Journal policies

The Society is committed to promoting the highest ethical publication practices across all our journals. Allegations of misconduct will be investigated fully, as outlined on the relevant pages below, and as per the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Complaints against a journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher should be directed to the editorial office or alternatively publishing@royalsociety.org.

Find information about our policies in specific areas:

• Authorship, competing interests and artificial intelligence
• Misconduct and redundant publication
• Research ethics, animal treatment and dual-use 
• Peer review, editorial standards and processes
• Data sharing and mining
• Copyright and intellectual property
• Preprints and media embargoes
• Digital preservation
• Diversity

We are committed to high quality and ethical publishing, as a not-for-profit society publisher, and we support open access and promotion of free content as part of our commitment to the widest possible dissemination of research outputs. Our Royal Society Open Access Equity scheme supports tens of thousands of researchers based in over 100 low- and middle-income countries and territories by providing free access and/or automatic APC waivers.