Future Science Association applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to articles and other works we publish. Authors of articles published in The Future journals retain copyright on their articles, except for any third-party images and other materials added by Innovative Scientific Information and Services network, which are subject to copyright of their respective owners. If you submit your paper for publication by Innovative Scientific Information and Services network, you agree to have the CC BY license applied to your work. Under this Open Access license, you as the author agree that anyone can reuse your article in whole or part for any urpose, for free, even for commercial purposes. Anyone may copy, distribute, or reuse the content as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This facilitates freedom in re-use and also ensures that published content can be mined without barriers for the needs of research.

Corrections to published articles. If necessary, corrections of significant errors in published articles will be published in a later issue of the Journal. Within two months after publication, authors are requested to bring any errors to the attention of the managing editor.

Publication Ethics

FUTURE ASSOCIATION is committed to maintaining high standards through a rigorous peer-review together with strict ethical policies. Any infringements of professional ethical codes, such as plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, bogus claims of authorship, should be taken very seriously by the editors with zero tolerance.

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors. Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be accepted. The submitted paper, or any translation of it, must neither be published, nor be submitted for publication elsewhere. Violations of these rules will normally result in an immediate rejection of the submission without further review.

When a new submission is received, a couple of checks will be done at the publisher's office:

  • Initial check of format and completeness
  • Initial check for the publication status
  • Initial check of author's background
  • Initial check for Plagiarism
  • Check for machine produced manuscript

Plagiarism

Papers submitted to FUTURE ASSOCIATION  must contain original material. An Initial Plagiarism Check is carried out for every manuscript submitted to FUTURE ASSOCIATION . The check starts with a Google search which is built into FUTURE ASSOCIATION 's Paper Submission and Manuscript Tracking System.

FUTURE ASSOCIATION  is a member of CrossCheck and has added all its papers to the CrossCheck database. In this way, also other publishers can compare their manuscripts with FUTURE ASSOCIATION 's papers. CrossCheck is used through the web-based iThenticate system by uploading a document and running a similarity check against the CrossCheck database and the Internet. The check provides a "Similarity Index" which is the percentage of the manuscript matching other sources. iThenticate does not determine whether a manuscript contains plagiarism. Therefore, manuscripts with a high "Similarity Index" are examined if the other matching sources have been properly cited.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Data Fabrication concerns the making up of research findings. Data Falsification means manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc. Generally, if an author’s figures are questionable, it is suggested to request the original data from the authors.

FUTURE ASSOCIATION  follows the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and follows the COPE Flowcharts for Resolving Cases of Suspected Misconduct.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors

Authors should be aware of a possible Conflict of Interest. In such a case authors can still take responsibility for the accuracy of their paper, but must inform the reader with an appropriate statement in the Acknowledgements.

Conflicts include the following:

  • Financial—funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Affiliations—being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Intellectual property—patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
  • Personal—friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
  • Ideology—beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work
  • Academic—competitors or someone whose work is critiqued

Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.

Peer-Reviewers

Reviewers should be asked at the time they are asked to critique a manuscript if they have conflicts of interest that could complicate their review. Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they’re reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.

Editors and Journal Staff

Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration. Other editorial staff members who participate in editorial decisions must provide editors with a current description of their financial interests or other conflicts (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which a conflict of interest exists. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to their own commitments and those of their journal staff. Guest editors should follow these same procedures.

How do you subscribe?

Individual libraries and academic institutes (single and multi-site) and consortia can subscribe to the entire package, a subject subset, or a customized selection tailored to meet their needs. We offer free subscriptions for our online and printed manuscripts.  Send an email To request a free subscription, send an email to info@futurejournals.org. The sales team will contact you within 24 hours to complete your subscription process. 

Privacy Policy

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Who are we?

Future Journals is an award-winning open science platform and leading open-access scholarly publisher. Our mission is to make science open, so that all may live healthy lives on a healthy planet. More than ever, science and technology are needed to engineer solutions to move us towards a sustainable society. To do this we seek to engage with the world’s research community to serve each researcher as best we can. Being able to understand your research interests, speciality and publications helps us in this task.

This Privacy Policy describes how we ensure that you, our users and researchers around the world, understand what Personal Data we collect, how we use it and under what conditions we entrust it to third parties, and it explains the choices you have.

1.2 Matters covered by this Policy

This Privacy Policy is provided by Future Journals Media SA (“Future Journals”, “we”, “us”). We publish our own journals (referred to here as Future Journals Journals) and journals owned by third parties (referred to here as Hosted Journals). When we refer to Journals, we include both Future Journals Journals and Hosted Journals. We are responsible for the processing of personal data (the data controller) for the purposes of data protection legislation, except to the extent we are processing personal data on behalf of Hosted Journals, in which capacity we are a data processor.

