Policies & Terms

1. Open Access

ICR Publications supports the broad dissemination of scholarly research. Articles published as open access are freely available online without subscription barriers.

Open-access publication does not affect editorial standards. Manuscripts are evaluated according to academic quality, originality, methodological appropriateness, research integrity, journal scope, and scholarly contribution.

Depending on the journal, open-access publication may be supported through Article Processing Charges (APCs), institutions, societies, grants, sponsorship, partnerships, or other funding arrangements.

Where an APC applies:

  • Payment does not guarantee acceptance or publication;
  • Editorial decisions remain independent of payment;
  • Waivers or discounts do not influence editorial decisions; and
  • The applicable charge is stated by the relevant journal.

Authors may share and deposit open-access articles according to the licence attached to the published article.

Where an article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0) ↗, reuse must follow the conditions of that licence.

Back to Table of Contents

2. Publication Ethics

ICR Publications is committed to maintaining the integrity, reliability, transparency, and credibility of scholarly research.

Authors are responsible for the originality, accuracy, ethical conduct, authorship, citations, data, declarations, and conclusions of their work. Editors must make independent and fair decisions, while reviewers must provide confidential, constructive, and unbiased assessments.

ICR Publications does not tolerate:

  • Plagiarism or duplicate publication;
  • Fabricated or falsified data;
  • Inappropriate image manipulation;
  • Fake or purchased authorship;
  • Ghost or honorary authorship;
  • Peer-review manipulation;
  • False reviewer identities;
  • Fabricated ethics approvals;
  • Citation manipulation;
  • Serious undisclosed conflicts of interest; or
  • Paper-mill or systematic publication manipulation.

Research involving human participants, animals, identifiable personal information, vulnerable populations, or other ethically sensitive procedures must comply with applicable institutional, national, and disciplinary requirements.

Where concerns arise, ICR Publications may request explanations, original data, ethics documentation, consent records, images, analytical files, peer-review records, authorship information, or other relevant evidence. Where appropriate, the publisher may contact institutions, funders, ethics committees, research-integrity offices, or other responsible bodies.

ICR Publications follows recognised publication-ethics principles and may apply guidance provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ↗, including the COPE Core Practices ↗, when assessing publication-ethics and research-integrity concerns.

Research-integrity concerns: misconduct@icrp.org.uk

Back to Table of Contents

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

ICR Publications permits responsible use of artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies where their use does not replace human scholarly judgement or compromise research integrity, confidentiality, copyright, privacy, or transparency.

Authors

Authors may use AI-assisted technologies for appropriate support purposes such as improving grammar, readability, clarity, or organisation. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the final manuscript.

Material use of generative AI in manuscript preparation must be disclosed where appropriate. Authors must independently verify AI-assisted:

  • Factual claims;
  • Citations and references;
  • Quotations;
  • Statistical statements;
  • Methods;
  • Interpretations;
  • Conclusions; and
  • Other scholarly content.

Authors must not submit fabricated references, invented evidence, false quotations, manipulated findings, or unsupported claims generated by AI.

AI systems, large language models, chatbots, and other automated systems cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because authorship requires accountable human responsibility.

Reviewers

Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, figures, tables, data, supplementary files, review forms, or confidential editorial correspondence into unauthorised generative AI systems.

Peer-review reports must reflect the reviewer's own scholarly assessment. AI must not replace the reviewer's academic judgement or independently determine a recommendation.

Editors

Editors must protect manuscript confidentiality and must not upload confidential submissions to unauthorised external AI systems.

AI systems must not independently make final decisions concerning:

  • Desk rejection;
  • Acceptance;
  • Rejection;
  • Research misconduct;
  • Correction;
  • Expression of Concern; or
  • Retraction.

Final responsibility remains with an authorised human editor.

Images and Research Data

AI must not be used to fabricate, remove, add, or materially alter research evidence in a manner that misrepresents the original data or research record.

Where AI-assisted technology forms a legitimate part of the research methodology, its use must be described transparently and with sufficient methodological information for readers to understand how the technology was used.

Undisclosed, deceptive, or unethical AI use may result in clarification requests, revision, rejection, cancellation of a review report, research-integrity investigation, correction, Expression of Concern, retraction, or other appropriate action.

