Author guidelines

Article types and limits

Submission checklist

• ✓ Main manuscript in PDF or Word, within the word limit for your article type.
• ✓ A blinded manuscript with all author names, affiliations and identifying acknowledgements removed. Our system checks this automatically and will tell you if identity leaks through.
• ✓ A separate title page carrying the full author list, affiliations and ORCID iDs.
• ✓ A cover letter addressed to the editor.
• ✓ A signed copyright and licence agreement.
• ✓ A completed conflict-of-interest form.
• ✓ An ethics approval certificate, if your work involves human or animal subjects.
• ✓ Between 3 and 8 keywords.
• ✓ Contributor roles assigned to every author using the CRediT taxonomy.

Contributor roles (CRediT)

Every author must be assigned at least one role from the CRediT taxonomy.

• Conceptualization
• Methodology
• Software
• Validation
• Formal Analysis
• Investigation
• Resources
• Data Curation
• Writing – Original Draft
• Writing – Review & Editing
• Visualization
• Supervision
• Project Administration
• Funding Acquisition

What happens next

1. 1. Automated checks run immediately: completeness, formatting, blinding, similarity and reference validation.
2. 2. An editor performs a desk assessment and decides whether to send your manuscript for peer review.
3. 3. Reviewers are matched to your subject area. Reviews are Double Blind.
4. 4. You receive a decision with the reviewers' comments attached.
5. 5. If accepted, your article is copyedited, typeset and proofread before publication with a registered DOI.

Licensing

You retain copyright. Choose one of the following open-access licences at submission:

• • CC BY 4.0 (Attribution)
• • CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution–NonCommercial)
• • CC BY-SA 4.0 (Attribution–ShareAlike)
• • CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives)

There is no article processing charge. Publishing here is free.