1. Scope of These Terms
These Terms apply to contracts concluded through the www.polymas.org website and all of its subdomains (the "Website") or through related email communications, and to all related services provided by POLYMAS INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING GROUP LIMITED ("POLYMAS").
1.2 In these Terms and Conditions, any Website user, submitting party, author, or service inquirer shall be referred to as an "Author" or "you/your".
1.3 Any business terms proposed by an Author that conflict with these Terms and Conditions shall not apply unless expressly confirmed by POLYMAS in writing.
1.4 The terms of use of the Website form an integral part of these Terms and Conditions.
1.5 If there is any conflict between these Terms and Conditions and any other terms or information provided by POLYMAS (for example, the Website terms of use referred to herein or information on article processing charges, "APCs"), these Terms and Conditions shall prevail.
2. Services Provided by POLYMAS
POLYMAS provides scientific publishing related services through its Website, journals, editorial processes, and related author services.
POLYMAS will use reasonable efforts to improve the discoverability and dissemination of its journals and published content in major academic databases, subject-specific databases, and national or regional journal ranking lists. POLYMAS is not obligated under these Terms and Conditions to provide any other service or result to Authors. In particular, without limitation, POLYMAS does not provide or guarantee any indexing, abstracting, repository delivery, digital preservation, or similar service for an Author's publication. Authors acknowledge that POLYMAS has no influence or control over journal rankings, the indexing or de-indexing of publications, or the number of citations received by publications.
3. Inquiries and Author Services
To order publishing services through the Website, Authors must first register on the Website. The POLYMAS Website is used for public information, inquiry collection, submission and journal matching inquiries, author service inquiries, partnership inquiries, and manual follow-up by the POLYMAS publishing team. Where POLYMAS provides an official manuscript submission system or route, users may submit manuscripts in accordance with the applicable system instructions, journal policies, and author guidelines.
POLYMAS may update, modify, suspend, or discontinue Website content, forms, pages, features, service descriptions, or inquiry routes for business, technical, editorial, security, legal, or operational reasons.
Any formal submission, editorial process, peer review, APC, retraction, corrigendum, correction, appeal, complaint, copyright license, or publication arrangement shall be governed by the relevant journal policy, author guideline, submission system instruction, publication agreement, service agreement, or written notice issued or accepted by POLYMAS.
Once an Author submits an original academic manuscript (the "Manuscript") to POLYMAS for peer review and for a decision on whether to publish it, the Author is deemed to have made a request to POLYMAS to enter into a publishing and editorial services contract. After the Manuscript has been approved through peer review and other editorial processes, it may be published and shall be referred to as an academic article (the "Article").
1) The Author agrees to support open access publishing and to allow others unrestricted access to the published paper.
2) Clear, transparent, and readily accessible information on all applicable fees, including but not limited to article processing charges (APCs), shall be provided to all Authors at the time of manuscript submission. No Author shall be required to pay any fee unless clear and explicit fee disclosure has been provided in advance. All fees, including APCs, must be fully communicated and disclosed before any editorial or publication process begins.
3) The Author has the following right of cancellation: during the manuscript evaluation period (peer review), the Author may withdraw the Manuscript at any time and cancel the declared intention to enter into a contract. Once the Manuscript has been accepted for publication, the Author may no longer withdraw it. Any benefit or interest obtained by the Author before cancellation of the contract must be returned to POLYMAS.
4) After submission of a Manuscript and during the evaluation period (peer review), POLYMAS reserves the right to terminate the contract unilaterally, without giving any reason and at POLYMAS's sole discretion.
5) Once an Article has been published, it is deemed to form part of the version of record and may be archived in various archives and databases and cited. In principle, the Article and its related content will be retained permanently. However, in specific circumstances, an Article may be removed from the journal and/or the Website, including but not limited to the following:
POLYMAS and the relevant journal reserve the right, in accordance with applicable policies, to retract, correct, or remove any Article that they consider to violate any applicable POLYMAS terms or policies, or that they consider inappropriate.
In the following circumstances, POLYMAS reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to remove any Article or related content from the journal and/or the Website:
removal is required by a court order or governmental authority directive; the content infringes personal privacy or the lawful rights and interests of a third party and the issue cannot be adequately resolved through an editorial notice or update; the research related to the publication was conducted or disseminated unlawfully and may create legal liability or privacy concerns; or the content continues to pose a public risk even if marked as retracted. Such retraction and removal shall be carried out in accordance with POLYMAS's retraction policy, and retraction/removal shall not constitute a right for the Author to receive any APC refund.
4. Manuscripts and Copyright Matters
1) If your Article reproduces material from other publications or other copyrighted materials, please provide evidence that you have obtained the necessary copyright permissions. The parties agree that the Article written by the Author does not infringe any third-party rights, and the Author warrants that they own or have obtained all rights necessary to submit, authorize, and publish the Article. The Author hereby gives an indemnity undertaking to POLYMAS. If any third party brings a claim against POLYMAS in relation to a published Article written by the Author, the Author undertakes to defend POLYMAS and hold it harmless from any and all claims, actions, proceedings, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees and litigation costs).
2) Your Article is received on the premise that it has not been published elsewhere (or submitted to another journal). However, this restriction does not apply if the Article contains content disclosed at a conference; please inform us if this is the case. For papers with multiple authors, please confirm that all Authors have read and agreed to the content of the Article. If there is any doubt, we reserve the right to contact all Authors for confirmation.
3) If your Article is accepted, it will be published as an open access article under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
5. Patent Matters
When submitting a Manuscript, you must ensure that all patent applications relating to the Manuscript have been filed in advance. Publication of an Article may reduce or eliminate the patentability of any unpatented ideas contained in the Article.
