Open Access Policy

Plant Science Horizons (PSH) is an open-access journal. Published articles are made freely available online and current PSH articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), supporting broad reading, sharing, reuse, and adaptation with appropriate attribution.

Immediate open access to published articles

PSH provides open online access to published articles without requiring readers to purchase an individual article or hold a journal subscription. The published version of record is intended to be accessible to researchers, students, educators, professionals, policymakers, and the public.

Open access concerns the ability to access and reuse published material; it does not reduce the journal's requirements for peer review, research integrity, editorial independence, copyright compliance, or ethical publication.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Current PSH publications state that they are distributed under CC BY 4.0. 

Broad reuse with attribution

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

Reuse must credit the original work

Reusers should provide appropriate credit, identify the source, include a link to the CC BY 4.0 license where reasonably possible, and indicate whether changes were made.

Attribution must not imply that the authors, PSH, editors, or publisher endorse the reuse, adaptation, product, organization, or interpretation.

Official CC BY 4.0 terms

The full legal and human-readable terms of the license are maintained by Creative Commons.

Authors retain copyright

PSH's current editorial policy states that authors retain copyright while granting the journal the right of first publication and the rights necessary to publish and disseminate the article under the applicable open-access license.

Authors remain responsible for ensuring that material included in the article can legally be published under the stated terms.

Right of first publication and journal dissemination

By publishing with PSH, authors authorize the journal and publisher to publish the article, maintain the version of record, register and update publication metadata, distribute the work, and take necessary editorial actions such as corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions when justified.

Not every item is automatically covered by the article license

Figures, photographs, maps, datasets, illustrations, trademarks, or other material reproduced from third parties may be subject to separate copyright, license, or permission terms.

Authors must obtain permission where required and clearly identify material that is excluded from the article's CC BY 4.0 license. Users wishing to reuse separately credited material must follow the rights statement that applies to that material.

Sharing the published article

Authors may share the published version of their PSH article on personal websites, institutional pages, academic profiles, teaching platforms, social media, and other channels in accordance with CC BY 4.0.

Where possible, authors are encouraged to include the final DOI so that readers can locate and cite the version of record.

Institutional and subject repositories

Authors may deposit and share the published article in institutional, disciplinary, funder, or other lawful repositories consistent with the article license.

Repository records should preferably include the article title, authors, journal name, publication year, final citation, DOI, and license information.

Open dissemination before journal publication

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

After publication, authors should update preprint records where possible with the final PSH citation and DOI.

Teaching, training and scholarly communication

Published PSH material may be incorporated into lectures, course materials, presentations, workshops, scholarly reviews, educational resources, and other permitted uses under CC BY 4.0, provided the required attribution is supplied.

Commercial use is permitted under CC BY 4.0

Unlike CC BY-NC-ND, the current CC BY 4.0 license does not impose a non-commercial restriction. Commercial reuse is permitted when the license conditions, attribution requirements, and third-party rights are respected.

No reuse may falsely imply endorsement by the authors, journal, editorial team, or publisher.

Derivative works are allowed with clear attribution

Users may translate, adapt, remix, transform, or build upon PSH content covered by CC BY 4.0.

Adaptations should clearly indicate that changes were made and must not be presented as an unchanged or officially endorsed version of the original article.

Machine-readable scholarly reuse

Openly licensed PSH content may be used for text and data mining, computational analysis, indexing, discovery, machine-assisted synthesis, and related lawful scholarly or commercial purposes in accordance with CC BY 4.0 and any applicable third-party rights.

Open access to articles and openness of research data are related but distinct

The CC BY 4.0 license applies to the published article unless otherwise indicated. Research datasets may be subject to their own repository license, consent requirements, confidentiality restrictions, biodiversity regulations, funder requirements, or other legal conditions.

Authors should use appropriate repositories and provide a Data Availability statement for research articles in accordance with PSH author policies.

Software may require a separate license

Source code, software packages, analysis pipelines, scripts, databases, or other computational resources associated with an article may be governed by a software-specific or repository-specific license. Authors should state the applicable license when these resources are made available separately.

Current no-fee publication policy through 2029

PSH currently operates under a no-fee publication policy through 2029. Authors are therefore not currently charged an Article Processing Charge (APC) for articles published under this policy.

If the journal introduces, changes, or extends publication charges in the future, the current fee policy should be stated clearly on the journal website before submission and publication.

Financial status does not determine editorial outcomes

Manuscript acceptance, rejection, peer review, reviewer selection, revisions, and editorial decisions must remain independent of an author's ability to pay, waiver status, institutional resources, funding source, or commercial relationship.

Supporting open-access compliance

Authors are responsible for checking whether their funder, institution, consortium, or grant requires a specific open-access license, repository deposit, data-sharing statement, acknowledgment, or publication metadata.

CC BY 4.0 is broadly compatible with many open-access mandates, but authors should confirm the requirements that apply to their own funding or institution.

The journal website hosts the authoritative published version

The PSH version of record includes the final article, citation details, DOI, license information, publication dates, and any subsequent correction, expression of concern, or retraction notice.

Authors and readers are encouraged to cite the version of record when available.

Persistent identification supports open discovery

PSH assigns persistent DOIs to published articles and maintains structured publication metadata to support citation, discovery, linking, repository use, indexing, and scholarly interoperability.

Open access does not prevent correction of the scholarly record

Corrections, expressions of concern, and retraction notices should remain openly accessible and linked to the affected article.

When an article is retracted, the bibliographic record should remain identifiable so readers can understand the publication history and reason for the editorial action.

Long-term accessibility and preservation

PSH aims to preserve its published scholarly record through the journal's OJS infrastructure, DOI-based metadata, backups, repository sharing, and compatible digital-preservation arrangements as they are formally configured.

The journal should claim participation in a named preservation network such as PKP PN, LOCKSS, or CLOCKSS only when that participation has been technically activated and verified.

Open access supports broad readership

PSH seeks to make article pages, metadata, abstracts, full texts, and downloadable publication files readily discoverable and accessible through the journal platform.

Open access improves the ability of search engines, repositories, scholarly discovery services, educators, and researchers to find and use published work, but it does not guarantee indexing or citation performance.

License information should be visible on every published article

The article landing page and/or publication file should clearly identify the applicable Creative Commons license.

Consistent license metadata is important for readers, repositories, indexing services, automated reuse systems, and funder compliance.

Future license changes should not be applied retroactively without a legal basis

If PSH changes the default license for future publications, the journal should state the effective date clearly. Articles already published should continue to be governed by the license stated on those articles unless a lawful and documented agreement provides otherwise.

Related policies & author information

The Open Access Policy should be read together with the journal's manuscript preparation, submission, editorial, and publication policies.

The defensible current PSH open-access position

Open access with clear reuse rights

Plant Science Horizons supports broad access to plant-science scholarship by publishing articles openly under CC BY 4.0, allowing authors to retain copyright and enabling readers to read, share, adapt, translate, mine, and reuse licensed content with proper attribution. The journal currently charges no publication fee through 2029 and maintains editorial decisions independently of financial considerations.