Lisencing & Copyright

Copyright Notice

This notice defines the formal copyright, licensing, and reuse terms for all scholarly content published in Social Thought and Policy Review , ensuring legal transparency and full compliance with international open-access best practices while respecting the critical and often contested nature of social and policy scholarship.

1. Copyright Ownership
Authors retain the copyright of their original research, scholarly contributions, and critical essays. By submitting to and publishing with Social Thought and Policy Review, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive, irrevocable license to publish, reproduce, distribute, and archive the definitive version of the work in all formats and media under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

2. Open Access Licensing
To maximize the dissemination of social thought and policy research while protecting the integrity of authors' work, each article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This license grants any user the worldwide, royalty-free right to:

• Share – copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.

These permissions are granted subject to the following conditions:

• Attribution: Users must credit the author(s) and cite Social Thought and Policy Review as the original source of publication, provide a hyperlink to the license, and indicate if any changes were made (though modified versions may not be distributed).

• NonCommercial: The material may not be used for commercial purposes without explicit permission from the copyright holder. Commercial purposes include, but are not limited to, use by corporations, consulting firms, political organizations with commercial aims, or any entity primarily aiming for commercial gain.

• NoDerivatives: If users remix, transform, translate, or build upon the material, they may not distribute the modified material. Only verbatim copies may be shared.

3. Rights and Responsibilities

• Author Rights and Self-Archiving: Authors are expressly permitted and encouraged to deposit the final published PDF (version of record) in institutional repositories, subject repositories, preprint servers, personal websites, and academic social networks including ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/) and Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/). Authors may reuse their own work in future publications, presentations, policy briefs, theses, or teaching materials without obtaining further permission, provided the original Social Thought and Policy Review publication is appropriately cited. For commercial use or creation of derivative works, authors should contact the editorial office for guidance.

• Third-Party Content: Authors are solely responsible for obtaining written permission from the copyright holder for any third-party material included in their manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to: images, illustrations, photographs, archival materials, government documents, statistical data, extended quotations, policy documents, survey instruments, and any other copyrighted material not created by the author. Proof of permission must be provided to the editorial office upon request. Proper attribution must accompany all reused content.

• Originality and Plagiarism Prevention: Social Thought and Policy Review accepts for publication only original materials that have not been published before and have not been submitted elsewhere. Authors must ensure their submission is original and all sources must be properly cited; plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. The journal may use plagiarism detection software to screen submissions.

• Publisher Archiving and Preservation: Social Thought and Policy Review ensures the long-term preservation and perpetual accessibility of all published content through participation in trusted digital preservation networks. These include:

  • CLOCKSS: https://clockss.org/

  • LOCKSS: https://www.lockss.org/

  • PKP Preservation Network (PN): https://pkp.sfu.ca/pkp-pn/

These systems create distributed archives among participating libraries worldwide, guaranteeing that all content remains permanently available to the social thought and policy research community even in the event the journal ceases publication.

4. Ethical Standards and Scholarly Integrity

Authors must confirm that their submission is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under simultaneous consideration by another publication. Manuscripts must be free from plagiarism, data fabrication, or any other unethical practices. Social Thought and Policy Review adheres to the principles, policies, and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) : https://publicationethics.org. The journal also encourages adherence to discipline-specific guidelines and standards, including:

• FAIR Data Principles: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

• TOP Guidelines (Transparency and Openness Promotion): https://www.cos.io/initiatives/top-guidelines

• Singapore Statement on Research Integrity: https://wcrif.org/guidance/singapore-statement

• American Sociological Association (ASA) Code of Ethics: https://www.asanet.org/code-ethics

• American Political Science Association (APSA) Guide to Professional Ethics: https://www.apsanet.org/ethics

• American Evaluation Association (AEA) Guiding Principles for Evaluators: https://www.eval.org/About/Guiding-Principles

Any allegations of plagiarism, copyright infringement, data fabrication, ethical approval violations, or other misconduct will be investigated promptly and thoroughly in accordance with COPE guidelines.

5. Research Ethics and Compliance

• Human Subjects Research: For research involving human subjects, surveys, interviews, or ethnographic methods, authors must confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with relevant ethical guidelines and that informed consent was obtained where appropriate. A statement of ethical approval from an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee must be included in the manuscript where applicable.

• Vulnerable Populations: For research involving vulnerable populations (e.g., children, prisoners, refugees, economically disadvantaged individuals, marginalized communities), authors must demonstrate that additional safeguards were in place to protect participants' rights and welfare.

• Data Privacy and Protection: For research involving personal data, survey responses, or information collected from individuals, authors must ensure compliance with relevant data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) and institutional policies regarding privacy and data security.

• Community Engagement and Indigenous Knowledge: For research involving collaboration with communities or Indigenous knowledge, authors must confirm that engagement was conducted respectfully, that appropriate permissions were obtained, that cultural protocols were followed, and that the research provides benefits to the community in accordance with relevant guidelines such as:

  • United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP): https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html

  • First Nations Principles of OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession): https://fnigc.ca/ocap-training/

• Data Availability and Transparency: While the CC BY-NC-ND license restricts distribution of modified versions, authors are encouraged to make their underlying data, code, and materials available in recognized repositories or through supplementary files to support verification and replication, in accordance with the FAIR Data Principles and best practices in social science research. A data availability statement should be included in all manuscripts where applicable.

• Policy Recommendations: Authors making policy recommendations should ensure that their claims are supported by evidence and that potential limitations, alternative interpretations, and unintended consequences are acknowledged.

• Conflict of Interest: Authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest, including financial, professional, or personal relationships that could influence the research or its interpretation. This includes funding sources, affiliations with advocacy organizations, political affiliations, consulting relationships, or personal beliefs that might bias the work.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage: Authors must disclose any use of artificial intelligence or large language models in the preparation of their manuscript, including in writing, data analysis, or any other aspect of the work, in accordance with the journal's AI policy and COPE guidance. AI tools cannot be listed as authors.

6. Commercial Use Requests

Organizations or individuals seeking to use Social Thought and Policy Review content for commercial purposes (e.g., inclusion in corporate reports, training materials, commercial databases, consulting products, or any use by a commercial entity) should contact the editorial office for permission. Such requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, considering the nature of the proposed use and the rights of the copyright holders.

7. Policy Updates

Social Thought and Policy Review reserves the right to update this copyright and licensing policy as standards of publishing, copyright legislation, and open access practices evolve. All amendments will be clearly published on the journal's webpage.