Publication Fee Policy

1. Article Processing Charge

The standard Article Processing Charge for a manuscript accepted for publication in ETII is:

The APC applies only after a manuscript has successfully completed the journal's editorial and peer-review process and has received a formal acceptance decision.

2. No Submission Fee

ETII does not charge authors a fee merely to submit a manuscript.

Authors may submit manuscripts for editorial consideration without paying a submission fee.

3. No Peer-Review Fee

ETII does not charge authors separately for external peer review.

A manuscript may undergo editorial screening, external peer review, revision, and reassessment without an APC becoming payable unless the manuscript is formally accepted for publication.

4. When the APC Becomes Payable

The APC becomes payable only after the journal has issued a formal acceptance decision.

Authors are not required to make payment:

• at initial submission;
• during editorial screening;
• during peer review;
• when submitting a revised manuscript; or
• before the manuscript has received a formal acceptance decision.

5. Editorial Independence

Academic decisions are made by the journal's responsible editors on the basis of originality, methodological rigor, technical validity, scholarly contribution, research integrity, relevance to ETII, and the evidence provided in the manuscript.

Financial administration is kept separate from academic editorial decision-making.

6. What the APC Supports

The Article Processing Charge contributes to the costs associated with maintaining a professional open-access publishing service, including:

• manuscript submission and editorial-management systems;
• editorial administration;
• peer-review workflow management;
• production preparation;
• copyediting and formatting support where applicable;
• article metadata preparation;
• digital publication and hosting;
• DOI and persistent-identifier infrastructure where applicable;
• reference and metadata processing;
• indexing and discovery infrastructure;
• digital preservation and archiving support;
• website operation and technical maintenance; and
• long-term access to the scholarly record.

7. Open Access Publication

Articles published in ETII are made openly accessible online without a subscription barrier.

Unless otherwise stated for specific material, published articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

The open-access license and the APC are separate matters. Payment of an APC does not transfer copyright ownership from authors to the journal.

8. Copyright

Authors normally retain copyright in their published articles.

Further information concerning copyright, licensing, reuse, author rights, and self-archiving is provided in the journal's Open Access & Copyright Policy.

9. No Hidden Publication Charges

ETII seeks to communicate publication charges transparently.

The standard APC is USD 500 per accepted article.

The journal does not normally impose separate mandatory charges for:

• initial manuscript submission;
• ordinary peer review;
• standard-length articles;
• standard color figures published online;
• normal tables;
• supplementary files accepted for publication; or
• routine online publication.

If an exceptional service requested by an author would involve an additional third-party cost, the author should be informed in advance and no such service should be imposed without appropriate disclosure.

10. Article Length

The standard APC is not calculated on a per-page basis.

Authors should nevertheless prepare manuscripts concisely and in accordance with the journal's Author Guidelines. Excessive length may be addressed during editorial review for scholarly and presentation reasons rather than as a mechanism for increasing fees.

11. Color Figures

ETII is primarily a digital open-access publication. There is normally no separate fee for standard color figures published online.

Authors remain responsible for supplying publication-quality figures in accordance with the journal's technical requirements.

12. Supplementary Materials

ETII does not normally charge an additional mandatory fee for reasonable supplementary material accepted as part of an article.

Supplementary files remain subject to editorial, technical, ethical, copyright, and data-protection requirements.

13. APC Waivers and Reductions

ETII recognizes that authors' access to research and publication funding varies substantially across institutions, countries, and career stages.

In appropriate circumstances, authors may request a full or partial APC waiver or reduction.

Requests may be considered on the basis of factors such as:

• documented absence of institutional or project publication funding;
• significant financial constraints;
• authors based in resource-limited research environments;
• specific journal initiatives approved in advance; or
• other exceptional circumstances considered by the publisher.

14. Waiver Requests and Editorial Decisions

Waiver or discount requests are handled separately from academic evaluation.

Editors and reviewers responsible for judging the scholarly quality of a manuscript should not make acceptance decisions on the basis of whether a waiver has been requested.