Back to Table of Contents

4. Corrections, Retractions and Removal of Published Content

ICR Publications is committed to maintaining an accurate, transparent, and reliable scholarly record. Substantive changes to published research should not normally be made silently.

Concerns relating to published content will be assessed according to the circumstances of the case and, where appropriate, relevant COPE Retraction Guidelines ↗.

Corrections

A Correction or Erratum may be published where an error affects part of an article but does not invalidate the work as a whole.

Examples may include:

  • Incorrect data values;
  • Errors in figures or tables;
  • Incorrect author or affiliation information;
  • Incorrect funding information;
  • Material citation or reference errors;
  • Missing declarations;
  • Methodological clarification; or
  • Production errors introduced during publication.

A formal correction should identify the original article and clearly explain the change.

Expression of Concern

An Expression of Concern may be published where serious questions exist about an article but sufficient evidence is not yet available to reach a final conclusion.

This may be appropriate where:

  • An investigation is continuing;
  • Institutional findings are pending;
  • Evidence is incomplete or conflicting;
  • Serious data or image concerns remain unresolved;
  • Research ethics documentation is disputed;
  • Authorship concerns remain unresolved; or
  • Peer-review manipulation is suspected.

The purpose of an Expression of Concern is to inform readers while allowing a fair investigation to continue.

Retractions

An article may be retracted where its reliability, integrity, legality, or ethical basis has been seriously compromised.

Reasons may include:

  • Fabricated or falsified data;
  • Seriously unreliable findings;
  • Plagiarism;
  • Major image manipulation;
  • Duplicate or redundant publication;
  • Unethical research;
  • Fabricated ethics approval or consent;
  • False authorship or identity;
  • Sale or purchase of authorship;
  • Peer-review manipulation;
  • Fake reviewer identities;
  • Paper-mill activity;
  • Serious copyright infringement;
  • Systematic publication manipulation;
  • Serious undisclosed competing interests that materially affect interpretation of the article; or
  • Other major violations affecting the reliability or integrity of the publication.

The purpose of retraction is primarily to correct the scholarly record and protect readers rather than to punish authors.

Where an article is retracted, it will normally remain available as part of the scholarly record and will be clearly identified as retracted.

Where technically possible:

  • The article will be clearly marked as retracted;
  • The PDF may be watermarked "Retracted";
  • A retraction notice will be linked to the article;
  • The notice will explain the reason for retraction where legally and ethically appropriate; and
  • Relevant publication-status metadata will be updated.

Removal of Published Content

Complete removal of published content is exceptional because maintaining the scholarly record is normally preferable to deleting scholarly material.

ICR Publications may remove or substantially restrict access to content where continued publication creates a serious legal, privacy, confidentiality, safety, or regulatory problem that cannot reasonably be resolved through correction, retraction, or redaction.

Removal may occur where:

  • The content infringes intellectual-property rights, privacy rights, confidentiality obligations, or other legal rights;
  • A court, regulator, government authority, or other legally competent body requires removal;
  • Continued publication is unlawful;
  • The content contains information creating a serious privacy or confidentiality risk;
  • The content presents an immediate and serious health or safety risk; or
  • Another exceptional legal or safety circumstance requires removal.

Research misconduct, conflicts of interest, unethical behaviour, authorship manipulation, citation manipulation, or peer-review manipulation will normally be addressed through investigation, correction, Expression of Concern, or retraction rather than physical deletion of the scholarly record.

Where removal is necessary, bibliographic metadata and an explanatory notice will normally remain available where legally and technically possible.

Author Response

Authors will normally be given an opportunity to respond to material allegations before a final decision is reached, unless urgent legal, safety, confidentiality, or research-integrity considerations require immediate action.

ICR Publications may proceed with an appropriate correction, Expression of Concern, retraction, or removal even if one or more authors disagree where the available evidence justifies the action.

Publication Status and Crossmark

Where implemented, ICR Publications may use Crossref Crossmark ↗ to help readers identify whether an article is current or has been subject to a Correction, Expression of Concern, Retraction, or other significant update.

