authors retain the right, without approval from the Editorial Board or Publisher, to:
- use the article (fully or partially) for educational purposes;
- include it in dissertations;
- use it in conference abstracts, presentations, and talks.
In all cases, proper citation or a hyperlink to the official journal version is mandatory.