In this Privacy Policy, Websites (with a capitalized W) refers to all websites owned or managed by Future Journals, including those of Hosted Journals.

This Privacy Policy applies to Personal Data collected by Future Journals, for itself and for Hosted Journals, of registered users, of visitors to the Websites, and of other individuals with whom we interact.

2.0 Definitions

These terms are used in this Privacy Policy:

Personal Data: means any information relating to a natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, through that information.

Processing: means any operation which is performed on personal data, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, disclosure, adaptation, alteration, deletion or any kind of disclosure or other use.

3.0 Information we collect and how we collect it

3.1 Information you give us or authorize us to receive from third parties

Registration with Future Journals or a Hosted Journal is effected through Loop, Future Journals’ open research network.

To use certain features of the Future Journals platform (including for Hosted Journals), users must register with Future Journals.

When you create a Future Journals account, you provide us with Personal Data, including full name, email address, affiliation, your email choices, and a password. You also have the option to include certain additional information about yourself in your Future Journals account, such as a brief bio, your publications, secondary email address, profile picture.

You may also choose to connect, via your Future Journals account, with other registered users. Future Journals stores this information as part of its networking service. Your connections are visible to Future Journals and, unless you have opted not to make this public, to other Future Journals registered users. This service enables you to be kept up to date with new publications in your areas of interest and to connect with colleagues.

You may register with Future Journals via your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter profile. We will store the name, profile picture and email address from that external profile. We do not ask for or collect any additional information from those platforms, and we do not transfer any information to them as part of the registration process. The external party will know that you are registering with Future Journals. Its use of that information is governed by its own privacy policy.

You can, if you wish, link your ORCiD profile with your Future Journals account. If you choose to do this we will add your ORCiD and your ORCiD-listed publications to your Future Journals account.

If you, as a Future Journals registered user, undertake an activity with a Journal, such as submitting a manuscript, co-authoring or reviewing an article, or becoming an editor, your contributions will be linked to your Future Journals account. This maximises the impact of your professional achievements and credits you for your contributions.

We do not collect or store any payment information such as credit card numbers. We keep a record of the invoices, which do not include any sensitive payment information. We use an industry–approved secure third-party payment system to facilitate payments on our website.

3.2 We collect information when you visit the Websites

This information includes:

  • Geo-location data.We record (via IP addresses and time stamp) from where in the world you are accessing the Websites. This does not identify any individual (unless you are a registered user and logged in) and allows us to consolidate this data to understand where readership is located, and to provide impact metrics services, such as for your article or research topic.
  • Log data.Your device may send information to any website you visit. We record this information when you visit the Websites. It includes your IP address, the browser used and its settings, the date and time of your visit, and data on how you used the websites you visited.
  • Device information.We collect information about the type of device you are using, its operating system, browser type and version to ensure that the Websites operate properly with your device. The information is sent by your device, and the type of information will vary depending on the device’s manufacturer.
  • Registered users’ browsing history data on the Websites.We collect this data only from individuals registered with us to help us understand the interests of our users and personalize their experience.
  • Information concerning your interactions with us.We remember your interactions with us. This may include emails we receive from you, acceptance of terms and conditions, submission of content, acceptance of reviewer or editor roles, participation in the review process, acceptances and rejections of articles, Future Journals surveys you may complete and any other interaction between you and Future Journals.

3.3 Information from Cookies and other Tracking Technologies

We and our analytics service providers use cookies or similar technologies to:

  • Manage your login preferences,
  • Administer the Websites,
  • Analyze and improve your experience on the Websites,
  • Target our messages so that you only receive information relevant to you.

Cookies do not identify you, but we may link your IP address to a cookie on your browser.

As of 21 January 2021, through the cookie banner on the Websites you will be able to either enable or disable the targeting, functional and performance cookies.

3.4 Information collected from publications, conference activities and other public sources.

We collect publicly available information about researchers from subscription services, publications, articles, and conferences. We receive suggestions for potential contributors from our editors who are thought leaders in their areas of academic expertise.

We only collect information relevant to professional research activities, such as name, institutional affiliation, contact details, publications, academic activities and specialisation(s), editorships and awards.

This enables us to provide researchers with high-quality publishing services, such as identifying the most suited expert reviewers for articles or building world-class editorial boards.

3.5 Information collected from the Hosted Journals’ own managers.

If you manage a Hosted Journal for its owner, we may collect your full name, email addresses and role for the purpose of managing our publishing relationship.

4.0 What do we do with the information we collect?

We use the information we collect for the purposes described below.

