This journal offers authors the option to publish their research via subscription (without Article Publishing Charge) or open access. To publish open access, a publication fee (APC) needs to be met by the author or research funder.  

Publishing an article in this journal requires an Article Processing Charge (APC) that will be billed to the submitting author following acceptance. Apart from this Article Processing Charge there are no other fees (for example submission charges, page charges, or color charges).  The Article Processing Charge for the journal is $600. 

Refund policy

Once an article has been accepted for publication, an Article Processing Charge is due. The submitting author assumes responsibility for the Article Processing Charge, and NSP will not issue refunds of any kind. 

Article processing charge waiver policy 

NSP operates a transparent waiver policy to support researchers who are unable to meet some or all of the cost associated with publishing their work. All of NSPs journals require article processing charges (APCs) to be paid following acceptance. To support researchers who are unable to meet some or all of the costs associated with publishing in NSP journals, NSP operates a transparent waiver policy. 

Our waiver policy adheres to Research4Life’s best practice guidelines for waiver policies – ensuring researchers from low-to-middle income countries can easily understand what automatic support for article processing charges is available to them. 

Qualifying for a waiver 

To help support researchers in low-to-middle income countries, all NSP journals automatically provide partial waivers of article processing charges for manuscripts based on the corresponding authors listed affiliation. Authors need to apply for these waivers during the submission processes. 

To help support researchers in low-to-middle income countries, all NSP journals automatically provide full and partial waivers of article processing charges for manuscripts based on the corresponding authors listed affiliation. Authors do not need to request these waivers; they will be applied at submission. Our waiver policy follows a two tier approach: 

Countries in Research4Life’s “Group A” (listed below) will receive a full (100%) waiver of article processing charges  and  “Group B” (listed below) will receive a partial (50%) waiver of article processing charges. Waiver requests outside of these two tiers will not be considered.

Countries eligible for a full (100%) waiver

NSP provides an automatic 100% waiver for article processing charges on manuscripts where the authors are based in any of the countries listed below 

Afghanistan – Angola – Bangladesh – Belize – Benin – Bhutan - Burkina Faso –Burundi – Cambodia – Cameroon - Cabo Verde - Central African Republic – Chad – Comoros – Congo - Cook Islands - Côte d’Ivoire – Cuba - Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - Democratic - Republic of the Congo – Djibouti – Dominica - Equatorial Guinea – Eritrea – Eswatini – Ethiopia – Gambia – Grenada – Guinea - Guinea-Bissau – Haiti – Kenya – Kiribati – Kyrgyzstan - Lao People’s Democratic Republic – Lesotho – Liberia – Madagascar – Malawi – Maldives – Mali - Marshall Islands – Mauritania - Micronesia (Federated States of) – Mozambique – Myanmar – Nauru – Nepal – Nicaragua – Niger – Niue - Papua New Guinea - Republic of Moldova – Saint Helena - Saint Lucia - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines- Samoa- Sao Tome and Principe- Senegal - Sierra Leone - Solomon Islands – Somalia - South Sudan- Sudan – Suriname - Syrian Arab Republic – Tajikistan - Timor-Leste – Togo – Tokelau- Tonga – Tuvalu – Uganda – Ukraine - United Republic of Tanzania – Vanuatu – Venezuela – Zambia - Zimbabwe

Countries eligible for a partial (50%) waiver

Antigua and Barbuda -  Armenia - Belarus- Bolivia (Plurinational State of) - Bosnia and Herzegovina – Botswana – Colombia – Ecuador- El Salvador – Fiji – Gabon – Georgia – Guatemala – Guyana – Honduras – Jamaica – West Bank and Gaza Strip – Lebanon – Libya – Mauritius – Mongolia – Montenegro – Morocco – Namibia – Nigeria - North Macedonia – Pakistan – Palau – Paraguay – Peru - Saint Kitts and Nevis – Seychelles - Sri Lanka – Tunisia – Uzbekistan - Viet Nam