Open Access

Fernando Martins De Bulhão Publishing (FMDB) is committed to the principles of Open Access and the unrestricted dissemination of scholarly knowledge. All articles published in FMDB journals are made immediately and permanently available online without subscription or access charges, ensuring that readers worldwide can freely access, read, download, copy, distribute, and cite published research.

Open Access Licence

Unless otherwise stated, all articles published by FMDB are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. 

Under this licence, users may:

• Read, download, copy, print, and redistribute published articles without charge.
• Share and reproduce the work in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes.
• Remix, adapt, transform, and build upon the published work for non-commercial purposes.
• Redistribute adapted material provided it is licensed under the same Creative Commons licence (ShareAlike).

Users must provide appropriate attribution to the original authors and source, include a link to the licence where applicable, indicate whether changes have been made, and comply with all licence conditions.

Copyright

Authors retain copyright in their published work. By publishing with FMDB, authors grant the publisher a non-exclusive licence to publish, distribute, archive, preserve, and identify itself as the original publisher of the article.

Benefits of Open Access

FMDB believes that unrestricted access to scholarly research promotes the global exchange of knowledge and increases the visibility, accessibility, and impact of published research. Open Access supports:

• Wider dissemination of research without subscription barriers.
• Increased visibility and potential scholarly impact.
• Greater opportunities for collaboration across disciplines and geographical regions.
• Faster communication and application of research findings.
• Equitable access to scientific knowledge for researchers, educators, policymakers, practitioners, and the public.

Research Transparency and Open Science

FMDB supports the principles of Open Science by encouraging transparency, reproducibility, and responsible sharing of research outputs, where appropriate and consistent with ethical, legal, and disciplinary requirements.

Authors are encouraged to:

• Share research data through appropriate repositories where feasible.
• Provide sufficiently detailed methodologies to support reproducibility.
• Make software, code, protocols, and supplementary materials available where appropriate.
• Include Data Availability Statements describing the accessibility of supporting research data.

Long-Term Preservation

To ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of the scholarly record, published articles are digitally preserved through trusted archival services, including Portico, in accordance with the publisher's digital preservation policy.

Editorial Independence

Open Access publishing does not influence editorial decisions. Manuscripts are evaluated solely on scholarly merit, originality, scientific quality, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal's scope, and the recommendations of independent peer reviewers. Editorial decisions are made independently of Article Processing Charges (APCs), commercial interests, advertising, or sponsorship.

Commitment to Ethical Open Access

FMDB develops its Open Access publishing policies in accordance with the COPE Core Practices, the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, and internationally recognized standards for ethical scholarly publishing. The publisher is committed to maintaining transparency in licensing, copyright, publication fees, editorial processes, and research integrity.