Website, account, publishing-platform and scholarly-service terms
1. About these Terms
These Terms and Conditions govern access to and use of Eldran Academic Press websites, journal websites, manuscript-submission and peer-review services, account functions, published content, communications, and related online services (together, the “Services”).
Eldran Academic Press (“Eldran”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) provides the Services described in these Terms. Correspondence may be sent to 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom or editorial@eldranacademic.com.
By creating an account, submitting a manuscript, accepting an editorial or review assignment, registering for a paid service, or otherwise using functionality that expressly refers to these Terms, you agree to them. Merely reading an openly accessible article does not require account registration.
2. Related policies
These Terms should be read with Eldran’s Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Copyright Statement, Peer Review Policy, Author Guidelines, APC & Waiver Policy, Research Integrity Policy, Corrections & Retractions Policy, and Complaints & Appeals Policy. Where a journal-specific rule is more specific, it applies to that journal unless it conflicts with a mandatory publisher-level policy or applicable law.
3. Eligibility and capacity
You must have legal capacity to enter into the relevant agreement or be authorised to act for the institution, funder, employer, society, research group, or other organisation you represent. Where a user is under 18, Eldran may require consent or confirmation from a parent, guardian, institution, or other authorised adult where appropriate to the service and applicable law.
4. Accounts and account security
- Provide accurate, current and complete registration information and keep it reasonably up to date.
- Keep your credentials confidential and do not share an account in a way that defeats identity, audit, editorial or security controls.
- Use only identities, affiliations, ORCID iDs and contact details that you are entitled to use.
- Notify Eldran promptly if you suspect unauthorised access, credential compromise, impersonation or misuse of your account.
- Do not create deceptive accounts, reviewer identities, editor identities or profiles.
Eldran may require email verification, ORCID authentication, institutional verification, identity checks, two-factor authentication or other proportionate controls. Account access may be limited or suspended where necessary to protect security, research integrity, other users, or the scholarly record.
5. Acceptable use of the Services
You must use the Services lawfully and professionally. You must not:
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to accounts, manuscripts, reviewer identities, servers or administrative functions;
- scrape, crawl, probe, overload or interfere with the Services in a manner that materially degrades performance or bypasses published technical controls;
- upload malware, malicious code, unlawful material, or content that infringes intellectual-property, privacy or confidentiality rights;
- harass, threaten, impersonate, discriminate against or deliberately mislead another participant;
- manipulate peer review, citations, authorship, editorial assignments, metrics, downloads, views or other publishing records;
- use automated tools to create false submissions, accounts, reviews, traffic or engagement;
- reuse confidential manuscripts, reviews or unpublished data outside the authorised scholarly process.
6. Manuscript submissions
By submitting a manuscript, the submitting author confirms that they are authorised to act for all listed authors in relation to submission and editorial correspondence, subject to any separate authorship confirmation required by the journal.
Authors must provide accurate metadata, disclose relevant competing interests and funding, comply with applicable research-ethics requirements, identify related or overlapping submissions, disclose material use of generative AI where required, and provide permissions for third-party material where necessary.
Submission does not guarantee external review, acceptance, publication, a particular decision time, indexing, citation, media coverage, or any particular scholarly impact.
7. Editorial independence and peer review
Editorial decisions are made under Eldran’s editorial and peer-review policies. Article processing charges, waiver requests, institutional status, commercial relationships, sponsorship, or an author’s ability to pay must not determine acceptance or rejection.
Review reports and editorial recommendations are advisory components of the decision process. Every submitted manuscript must undergo plagiarism, text-similarity and AI-writing screening through a licensed Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com/products/similarity) or iThenticate (https://www.ithenticate.com/) service before external peer review. Eldran may also conduct technical, ethics, research-integrity, identity, data, image, reference or other checks before, during or after peer review. Human editors evaluate all automated indicators.
