All articles published in Spectrum of Operational Research (SOR), eISSN 3042-1470, are published on an immediate open-access basis. Published articles are freely and permanently available online to readers without subscription or other access barriers.
Articles published in SOR are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) , which permits sharing, redistribution, adaptation, and reuse, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the license is provided, and any changes are indicated.
SOR applies an Article Processing Charge (APC) of EUR 1,500 for manuscripts accepted for publication.
The APC is charged only after a manuscript has successfully completed the editorial and peer-review process and has received a formal acceptance decision. There is no submission fee or peer-review fee, and authors are not required to make any payment for the initial submission or evaluation of their manuscript.
The APC contributes to the costs associated with editorial administration, manuscript processing, production, online publication, digital preservation, DOI registration, website and publishing infrastructure, and the permanent open-access availability of published articles.
Authors must be aware of and accept the applicable APC before publication. Following acceptance, the corresponding author will receive the necessary payment information and instructions from the journal or Publisher.
Payment of the APC does not influence the editorial evaluation of a manuscript and does not guarantee acceptance. A manuscript can be accepted only after completion of the journal's applicable editorial and peer-review procedures.
Once an APC has been paid, it is non-refundable. Authors should therefore ensure that the payment details, manuscript information, and applicable charge are correct before completing payment.
A refund may be considered only where the payment resulted from an error attributable to SOR or its Publisher, including an incorrect charge, duplicate payment caused by the journal's or Publisher's processing error, or another demonstrable administrative or technical error for which the journal or Publisher is responsible.
A refund will not normally be provided where an author subsequently decides to withdraw an accepted article, changes their decision regarding publication, identifies an alternative source of funding, or for other reasons that are not attributable to an error by the journal or Publisher.
Where an article requires correction, retraction, or another post-publication action in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policies, this does not in itself create an entitlement to reimbursement of the APC.
The journal's editorial decisions are completely independent of financial considerations. The existence, payment, or source of an APC does not influence whether a manuscript is sent for peer review, requires revision, is accepted, or is rejected.
Manuscripts are evaluated according to the journal's editorial criteria, scholarly quality, originality, relevance, methodological soundness, and applicable peer-review and publication ethics standards.
The applicable APC is publicly disclosed on the journal website. Authors will not be charged undisclosed mandatory publication fees in addition to the stated APC.
If the APC or the journal's fee policy changes, the applicable charge will be clearly communicated and publicly disclosed. The APC applicable to a manuscript will be determined according to the journal's fee policy in effect for that submission, unless otherwise explicitly agreed in writing by the journal or Publisher.
