RSC Licence to Publish
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RSC Licence to Publish

This page describes the publication and reuse terms that apply to articles published under the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Licence to Publish.

Copyright Ownership

The copyright in the article remains with the copyright owner(s). The copyright owner(s) grant the RSC an exclusive licence to publish, reproduce, distribute, display, store, translate, adapt and otherwise exploit the article for the full term of copyright, subject to the rights retained by the copyright owner(s) and the terms of the licence agreement.

Rights Granted to the RSC

For articles published under this licence:

  • The RSC receives an exclusive licence to edit, adapt, publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the article in all formats and media worldwide.
  • The RSC may translate the article, prepare adaptations, summaries, extracts and derivative works, and exercise publication rights in those versions.
  • Supplementary Material is licensed to the RSC on a non-exclusive basis.
  • The RSC may sublicense, transfer, distribute or otherwise make available the article and supplementary material as permitted by the agreement.

Rights Retained by Authors and Copyright Owners

The copyright owner(s) retain certain non-exclusive rights.

Submitted Manuscript

The copyright owner(s) may:

  • Post the Submitted Manuscript on personal websites, approved preprint servers, repositories, approved scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs), or institutional repositories.
  • Share the Submitted Manuscript with colleagues, provided there is no systematic distribution.

Accepted Manuscript

The copyright owner(s) may:

  • Share the Accepted Manuscript privately with colleagues and private research-sharing groups, including approved SCNs, provided there is no systematic distribution, and the manuscript is not used for commercial purposes.
  • After the embargo period expires, make the Accepted Manuscript publicly available through personal websites, institutional repositories, subject repositories, and approved SCNs.

Accepted Manuscript Embargo and Reuse Licence

Embargo period: 12 months from publication of the Accepted Manuscript, or from publication of the Version of Record where no Accepted Manuscript is published.

After expiry of the embargo period, third parties may copy and reproduce the Accepted Manuscript under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence, as permitted by the Licence to Publish Agreement.

Version of Record

The copyright owner(s) may:

  • Share copies of the Version of Record with colleagues on request for personal use.
  • Use the Version of Record in teaching and internal training activities.
  • Include the Version of Record in grant applications and theses.
  • Present and communicate the Version of Record in talks and presentations.

Reuse of Abstracts, Figures, Tables and Limited Text

The copyright owner(s) may:

  • Reuse unmodified abstracts for non-commercial purposes.

Reuse figures, tables, artwork and up to 10% of article text for non-commercial purposes with appropriate attribution and without dual publication.