Back to Table of Contents

Copyright and licensing determine ownership of scholarly content, the rights granted to ICR Publications, and the conditions under which published material may be shared, reproduced, adapted, deposited, or otherwise reused.

Authors whose manuscripts are accepted may be required to complete an appropriate Journal Publishing Agreement or Author Agreement before publication.

Open-Access Articles

For open-access articles, authors normally retain copyright unless copyright is legally owned by an employer, institution, government body, company, or another authorised rights holder.

Authors grant ICR Publications the rights necessary to:

  • Publish the Version of Record;
  • Identify ICR Publications as the original publisher;
  • Register and maintain publication metadata;
  • Assign or register a DOI where applicable;
  • Distribute and disseminate the article;
  • Supply metadata to scholarly services;
  • Archive and preserve the publication;
  • Publish corrections or publication-status notices; and
  • Maintain the scholarly record.

Where an article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0) ↗, users may share and adapt the work, including for commercial purposes, subject to the conditions of the licence.

Users should:

  • Credit the original author or authors;
  • Cite the original publication;
  • Provide the DOI or link to the Version of Record where appropriate;
  • Identify the applicable licence; and
  • Indicate whether changes were made where required.

Author Sharing and Repositories

Subject to the applicable journal policy, licence, and Author Agreement, authors may generally share permitted versions of their work through:

  • Personal or professional websites;
  • Institutional repositories;
  • Subject repositories;
  • Research-sharing platforms;
  • Academic networks; and
  • Other appropriate scholarly channels.

Where the published Version of Record is shared, the original citation, DOI, copyright statement, and applicable licence should be retained.

Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for identifying third-party copyrighted material and obtaining permission for its publication and reuse where permission is required.

This may include:

  • Figures;
  • Tables;
  • Photographs;
  • Maps;
  • Questionnaires or scales;
  • Illustrations;
  • Datasets;
  • Long quotations; and
  • Previously published material.

A Creative Commons licence applied to an article does not automatically apply to separately identified third-party content.

Non-Open-Access Content

Where ICR Publications publishes content under a subscription or another non-open-access model, different copyright arrangements may apply.

Depending on the publication, authors or copyright owners may be required to:

  • Transfer copyright;
  • Grant ICR Publications an exclusive licence to publish; or
  • Enter into another appropriate publishing agreement.

The relevant Author Agreement governs the applicable rights.

Copyright Concerns

Claims involving copyright infringement or unauthorised use should preferably identify:

  • The protected work;
  • The allegedly infringing material;
  • The relevant article URL or DOI;
  • The claimant's relationship to the copyright; and
  • Supporting documentation where available.

Copyright and licensing enquiries: publications@icrp.org.uk

Back to Table of Contents

6. Accessibility

ICR Publications is committed to progressively improving access to scholarly information for readers, authors, reviewers, editors, researchers, students, librarians, and users with different accessibility requirements.

ICR Publications aims, where reasonably practicable, to align publisher-controlled digital content with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 ↗, particularly Level AA accessibility requirements.

Our accessibility approach is informed by the WCAG principles that digital information should be:

  • Perceivable;
  • Operable;
  • Understandable; and
  • Robust.

Website Accessibility

Accessibility considerations for publisher-controlled websites may include:

  • Logical heading structures;
  • Keyboard-accessible navigation where possible;
  • Visible keyboard focus;
  • Readable typography;
  • Appropriate colour contrast;
  • Meaningful link text;
  • Clear form labels;
  • Responsive page layouts;
  • Text resizing and browser zoom; and
  • Compatibility with commonly used assistive technologies where reasonably practicable.

Accessibility of Published Content

Authors should consider accessibility when preparing manuscripts, figures, tables, and supplementary materials.

Authors are encouraged to:

  • Provide descriptive figure captions;
  • Explain important visual information in the article text;
  • Avoid relying on colour alone to communicate essential information;
  • Use clear and readable figure labels;
  • Use meaningful table headings;
  • Avoid unnecessarily complex tables;
  • Use sufficient contrast;
  • Provide captions or transcripts for important multimedia where appropriate; and
  • Follow accessibility requirements contained in applicable journal guidelines.

Legacy Content

Some older PDFs, archived articles, scanned material, supplementary files, and content created before current accessibility practices were introduced may not fully meet contemporary accessibility standards.

