Licences, copyright and permissions
Information about copyright, our licence to publish and your deposition and sharing rights for journal articles
When you publish in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal, you keep the copyright of the manuscript. On this page you can learn more about our Licence to Publish and the rights you retain as an author. We also explain where you can deposit and share your article, and how to request permission to re-use other people’s work.
The following details apply only to authors accepting the standard Licence to Publish. Authors who are interested in publishing open access should visit our open access pages for more information about our open access licences and deposition rights.
On this page
About our licence to publish
In order to publish material the Royal Society of Chemistry must acquire the necessary legal rights from the author(s) of that material. In general, we must obtain from the original author(s) the right to publish the material in all formats, in all media (including specifically print and electronic), with the right to sublicense those rights.
For all articles published in our journals, we require the author to accept a 'licence to publish'. This licence is normally requested after their article is accepted for publication. By signing this licence the author (who is either the copyright owner or who is authorised to sign on behalf of the copyright owner, for example his/her employer) grants to the Royal Society of Chemistry the exclusive right and licence throughout the world to edit, adapt, translate, reproduce and publish the manuscript in all formats, in all media and by all means (whether now existing or in future devised).
The Royal Society of Chemistry thus acquires an exclusive licence to publish and all practical rights to the manuscript, except the copyright. The copyright of the manuscript remains with the copyright owner. The copyright owner also retains certain rights regarding the sharing and deposition of their article and the re-use of the published material. For short items in journals (news items, etc) we take a non-exclusive licence in the form of a brief 'terms and conditions for acceptance' document.
Copyright is an intellectual property right chiefly concerned with original written works and the typographical arrangement of published works. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner's permission.
Much of what the Royal Society of Chemistry publishes is work written by third parties (the copyright owner), and it is important that we obtain the proper authority and rights to publish this material. We may do this by obtaining a licence to publish (with the copyright owner retaining copyright), or by taking assignment of copyright to the Royal Society of Chemistry. We must also ensure that the material we publish does not infringe the copyright of others. The Royal Society of Chemistry must acquire the legal rights it needs to publish material and the rights it needs to manage and protect the material it publishes.
The Royal Society of Chemistry must respect the copyright of others, and it must be sure that it has the proper authority to use material that has already been published elsewhere and is owned by someone else (for example, reusing material in our own publications).
Assurances
In the licence to publish, the author provides the assurances that we need to publish the material, including assurances that the work is original to the author, that the work has not been published already and that permissions have been obtained if previously published material has been included.
Download our licence to publish
If the manuscript includes material that belongs to someone else (for example, a figure or diagram), we require the author to obtain all permissions that may be needed from third parties. If you wish to reuse material that was not published originally by the Royal Society of Chemistry please see Re-use permission requests.
Rights retained by authors
When the author accepts the exclusive licence to publish for a journal article, they retain certain rights that may be exercised without reference to the Royal Society of Chemistry.
- Reproduce/republish portions of the article (including the abstract).
- Photocopy the article and distribute such photocopies and copies of the PDF of the article for personal or professional use only (the Royal Society of Chemistry makes this PDF available to the corresponding author of the article upon publication. Any such copies should not be offered for sale. Persons who receive or access the PDF mentioned above must be notified that this may not be made available further or distributed.).
- Adapt the article and reproduce adaptations of the article for any purpose other than the commercial exploitation of a work similar to the original.
- Reproduce, perform, transmit and otherwise communicate the article to the public in spoken presentations (including those that are accompanied by visual material such as slides, overheads and computer projections).
The author(s) must submit a written request to the Royal Society of Chemistry for any use other than those specified above.
All cases of republication/reproduction must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of first publication of the work by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the wording of which depends on the journal in which the article was published originally. The acknowledgement should also include a hyperlink to the article on the Royal Society of Chemistry website.
The author also has some rights concerning the deposition of the whole article.
Deposition and sharing rights
The following details apply only to authors accepting the standard licence to publish. Authors who have accepted one of the open access licences to publish, or are thinking of doing so, should refer to the details for open access deposition rights.
When the author accepts the licence to publish for a journal article, they retain certain rights concerning the deposition of the whole article. This table summarises how you may distribute the accepted manuscript and version of record of your article.
| Sharing rights | Accepted manuscript | Version of record |
|---|---|---|
| Share with individuals on request, for personal use | ✔ | ✔ |
| Use for teaching or training materials | ✔ | ✔ |
| Use in submissions of grant applications, or academic requirements such as theses or dissertations* | ✔ | ✔ |
| Share with a closed group of research collaborators, for example via an intranet or privately via a scholarly communication network | ✔ | ✔ |
| Share publicly via a scholarly communication network that has signed up to STM sharing principles | ⏱ | ✖ |
| Share publicly via a personal website, institutional repository or other not-for-profit repository | ⏱ | ✖ |
| Share publicly via a scholarly communication network that has not signed up to STM sharing principles | ✖ | ✖ |
* You may include your article in the electronic version of your thesis or dissertation as long as it is not made available as a separate document.
