Copyright & License Policy

Plant Science Horizons (PSH) follows an author-retained copyright model. Current PSH articles are published open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), enabling broad reading, sharing, adaptation and reuse while requiring appropriate attribution to the original work.

Purpose and application

This policy explains ownership of copyright in PSH publications, the rights granted to the journal and publisher, the Creative Commons license applied to published articles, author reuse rights, third-party content responsibilities, attribution requirements, repository sharing, adaptations, translations, and related copyright matters.

The policy applies to articles published by PSH unless a particular item carries a clearly stated different rights notice because of third-party ownership, legal restrictions, or a separately documented agreement.

Authors retain copyright

Authors publishing in Plant Science Horizons retain copyright in their article. PSH does not require transfer of copyright ownership as a condition of publication under the journal's current open-access model.

Copyright retention allows authors to continue using and sharing their work while the journal maintains the rights necessary to publish, identify, disseminate, preserve and maintain the version of record.

PSH as the original journal publisher

By agreeing to publication, authors grant PSH the right of first publication and authorize the journal and Inspire Science and Tech Publisher (ISTP) to publish the article as the version of record, associate it with PSH bibliographic metadata, and identify PSH as the original journal of publication.

Rights granted to the journal and publisher

Authors grant PSH and its publisher the non-exclusive rights reasonably necessary to:

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Current PSH article PDFs and the journal's current Author Guidelines identify published content as CC BY 4.0. This policy therefore replaces older PSH wording that referred to CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

What CC BY 4.0 permits

Subject to the license terms and any separately identified third-party rights, users may:

Conditions for lawful reuse

Reuse under CC BY 4.0 requires appropriate credit to the original creator(s), a reference or link to the license where reasonably possible, and an indication of whether changes were made.

Appropriate scholarly attribution will normally include the author(s), article title, Plant Science Horizons, publication details and DOI or another persistent link to the version of record.

Reuse must not imply endorsement

Reuse or adaptation must not falsely imply that the original authors, PSH, the editorial team, Inspire Science and Tech Publisher, or any affiliated institution endorses the reused material, adaptation, product, service, organization, conclusion, or interpretation.

Commercial reuse is permitted

The current CC BY 4.0 license does not impose a NonCommercial (NC) restriction. Commercial reuse may therefore occur when the license conditions and any applicable third-party rights are respected.

This is a substantive difference from the journal's previous CC BY-NC-ND wording.

Adaptations and derivative works are permitted

CC BY 4.0 permits users to modify, translate, transform, remix or build upon licensed material.

Adaptations should indicate that changes were made and should not be presented as an unchanged, official or publisher-endorsed version of the original PSH article.

Authors may reuse their own published work

Preserving the authoritative journal version

PSH maintains the published version of record, including its DOI, article identifier, bibliographic metadata, license information and any subsequent correction, expression of concern or retraction notice.

Authors sharing or reusing the article are encouraged to cite or link to the final version of record.

Institutional, disciplinary and funder repositories

Authors may deposit the published article in lawful repositories in accordance with CC BY 4.0. Repository records should preferably include the full citation, DOI, journal title and license.

Authors should follow additional repository-deposit requirements imposed by their institution or funder where applicable.

Preprint and post-publication linking

Posting a manuscript on a recognized preprint server does not by itself prevent submission to PSH when the preprint is disclosed.

After publication, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record with the PSH citation and DOI where the platform permits.

Third-party content may carry different rights

The CC BY 4.0 license attached to a PSH article does not automatically grant rights over material owned by another copyright holder when that material is separately identified or reproduced under permission.

Examples include previously published figures, photographs, maps, illustrations, datasets, trademarks or other externally owned material.

Permissions must be secured before publication

Authors are responsible for identifying third-party material and obtaining any permission necessary for PSH to publish that material within an open-access article.

Permission documentation may be requested during editorial or production processing.

Clearly identify exclusions from CC BY 4.0

When third-party material is not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license, the caption, credit line or accompanying notice should state the relevant source, copyright owner, permission status or reuse restriction clearly enough for readers to understand that separate permission may be required.

Author-created publication content

Original figures, tables and illustrations created for a PSH article are normally covered by the article's stated CC BY 4.0 license unless a different rights notice is explicitly provided.

Article licensing and dataset licensing are not necessarily identical

Research datasets deposited separately may be governed by the repository's terms or by a separate data license. Authors should identify the applicable data license where appropriate.