8. Editors and reviewers
Editors and reviewers must comply with the applicable role terms, confidentiality rules, conflict-of-interest requirements and Peer Review Policy. They must not use unpublished information obtained through review for personal, research, competitive, financial or commercial advantage.
Eldran may withdraw assignments, disregard reviews, reassign manuscripts, investigate conflicts or manipulation, and restrict future participation when editorial standards are not met.
9. Research integrity and investigations
Eldran may investigate suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, image manipulation, authorship misconduct, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, unethical research, or other concerns. We may request supporting records and, where appropriate, contact institutions, ethics bodies, funders, other publishers, indexing services, or relevant authorities subject to applicable law and confidentiality obligations.
10. Acceptance, production and publication
Acceptance is provisional until required editorial, integrity, rights, metadata, payment and production checks are complete. A material issue discovered before publication may cause production to pause, the manuscript to return to review, or an acceptance decision to be reconsidered.
Authors must review proofs promptly and identify errors. Proof correction is intended to correct production errors and limited author errors, not to introduce substantial new analyses or claims without editorial approval.
11. Article processing charges and payments
Where an article processing charge (“APC”) applies, the amount, currency, applicable taxes, available discounts or waivers, and payment process will be stated in the relevant journal information or communicated before payment is required. Eldran does not charge a submission fee unless a specific service is expressly identified as chargeable.
An APC is ordinarily invoiced only after acceptance. Payment does not purchase acceptance, favourable peer review, citation, indexing, or any editorial outcome. Invoices must contain accurate payer and tax information. Late or failed payment may delay publication but must not retrospectively alter the scholarly decision.
12. Copyright, licences and author permissions
Authors retain copyright in their articles unless a different ownership position applies by law or agreement. As a condition of publication, authors grant Eldran the rights reasonably necessary to publish, identify, preserve, distribute, register, index, correct and maintain the scholarly version of record.
Unless an article states otherwise, Eldran publishes open-access scholarly articles under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). The licence terms are available at:
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
Third-party material may be subject to separate rights or notices and is not automatically covered by the article’s open licence. Authors are responsible for identifying restrictions and obtaining necessary permissions.
13. Article metadata and identifiers
Eldran may distribute bibliographic metadata, abstracts, references, author identifiers, affiliations, funding information, licence information and related publication metadata to DOI registration agencies, discovery services, libraries, repositories, indexing services, preservation services and other scholarly infrastructure. Published metadata may remain publicly available as part of the scholarly record even if an account is later closed.
14. Website and publisher-owned content
Except where a separate licence is stated, the design, branding, publisher text, journal logos, software customisations, graphics, compilation, navigation, and other publisher-created website material are owned by or licensed to Eldran and are protected by intellectual-property law. Open licences applying to scholarly articles do not automatically license Eldran’s trademarks, logos, site design or proprietary software.
15. Automated access, text and data mining
Lawful research use, quotation, linking, indexing and text/data mining are permitted to the extent allowed by the applicable article licence and law. Automated access must respect reasonable technical controls, security measures, rate limits and third-party rights. Eldran may restrict automated activity that threatens security or service availability or is used to manipulate metrics.
16. Artificial intelligence and automated tools
Use of AI tools in manuscript preparation, peer review or editorial work is governed by Eldran’s author, peer-review and research-integrity policies. Every submitted manuscript receives a mandatory AI-writing check through the licensed Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com/products/similarity) or iThenticate (https://www.ithenticate.com/) workflow. Users remain responsible for accuracy, confidentiality, attribution and compliance. Confidential manuscripts or reviews must not be uploaded to public generative-AI services where doing so would breach confidentiality or data-protection obligations.
17. External links and third-party services
The Services may link to or interoperate with external services such as ORCID, DOI infrastructure, indexing platforms, payment providers, email providers, analytics services, repositories, conference tools or social platforms. Third-party services operate under their own terms and privacy practices. A link or integration does not imply endorsement of all third-party content.