⏱ Accepted manuscripts may be distributed via repositories after an embargo period of 12 months
If you are a reader looking for the terms of use for information published by the Royal Society of Chemistry under our standard licence to publish please refer to our terms of use.
CHORUS
We are members of the CHORUS initiative, and therefore make the Accepted manuscript version of articles describing research funded by participating funders publicly available on our web site after an embargo period of 12 months. This is effective for research published from 1st March 2018 onwards. Unless otherwise noted on the article the Accepted manuscript is licensed under the terms of our standard license to publish and is subject to our standard reuse terms.
Reusing Royal Society of Chemistry material
Reuse permission requests
Material published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and other publishers is subject to all applicable copyright, database protection and other rights.
Author reusing their own work published by the RSC
You do not need to request permission to reuse your own figures, diagrams, tables, or images that were originally published in an RSC publication. However, permission should be requested for use of the whole article or chapter except if reusing it in a thesis. If you are including an article or book chapter published by the RSC in your thesis please ensure that your co-authors are aware of this.
Reuse of material that was published originally by the RSC must be accompanied by the appropriate acknowledgement of the publication. The form of the acknowledgement is dependent on the journal in which it was published originally, as detailed in the Acknowledgements section.
Authors reusing RSC material in another RSC publication
Authors contributing to RSC publications (journal articles, book or book chapters) do not need to formally request permission to reproduce material contained in another RSC publication. However, permission should be requested for use of a whole article or chapter. For all cases of reproduction the correct acknowledgement of the reproduced material should be given. The form of the acknowledgement is dependent on the journal in which it was published originally, as detailed in the Acknowledgements section.
Reusing RSC material in material for another publisher, including signatories to the STM Permissions Guidelines
Please submit a permissions request via the Copyright Clearance Center to reuse RSC material in material for another publisher. If you are an academic or you are reproducing Royal Society of Chemistry material in a publication to be published by an STM Publisher you will be granted the permission for free for up to three figures. The STM Publishers are those who have signed up to the STM Permissions Guidelines and include publishers such as the American Chemical Society, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley. Please submit your request well ahead of publication of your material.
You should check that the material you wish to reproduce is not credited to a source other than the RSC before sending in any request. If the material is credited to another publisher, you are required to seek permission from them.
Reusing RSC material published under a CC-BY and CC-BY-NC licence
An Open Access article is one published under a CC-BY or a CC-BY-NC licence. To check if an article is Open Access, find the journal article from which you want to reproduce material on https://pubs.rsc.org/, go to the article landing page by clicking on the article's title, and check the ‘Article information’ on the right-hand side. An Open Access article would read ‘This is an Open Access article’.
If the material for which you are requesting reproduction rights has been published under a CC-BY licence, you may reproduce the material, even commercially, without requesting formal permission as long as the material is fully acknowledged and a link is included back to the article on our website.
If the material for which you are requesting reproduction rights has been published under a CC-BY-NC licence, you may reproduce the material in a non-commercial publication without requesting formal permission as long as the material is fully acknowledged and a link is included back to the article on our website. Permission must be requested using this RSC Permissions Request Form for commercial reproduction.
Reusing material from other RSC publications
If you are reproducing material from an RSC website, education publication or science policy publication, please fill in the RSC Permissions Request Form.
Requests are usually for use of a figure or diagram, but they may also be for use of the entire article or chapter. Requests to use individual figures or diagrams are invariably granted. Permission for another publisher to print an entire RSC article or chapter may be granted in special circumstances.
The permission form should only be used to request permission to reproduce material from Chemistry World, Education in Chemistry, and other non-journal publications of the RSC. For these requests please complete and send the RSC Permissions Request Form to our Contracts and Copyright team.
How to request permission from the RSC via the Copyright Clearance Center
Journals
Find the journal article from which you want to reproduce material and go to the article landing page by clicking on the article's title.
Click on 'Request permissions', which will open up a new window containing permissions information for the article. If required, click on 'Formally request permission' to go to the Copyright Clearance Center.
Please note that these pathways won’t be available if the RSC material you wish to reuse is published under a CC-BY or CC-BY-NC licence. More information can be found here.