Privacy, consent, biodiversity, material-transfer, security or legal restrictions may also limit access to particular datasets.

Software may require a software-specific license

Source code, packages, scripts, computational pipelines, models or software distributed separately from the article may be subject to an open-source or other software license. Authors should state the applicable license in the repository or documentation.

Computational reuse

Licensed PSH content may be used for lawful text and data mining, computational analysis, indexing, machine-assisted discovery and related reuse in accordance with CC BY 4.0, proper attribution, applicable law, and any separately identified third-party rights.

Translated versions are adaptations

A translation of CC BY 4.0-licensed PSH material may be created and shared under the license terms.

The translated work should credit the original publication, link to the version of record where practical, identify itself as a translation, and avoid implying that PSH verified or officially endorsed the translation unless the journal actually did so.

Reuse in subsequent scholarly works

Authors may incorporate material from their PSH article into a thesis, dissertation, book, monograph, review, conference presentation or other later work, subject to appropriate acknowledgment and any third-party rights.

Re-publication of substantially the same article as a new journal article remains subject to duplicate-publication and research-integrity standards.

Authors must have the right to publish what they submit

By proceeding to publication, authors are expected to confirm that:

• The submitted work is original except for properly attributed and permitted third-party material.
• They have authority to grant the publication and licensing rights required by PSH.
• All coauthors have approved publication.
• Required permissions, consents or licenses have been secured.
• Publication does not knowingly infringe the copyright or other rights of another party.

Handling credible infringement concerns

Credible copyright or permissions concerns may be investigated by the editorial office. PSH may request documentation, temporarily place editorial processing on hold, correct a rights notice, remove or replace infringing third-party material, issue a correction, or take other proportionate action.

Serious copyright problems that materially invalidate a published work may also require action under the journal's Retraction & Withdrawal Policy.

License information should be visible and consistent

The applicable Creative Commons license should be displayed consistently on article landing pages, PDFs and other final publication formats where technically supported.

License metadata should also be supplied accurately to DOI, repository, indexing and discovery systems where available.

Do not contradict the rights granted by CC BY 4.0

For article content licensed under CC BY 4.0, PSH should not impose additional legal or technological restrictions that would contradict the permissions granted by the license, except where separate third-party rights or applicable law require otherwise.

Website “All rights reserved” wording must not override article CC BY rights

Copyright notices covering the PSH website, journal branding, logo, layout, administrative text or publisher-owned material are distinct from the Creative Commons license applied to published scholarly articles.

Any website footer stating “All rights reserved” should therefore be drafted so that readers do not interpret it as cancelling or limiting the CC BY 4.0 rights expressly granted on published articles.

Separate site rights from article licensing

Future changes apply prospectively unless lawfully agreed otherwise

If PSH changes the default license for future publications, the effective date should be stated clearly and the change should be reflected consistently in Author Guidelines, Open Access Policy, article templates, OJS settings and publication metadata.

A license already granted on a published article should not be represented as revoked or replaced merely because the journal later changes its default policy.

License stated on the article governs that publication

Previously published articles remain subject to the license displayed on the article at publication or to any later valid licensing agreement. The journal should not assume that all historical content can be relicensed retroactively without the necessary rights.

Licensing is independent of the current no-fee policy

PSH currently publishes articles open access and waives article processing charges through 2029.

The current absence of an APC does not alter copyright ownership or the CC BY 4.0 license. Likewise, any future change in publication charges should not automatically alter the article license.

Maintaining accurate rights information

• Apply the declared license consistently to eligible published articles.
• Display copyright and licensing information clearly.
• Maintain records of publication rights and relevant permissions.
• Correct inaccurate license metadata when discovered.
• Respect separately identified third-party rights.
• Preserve links between versions of record and later corrections or retractions.

Related policies & guidance

Copyright and licensing should be read together with PSH's author, submission, editorial and publication policies.

Official CC BY 4.0 license information

Authors and users should consult the official Creative Commons license for the complete legal terms rather than relying solely on a journal summary.

The current PSH copyright and licensing model

Author ownership with open scholarly reuse

Plant Science Horizons combines author-retained copyright with CC BY 4.0 open licensing. Authors retain ownership of their work while PSH publishes and maintains the version of record, and readers may share, adapt and reuse licensed article content—including commercially—when appropriate attribution is provided and separately identified third-party rights are respected.