Copyright and Licensing

At Fernando Martins De Bulhão Publishing (FMDB), we are committed to maintaining the highest standards of ethics, transparency, and integrity in scholarly publishing. Our publishing policies and practices strictly adhere to the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Core Practices and align with the credibility, reproducibility, and impact of all published works.

Ethical Publishing and COPE Alignment

FMDB upholds the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing jointly developed by COPE. All journals under FMDB follow strict ethical guidelines that include:

• Transparent peer review and editorial decision-making processes.
• Clear authorship and contributorship policies to prevent unethical practices such as ghost or honorary authorship.
• Robust mechanisms to handle plagiarism, data falsification, and conflicts of interest.
• Correction, retraction, and withdrawal procedures that ensure the academic record remains accurate and reliable.
• Fair editorial independence, ensuring decisions are based purely on scholarly merit.

Our peer-review system encourages constructive feedback and transparency. Authors have the option to publish peer-review reports, enhancing openness and accountability in the scholarly dialogue.

Author Rights and Open Access

FMDB empowers authors to retain full copyright of their published materials. All articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license, allowing:

• Free access and reuse of research with proper attribution.
• Sharing, remixing, and building upon the work for non-commercial purposes.
• Greater visibility and long-term availability of scientific contributions.

By adopting Open Access, FMDB removes barriers to knowledge sharing, ensuring that all research outputs—data, methods, software, and peer reviews—are freely accessible, citable, and verifiable.

Data Integrity and Open Science

FMDB is fully aligned with Open Science’ emphasis on research transparency and reproducibility. We promote Open Data, Open Methods, and Open Peer Review, ensuring that:

• Datasets are permanently archived and discoverable for future reuse.
• Detailed methodologies enhance reproducibility and comprehension.
• Review processes are traceable and verifiable, adding to the scientific trustworthiness of published content.

 Our publishing model supports preprints, enabling early dissemination of research while maintaining eligibility for formal peer-reviewed publication.

Commitment to COPE Standards

• FMDB’s journals are designed to meet the COPE benchmarks.
• Editorial quality and international diversity in both board composition and authorship.
• Rigorous peer review and citation ethics.

Clear publication ethics policies based on COPE guidelines

• Transparency in ownership, management, and publication fees.
• Commitment to research visibility, citation integrity, and long-term preservation.

Vision for an Open, Ethical Future

FMDB’s Open Science initiatives aim to build a collaborative and trustworthy scholarly ecosystem where:

• Authors retain control of their intellectual property.
• Readers access knowledge freely and without restriction.
• Research outcomes are reproducible, transparent, and beneficial to the global community.

Our guiding principle is simple: ethical, transparent, and accessible publishing strengthens science and society alike.