18. Service availability and changes
Eldran may maintain, upgrade, secure, alter or discontinue parts of the Services. We aim for reliable availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. Planned maintenance, emergency security work, internet outages, vendor failures and events outside reasonable control may affect access.
19. Suspension and termination
Eldran may suspend or terminate access where reasonably necessary for security, unlawful activity, repeated policy breaches, non-payment for a chargeable service, harassment, fraudulent identity, peer-review manipulation, or protection of the scholarly record. Where appropriate, we will provide notice and an opportunity to respond, subject to security, legal or integrity constraints.
20. Disclaimers
Scholarly content is provided for research, educational and informational purposes. Publication does not constitute professional medical, legal, financial, engineering or other professional advice. Views expressed by authors are their own unless expressly stated otherwise. Peer review reduces risk but does not guarantee that a publication is free from error.
21. Liability
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where exclusion or limitation is prohibited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Subject to that rule, Eldran will not be liable for indirect or consequential losses that were not reasonably foreseeable from use of free public content or ordinary website functions.
If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are not affected. Any limitation applicable to a paid service must be interpreted consistently with mandatory consumer and contract law.
22. Privacy and cookies
Personal information is handled under Eldran’s Privacy Policy. Storage and access technologies, including cookies, are governed by the Cookie Policy and the choices presented through the website’s consent interface. Non-essential cookies or similar technologies should not be activated before the required consent is obtained.
23. Events
Attendance at Eldran-organised events is additionally governed by the Events Terms and Conditions and any event-specific terms shown at registration. Event-specific terms may address fees, cancellation, recordings, accessibility, venue rules, platform rules and speaker permissions.
24. Complaints, appeals and notices
Editorial appeals and complaints must follow Eldran’s published Complaints & Appeals Policy. Privacy complaints should be sent to privacy@eldranacademic.com. Research-integrity concerns should be sent to integrity@eldranacademic.com. General editorial enquiries may be sent to editorial@eldranacademic.com.
25. Governing law and jurisdiction
These Terms and non-contractual obligations arising from them are governed by the law of England and Wales, except where mandatory law gives an individual additional protections that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to those protections, the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over disputes arising from these Terms.
26. Changes to these Terms
Eldran may update these Terms to reflect legal, regulatory, technical or operational changes. The effective date and version will be stated at the top of the document. Material changes will be described on the Summary of Changes page. Continued use after a change does not override any legal requirement to obtain fresh consent or agreement where such consent or agreement is required.
External legal and regulatory resources
These links are provided for transparency and reference. If legislation or regulatory guidance changes, Eldran should update this policy and its operational procedures accordingly.
- UK legislation - Data Protection Act 2018: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents
- UK legislation - Data (Use and Access) Act 2025: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/18/contents
- UK legislation - Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents
- Creative Commons CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
27. Scholarly infrastructure and status statements
Eldran may link to or use scholarly infrastructure and discovery services for researcher identifiers, persistent article links, metadata exchange and discoverability. The presence of a name, link or technical reference does not by itself mean that Eldran or an Eldran journal is a member, registered participant, indexed publication or certified publisher.
Where an integration becomes operational, the applicable page may describe the verified function precisely. For example, individual article DOIs should be shown as resolvable DOI links, and an ORCID identifier should be associated with the relevant person only where it has been supplied or verified through an authorised process. Indexing and membership claims require separate confirmation.
- Crossref: https://www.crossref.org/
- Crossref DOI resolver: https://doi.org/
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/
- Directory of Open Access Journals: https://doaj.org/
28. Related policies
These pages provide the related publisher-level requirements and should be read together with this document where their subject matter applies.
- Privacy Policy: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/privacy/
- Events Terms and Conditions: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/events-terms/
- Open Access and Licensing Policy: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/open-access/
- Peer Review Policy: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/peer-review/
- Summary of Changes: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/changes/