An approved waiver or reduction does not affect the peer-review standard applied to the manuscript.

15. Invited Articles and Journal-Initiated Content

The journal or publisher may approve a full or partial APC waiver for selected invited scholarly content or journal-initiated editorial material.

Any such financial arrangement does not exempt scholarly manuscripts from appropriate editorial evaluation, research-integrity requirements, or peer review where peer review is required.

16. Special Issues

Unless a specific Special Issue announcement explicitly states otherwise, the standard ETII APC of USD 500 per accepted article applies to articles accepted for publication in Special Issues.

Guest Editors must not use APC considerations to influence scholarly acceptance decisions.

17. Submissions from Editors and Editorial Board Members

Manuscripts submitted by editors or Editorial Board Members are subject to the same editorial and peer-review standards as other manuscripts.

Any fee waiver, discount, or other financial arrangement for such articles must be administratively separate from editorial evaluation and must not affect the publication decision.

18. Payment Procedure

Following formal acceptance, the corresponding author or designated payer will receive information concerning the applicable APC and payment procedure.

Authors should use only official payment instructions issued by the journal or publisher.

Authors should not make payment in response to unofficial messages, personal payment requests, or communications that cannot be verified through the journal or publisher.

19. Invoice and Payer Information

Where applicable, authors may be asked to provide billing information required for an invoice or payment record.

The payer may be:

• the corresponding author;
• another author;
• a university or research institution;
• a research project;
• a funding organization; or
• another approved third-party payer.

20. Currency

The standard ETII APC is denominated in United States dollars (USD).

Where payment services convert other currencies into USD, exchange rates or conversion costs may be determined by the relevant bank or payment provider rather than by ETII.

21. Bank and Payment-Service Charges

Any bank-transfer, currency-conversion, intermediary-bank, or payment-service charges imposed independently by financial institutions or payment providers are separate from the journal's APC.

22. Taxes and Statutory Charges

Where applicable law requires VAT, sales tax, withholding tax, or another statutory charge, such requirements may be applied according to the relevant jurisdiction and billing circumstances.

Any applicable tax requirement should be communicated transparently in the payment or invoice process.

23. Refunds

Because the APC is normally requested only after formal acceptance, refund requests are expected to be uncommon.

Where an administrative payment error, duplicate payment, incorrect invoice, or other exceptional circumstance occurs, the publisher may review a refund request on its individual merits.

Post-publication correction, retraction, or withdrawal of an article does not automatically create a right to an APC refund, because publication and production services may already have been provided.

24. Withdrawal before Acceptance

No APC is payable for a manuscript that is properly withdrawn before formal acceptance, provided no separate exceptional paid service has been specifically agreed.

25. Rejected Manuscripts

Authors are not charged an APC for manuscripts that are rejected.

This applies whether rejection occurs during initial editorial screening, after external peer review, or following revision.

26. Corrections and Post-Publication Notices

The journal does not normally charge an additional publication fee merely for issuing a legitimate correction, retraction notice, expression of concern, or other post-publication notice required to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

27. Optional Third-Party Services

Optional services provided independently by third parties, such as specialized language editing, professional illustration, translation, or other author-requested services, are not part of the standard ETII APC unless explicitly stated.

Purchasing an optional service does not influence peer review or guarantee publication.

28. Changes to Publication Fees

ETII may periodically review its publication fee to reflect changes in publishing, production, technology, preservation, and operational costs.

Any change to the standard APC should be displayed publicly on the journal website.

Authors should be informed of the applicable publication charge before payment is requested.

29. Fee Transparency

ETII is committed to making its standard publication fee publicly accessible to authors.

Authors should be able to determine the standard APC before submitting a manuscript.

The publication fee should not be concealed until after peer review or acceptance.

30. Questions Concerning Publication Fees

Authors who require clarification concerning the APC, invoicing, waivers, reductions, or payment procedures should contact the journal through its official contact channels.

Financial questions should be resolved independently of the manuscript's academic evaluation whenever possible.

Publication Fees at a Glance