6. Public Email Addresses
1) POLYMAS will display the email address of the corresponding Author and the email addresses of all Authors who agree to have their email addresses made public on the Manuscript. Accordingly, these email addresses may be accessible to both registered users and non-registered visitors of the Website. The corresponding Author is the individual with primary responsibility for all communications with POLYMAS during submission, peer review, and publication.
2) If multiple Authors have contributed to a Manuscript and their names and email addresses will be included in the paper, the corresponding Author is responsible for obtaining the consent of all Authors who wish to have their email addresses made public.
3) By submitting a Manuscript to POLYMAS, the corresponding Author hereby confirms and agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions set out in Sections 6.1 and 6.2. The corresponding Author shall provide POLYMAS with the email addresses of all contributing Authors, including at least one institutional email address.
7. Fees, Payments, and Cancellations
Unless a specific paid service, APC policy, or payment route is expressly provided, any applicable fee shall be clearly disclosed before you are charged.
Payment deadlines, taxes, invoice details, cancellation rights, refund rules, overpayment handling, service credits, and any non-refundable items shall be governed by the applicable quotation, invoice, payment page, journal policy, service agreement, or written confirmation.
Fees, APCs, discounts, waivers, or payment status must not be used to guarantee or influence editorial assessment, peer review, acceptance, publication, indexing, ranking, or citation outcomes.
8. Confidentiality and Sensitive Materials
POLYMAS will take reasonable measures to protect non-public inquiry information, but may disclose relevant information where required or permitted by law, regulation, court order, governmental request, security incident response, dispute handling, publication ethics processes, or where necessary to protect the rights, safety, and legitimate interests of POLYMAS, users, or others.
9. Publication Ethics and AI Use
POLYMAS values research integrity, transparency of author contributions, conflict of interest disclosure, data responsibility, ethics approval, peer review, and editorial independence. Users submitting research-related information should avoid plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, duplicate submission, redundant publication, citation manipulation, false authorship, or other research misconduct.
AI or automated tools may be used to assist with internal classification, formatting checks, language support, metadata organization, risk alerts, or workflow efficiency. AI tools do not replace author originality, author responsibility, human peer review, editorial judgment, or final decisions. AI tools must not be listed as Authors; Authors are responsible for any content generated or modified with AI assistance and must disclose such use where required by journal policy, institutional rules, or applicable law.
You must not use AI tools to conceal plagiarism, fabricate data, generate false citations, manipulate images, mislead editors or reviewers, or undermine research integrity. You are responsible for disclosing AI use where required by journal policy, institutional rules, industry guidance, or applicable law.
10. Prohibited Uses
You must not use the Website to violate law, rights, security, confidentiality obligations, or research integrity requirements; submit false, deceptive, infringing, abusive, harmful, or malicious materials; upload malware or automated attack traffic; interfere with Website operation or access controls; scrape, collect, or export Website content or user information without authorization; impersonate POLYMAS, editors, reviewers, authors, institutions, or partners; or promote paper mills, ghostwriting, data fabrication, citation manipulation, fake peer review, or other services inconsistent with publication ethics.
11. Third-Party Links and Privacy
The Website may contain links to third-party websites, academic resources, publication ethics resources, service providers, email tools, databases, or external platforms. Third-party websites and services are controlled by their respective operators, and POLYMAS is not responsible for their content, availability, security, privacy policies, terms, accuracy, or practices.
POLYMAS handles personal information in accordance with the POLYMAS Privacy Policy. Please read the Privacy Policy before submitting personal information, especially if you provide information on behalf of another person.
12. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability
The Website and Website content are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis for general information and inquiry communication. Website content and inquiry responses do not constitute legal, medical, financial, tax, investment, research ethics, statistical, editorial, publication outcome, or academic evaluation advice.
You should make decisions based on your own research context, institutional requirements, target journal policies, ethical obligations, professional advice, and independent judgment.
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, POLYMAS and its directors, employees, contractors, service providers, representatives, licensees, agents, and suppliers shall not be liable for damages of any nature arising from or related to use of the Website, Website content, inquiry communications, any website that may be linked, or any content submitted, published, or made public by Authors, including but not limited to indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of or damage to property, loss of goodwill, loss of use, loss of data, other intangible losses, third-party claims, publication delay, rejection, indexing failure, ranking changes, citation outcomes, or decisions of third-party platforms.
In particular, POLYMAS shall not be liable if a published Article infringes the rights of a third party. If an Author fails to inform co-authors that their email addresses will be published and breaches the obligation to obtain consent for such publication, the Author shall not bring any claim against POLYMAS.
Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes, or shall be interpreted as intended to limit or exclude, liability arising from gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or any other liability that may not be limited or excluded under applicable law.
13. Force Majeure
POLYMAS shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond POLYMAS's reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, civil unrest, pandemic, labor disruption, power failure, network failure, cyberattack, third-party service interruption, governmental action, or other force majeure events.
14. Governing Law, Disputes, and Updates
Unless mandatory law provides otherwise, these Terms and your use of the Website are governed by the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, without regard to conflict of law rules.
Before initiating a formal claim, you are encouraged to contact POLYMAS at enquiry@polymas.org so that the parties may attempt to resolve the issue informally. Nothing in these Terms prevents either party from seeking urgent injunctive or equitable relief where necessary to protect intellectual property, confidentiality, data security, or other lawful rights.
POLYMAS may update these Terms as the Website, services, technology, legal requirements, or business model changes. The latest version should be posted with an updated effective date, and continued access to or use of the Website after updated Terms are posted means that you accept the updated Terms to the extent permitted by applicable law.
15. Contact
If you have any questions about these Terms, Website content, or service boundaries, please contact POLYMAS INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING GROUP LIMITED by email at enquiry@polymas.org.