ICR Publications aims to improve accessibility progressively but may not be able to remediate every historical document immediately.

Third-Party Services

ICR Publications websites may connect to independent third-party systems such as DOI services, ORCID, databases, payment systems, analytics platforms, repositories, and other scholarly services.

ICR Publications does not control every technical aspect of these external services and cannot guarantee their accessibility.

Accessibility Assistance

If a reader experiences an accessibility barrier, ICR Publications will consider reasonable assistance or alternative access where technically, legally, and practically possible.

This policy describes ICR Publications' accessibility objective and should not be interpreted as a representation that every historical page, PDF, document, system, or third-party component currently achieves complete WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance.

Accessibility enquiries: publications@icrp.org.uk

Back to Table of Contents

7. Terms of Use

These Terms of Use apply to websites, journal platforms, editorial systems, online resources, and digital services operated by ICR Publications.

User Accounts

Users are responsible for providing accurate information, maintaining the confidentiality of account credentials, and protecting their accounts against unauthorised use.

Users must not impersonate another person, create deceptive identities, misrepresent institutional affiliations, or use accounts to manipulate submission, editorial, or peer-review processes.

Permitted Use

ICR Publications websites and scholarly content may be used for legitimate research, educational, academic, editorial, professional, and informational purposes, subject to applicable copyright, licensing, privacy, confidentiality, and contractual requirements.

Prohibited Use

Users must not:

  • Attempt unauthorised access to systems or accounts;
  • Introduce malicious software;
  • Manipulate peer review;
  • Submit fraudulent or unlawful material;
  • Impersonate authors, editors, reviewers, or other users;
  • Harvest personal information unlawfully;
  • Interfere with website operation;
  • Circumvent technical or security controls;
  • Violate copyright, confidentiality, privacy, or other legal rights;
  • Misuse ICR Publications names, journal names, logos, trademarks, or branding; or
  • Use ICR Publications services for unlawful activities.

Website Availability

ICR Publications seeks to maintain reliable digital services but does not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free availability.

Services may occasionally be unavailable because of maintenance, software updates, hosting problems, technical failures, security incidents, external-service interruptions, or other circumstances outside our reasonable control.

Scholarly Content

Published articles represent the research, analysis, findings, conclusions, and opinions of their respective authors.

Publication does not necessarily mean that all statements represent the views of ICR Publications, journal editors, Editorial Board members, institutions, societies, funders, or other associated organisations.

Readers are responsible for evaluating scholarly information in relation to their own research, professional, technical, medical, legal, or other requirements.

External Services

ICR Publications websites may link to or integrate with scholarly and technical services including Crossref ↗, ORCID ↗, indexing databases, repositories, payment providers, analytics services, preservation services, and other third-party systems.

External services operate under their own terms, policies, accessibility arrangements, and technical conditions.

Suspension or Restriction of Access

ICR Publications may restrict, suspend, or terminate access to accounts or services where reasonably necessary because of:

  • Fraud;
  • Security concerns;
  • Identity misrepresentation;
  • Peer-review manipulation;
  • Publication manipulation;
  • Research-integrity concerns;
  • Abusive activity;
  • Unauthorised system access;
  • Material violation of publisher policies; or
  • Applicable legal requirements.

Additional Terms

Specific publishing transactions, Article Processing Charges, author services, refunds, publication agreements, institutional arrangements, society partnerships, publisher partnerships, or other commercial relationships may be subject to additional terms and agreements.

General enquiries: publications@icrp.org.uk

Back to Table of Contents

8. External Standards & References

ICR Publications policies are informed, where relevant, by recognised scholarly publishing, research-integrity, licensing, persistent-identification, and accessibility standards.

Reference to an external organisation, framework, guideline, licence, or standard does not imply that the organisation has reviewed, endorsed, certified, or approved ICR Publications or any individual ICR Publications journal unless such recognition is expressly stated.

Back to Table of Contents

ICR Publications may update these Policies & Terms to reflect developments in scholarly publishing, research integrity, technology, artificial intelligence, accessibility standards, legal requirements, or organisational procedures. The version published on the ICR Publications website represents the current version.