  • Provide services for you and to the research community, including creating and managing your account (for registered users), providing our publishing, and networking services and providing relevant research-related news and information to you within your areas of expertise and interest.
  • Invite you to participate in Future Journals activities and/or those of Hosted Journals, particularly to review relevant articles within your area of specialisation, to contribute to cutting-edge research topics or special issues, and possibly to join an editorial board or to meet at a conference. The information we collect about your professional activities enables us to ensure that only relevant invitations are sent to you.
  • Identify and disambiguate. To ensure that, where the same name is shared by more than one person, we are dealing with the right person in the publishing operations of our business.
  • Understand the user experience of the Websites and our editorial processes, in order to train our people, improve our services, website and processes, and to imagine new services, so that your experience with Future Journals can be the best possible.
  • Comply with your privacy and email preferences.
  • Issue invoicesfor your APC payments.
  • Understand the geographical locations and institutional affiliations of our users.
  • Inform youof Future Journals and Hosted Journal activities, events and opportunities.
  • Answer your queries and provide you with support and service.
  • Conduct surveysaimed at providing you with a better service.We do not sell Personal Data to others. We share Personal Data with our contractors only to the extent necessary to permit them to perform their role in facilitating the delivery of Future Journals’ services and subject to suitable protective agreements.

We combine the information obtained from different sources so that we can propose opportunities which are relevant to each user’s research activities, interests and qualifications. While some of this process is automated, decisions are not.

4.1 Grounds for processing personal data.

We may collect and process your Personal Data based on:

  • 1. A contractual relationship with you.
  • 2. Your consent to do so for a specific purpose, such as adding additional information to your Future Journals account or accepting to receive our newsletters.
  • 3. Our legitimate business interest, for example in maintaining the publishing record, subcontracting aspects of our operations to third parties, marketing and promoting our services, and potentially in defending ourself in legal disputes.

5.1 Your account Privacy Settings

If you are a registered user, you decide how much information is displayed on your Future Journals profile and whether to keep the profile private or public. Additionally, you can decide how journals you registered with will be using your information.

You should review your Personal Data and your privacy settings regularly. To do that, go to the privacy settings in your Future Journals account.

5.2 Your Rights

In addition to the privacy settings in your Future Journals account, you also have the right to:

  • Be informed of the Personal Data we collect, process and store. This Privacy Policy, which is accessible via the Future Journals webiste, provides you with all of this information in an accessible way.
  • Request access to your Personal Data stored by us or a third party, where this is technically feasible. Our intention is to respond to any request for information within a month of the request.
  • Require that your information be corrected. If you are registered, you can directly update your registration information by logging in to your Future Journals account.
  • Object to us processing your Personal Data. You can ask us to stop using your Personal Data, including when we use your Personal Data to send you emails or promotional notifications concerning our services. If you opt out of receiving promotional messages, we will continue to send service emails if you are registered with us.
  • Request that your Personal Data be deleted. In certain circumstances, we may consider we have an overriding need to retain all or some information to continue to provide our services as a responsible publisher.
  • Withdraw the consent for the processing of your Personal Data which is based on your consent.

If you are a registered user, you should regularly check your registration information to ensure it is up to date and, to the extent you wish, complete.

6.0 How we protect your information

Future Journals takes a variety of technical, physical, organizational and administrative measures to provide an appropriate level of protection for your information against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized access, loss, destruction, alteration, disclosure or use.

We define access rights to information and we use technology to limit access to those who are authorized. We ensure that our servers have adequate security. We control physical access to our premises. We have in place, and we apply, an IT and data security policy. We work to ensure that our contractors have in place appropriate security measures and process data in accordance with applicable laws.

6.1 Your responsibility for securing your Future Journals account and Personal Data

Your access to some of our services and content may be password protected. You share the responsibility of maintaining the security of your information. You will be responsible for any action, activities, and access to the Websites and platform that were taken through your username and password, and which occur before you notify us of their loss or having been compromised. Please follow best practices to help keep your information secure, such as:

  • Keep your username(s) and password(s) strictly confidential and do not disclose them to anyone
  • Use unique passwords for each website that you use, including Future Journals
  • Sign out of your Future Journals account at the end of each session and close your browser window when you have finished your work, especially if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place.

8.2 How long we keep your information

We keep your Personal Data to enable your continued use of our platform and publishing services, and for as long as it is required in order to fulfill the relevant purposes described in this Privacy Policy, to comply with our obligations as a scholarly publisher or as may be required by law.

9.0 Age limits and children

Future Journals is for professional researchers and those interested in science, and is for people aged 18 and over. People under the age of 18 should not register with Future Journals.

Where individuals aged less than 18 are involved in Future Journals for Young Minds, Future Journals only communicates with them via parents, guardians, teachers or science mentors.

Upon the explicit consent of the child’s parents or guardians Future Journals collects only the first name, the age and the avatar picture of the young reviewer. This data is solely used to acknowledge the young reviewer’s contributions to the review of the article when it is published on the Future Journals for Young Minds website.