The International Review of Multidisciplinary Research (IRMR) is committed to the principles of Open Access (OA) as defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative. To align with global standards and address past feedback regarding ownership structures, IRMR has refined its policy to decouple the "grant of publishing rights" from "copyright ownership."

1. Intellectual Property and Copyright Retention

In alignment with best practices for scholarly communication, authors retain full copyright of their work.

• Author Ownership: Authors grant the IRMR an exclusive, irrevocable license to publish, archive, and distribute the work globally under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

• Separation of Rights: The IRMR does not require the transfer of copyright ownership. The journal only requires the necessary rights to act as the first publisher and distributor, ensuring that the author remains the legal rights holder.

2. Open Access Licensing Framework

All articles published by the IRMR are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. This framework facilitates:

• User Rights: Readers are permitted to share, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial purposes.

• Attribution Requirement: Users must provide appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made to the original work.

3. Authorial Rights and Permissions

Authors retain a comprehensive suite of rights, including:

• Educational and Professional Use: The right to utilize their own work for classroom teaching, conference presentations, and professional distribution to colleagues.

• Institutional Archiving: The right to deposit the final published version (Version of Record) in institutional or disciplinary repositories.

• Derivative Works: The right to reuse portions of the article in future works, provided the original IRMR publication is cited.

• Pre-publication: The right to post pre-peer-review versions (preprints) on platforms such as arXiv, OSF, or ResearchGate, provided that the manuscript is updated with the official DOI upon acceptance by the IRMR.

4. Post-Acceptance Documentation

To maintain the rigor of our legal and ethical standards, authors must complete the following documentation within 14 days of acceptance:

• Publication License Agreement: Granting IRMR the right to publish and distribute the work.

• Author Declaration: Affirming the originality and integrity of the research.

• Conflict of Interest Declaration: Disclosing any competing financial or professional interests.

• Data Availability Confirmation: Formally documenting the location of raw data (e.g., GitHub, HAL Open Science).

• Media Release Consent: Authorizing the dissemination of the research for promotional and indexing purposes.

5. Third-Party Materials and Ethical Integrity

Authors are responsible for securing written permissions for any copyrighted material used within their manuscript, including:

• Figures, images, or tables reproduced from external sources.

• Quotations exceeding 100 words.

• Previously published datasets.

Documentation of these permissions must be provided during the submission phase.

6. Post-Publication Integrity

The IRMR adheres to COPE guidelines regarding the permanence of the scholarly record:

• Withdrawals: Once published, articles cannot be withdrawn.

• Corrections: In cases of error, the journal will issue a formal Errata or Corrigendum as a separate document to maintain the chain of scientific record.

• Retractions: Retractions will only be executed in instances of verified scientific misconduct, ethical breach, or significant error that invalidates the research conclusions.

Effective June 1, 2026, this policy ensures that authors remain the owners of their intellectual property while guaranteeing the journal's ability to facilitate the wide, transparent dissemination of knowledge.