Books
Refer to Copyright Clearance Center’s Buyer Guide to submit a request to reuse material from a book. Queries regarding this service should be addressed to [email protected].
Drop-down menus in the Copyright Clearance Center
Use the drop-down menus to select the reproduction options you require and provide any additional details needed. You will obtain the permission for free if both of the following conditions apply:
- your request falls within the terms of the STM Permission Guidelines (in short, up to three figures or a single text extract of less than 400 words).
- you are reproducing the material in a publication published by another STM Publisher (i.e. publishers who have signed up to the STM Permission Guidelines, for example, American Chemical Society, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley), or you are reproducing the material in your thesis for submission to your educational institution
After ‘Describe who will republish the content (person or entity)...’ if you are:
- reproducing the figure in a thesis or dissertation, please specify 'Academic institution'
- reproducing the material in a publication published by a member of the STM Association, select 'Publisher, STM'
When your order has been accepted you will be sent an email providing the order confirmation and any licence details. If you need any support to submit your request, please refer to Copyright Clearance Center’s Buyer Guide. Queries regarding this service should be addressed to [email protected].
Acknowledgements
The Royal Society of Chemistry publishes some journals in partnership with, or on behalf of, other organisations; these journals require a specific wording of the acknowledgement when work is reproduced from them. The text for the acknowledgement for these journals, and the standard wording to be used by all other journals are given below.
Standard acknowledgement
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Non-standard acknowledgements
Reproduction of material from Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), Peking University (PKU), and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of materials from Materials Chemistry Frontiers
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), Institute of Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences (IC), and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of material from Molecular Systems Design & Engineering
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of material from NJC (New Journal of Chemistry)
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of material from Organic Chemistry Frontiers
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of material from articles in the Journal Archive from Geochemical Transactions
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the American Chemical Society, Division of Geochemistry and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of material from Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences (PPS)
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the European Society for Photobiology, the European Photochemistry Association, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Reproduction of material from PCCP (Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics)
Reproduced from Ref. XX with permission from the PCCP Owner Societies.
Proof of permission
If you require a signed permissions form, please submit the Permissions Request Form (PDF).
Permissions Request Form (PDF)
Our Contracts and Copyright team will organise an electronic signature and return the form to you.
Using third party material in Royal Society of Chemistry publications
We must ensure that the material we publish does not infringe the copyright of others. We require the author(s) to obtain, at the earliest opportunity, the relevant permissions that might be needed from third parties to include material that belongs to someone else.
Please contact the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material to check how they wish to receive permission requests. Please plan to submit your request well ahead of publication of your material.
The most common procedures for permission requests are outlined below.
- A number of publishers have opted out of receiving express permissions as long as they fall under the rules of the STM Permission Guidelines.
- If they do not fall into the category above, the majority of publishers now use the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to process their requests.
- Other publishers have their own permission request forms and/or specify what information they need to process any permission request.
- If the copyright owner has opted to publish under a Creative Commons licence, licensees are required to obtain permission to do any of the things with a work that the law reserves exclusively to a licensor and that the licence does not expressly allow. Licensees must credit the licensor, keep copyright notices intact on all copies of the work, and link to the license from copies of the work.
If the publisher/copyright owner does not have a specific procedure please complete and submit the Permission Request Form for non-RSC material form (PDF). Send the form to the permission administrator or editor of the relevant publication.
In all cases the following rights need to be obtained. Permission is required to include the specified material in the work described and in all subsequent editions of the work to be published by the Royal Society of Chemistry for distribution throughout the world, in all media including electronic and microfilm and to use the material in conjunction with computer-based electronic and information retrieval systems, to grant permissions for photocopying, reproductions and reprints, to translate the material and to publish the translation, and to authorise document delivery and abstracting and indexing services.
Please note that the Royal Society of Chemistry is also a signatory to the STM Permission Guidelines.
Reproducing material from a Gold open access article
If you wish to reproduce material (figures, tables etc.) from a Gold open access paper the following applies:
- If the figure caption states that the figure has been reproduced from another article you need to request permission from the publisher of that article.
- If the figure caption does not state that the figure has been reproduced from another article and the open access article has been published under a CC-BY licence you can reproduce the figure without formal permission as long as it is fully acknowledged.
- If the figure caption does not state that the figure has been reproduced from another article and the open access article has been published under a CC BY-NC licence you will have to request permission from the publisher of the open access article. Please note that you do not have to formally request permission to reproduce figures from one RSC publication in another RSC publication providing that you include the correct credit line.
