Open Access Statement

The Journal of Hematology and Clinical Research (JHCR) is a fully open access journal. The landing page of the legacy site clearly states: “Open Access by Journal of Hematology and Clinical Research is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” This updated Open Access Statement formalizes that declaration, explains what CC BY 4.0 permits, and connects it to the journal’s waiver, refund, and digital archiving policies.

Open access is central to JHCR because hematology research is often time-sensitive, patient-centric, and multidisciplinary. Making articles immediately and freely available allows clinicians, laboratory hematologists, transfusion specialists, and policy makers to apply new findings without encountering paywalls.

License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

The official Open Access Policy page on the legacy site explains that publishing is funded through mechanisms other than subscriptions and that the full text can be freely read over the public internet. JHCR therefore applies the CC BY 4.0 license to all published content, unless otherwise noted.

What CC BY 4.0 allows:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
• Reuse — in educational, clinical guideline, or policy documents.
• Text and data mining — for non-commercial and commercial purposes.

Conditions: You must give appropriate credit to the author(s) and JHCR, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not impose legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Why JHCR is Open Access

The open access methodology described on the journal’s legacy page emphasizes that OA “enables easy access to any published literature through electronic copies for all the scientists around the world.” In hematology, this is especially important for:

• Clinicians in low-resource settings who require up-to-date guidance on leukemia, hemoglobinopathies, or transfusion medicine but do not have subscription budgets.
• Transfusion and blood bank services that need immediate access to updated protocols.
• Policy makers and NGOs working on thalassemia and sickle cell disease control programmes.
• Students and trainees in hematology and clinical pathology seeking current review material.

Open access also aligns with global funder mandates (Plan S–style policies, NIH and Wellcome OA requirements) and increases citation potential for authors, as recognized on the contributor guide which states that “this free-view feature significantly enhances the visibility and likelihood for citation.” 

APC-Funded Gold Open Access Model

JHCR operates on a gold open access business model: accepted articles are published online immediately after acceptance, and the costs of editorial management, plagiarism checking, layout, DOI registration, and archiving are recovered via Article Processing Charges (APCs). This is explicitly stated across the contributor guide, open access, and special issue FAQ pages. 

Important principles:

• APCs are due only after acceptance — peer review decisions are independent of payment capability. 
• Invoices are issued by the publisher with clear breakdowns.
• APC levels are published transparently on the APC page.
• Special issue articles typically follow the same APC logic, as mentioned on the special issue guidelines page. 

Because APCs may pose challenges for some authors, the journal provides a clearly described waiver mechanism.

Waivers, Discounts, and Equity

The Waiver Policy on the legacy site states that JHCR “provides waivers on case-to-case basis depending on the author country classification” and may grant up to 15–20% waiver for authors with genuine reasons or from underdeveloped countries. 

How it works:

1. The author requests a waiver at the time of submission or immediately after acceptance.
2. The editorial office assesses the request based on country, institutional funding, and significance of the manuscript.
3. A partial or full waiver/discount is communicated before invoicing.

Waivers do not influence the editorial decision and are managed separately from peer review, preserving editorial independence.

Self-Archiving and Repository Deposit

Because all JHCR content is OA and licensed under CC BY 4.0, authors are allowed and encouraged to deposit the final published version (Version of Record) in:

• Institutional repositories (university/hospital)
• Funder or national repositories
• Personal websites or laboratory pages
• Social academic networks that respect CC BY 4.0

Authors should always include the article DOI, the full journal name, and a link back to the journal page to support accurate citation and indexing. This permissions model is consistent with the legacy site’s “Digital Archiving Policy,” “Open Access,” and “Paper Print Policy” items. 

Long-Term Digital Archiving

Open access is meaningful only when the content is also durable. JHCR therefore couples OA with long-term archiving through its publisher’s infrastructure and OJS/PKP export mechanisms. Content is backed up and can be mirrored by archiving services and institutional repositories. This mirrors the navigation cluster seen on the legacy “Current Issue/Early Online” pages, where Digital Archiving Policy and Open Access are always listed together. 

In the event of website migration or platform change, JHCR will maintain persistent DOIs and article landing pages, ensuring that open access is preserved.

Open Access and Refunds

The Refund Policy clarifies that the journal balances author welfare with organizational interests. Once an article has been processed and published OA, refunds are generally not possible because the service (immediate global distribution) is already delivered. However, pre-publication cases (for example, technical rejection after payment due to a system error) may be reviewed individually.

Compliance with International OA Standards

JHCR’s OA framework is designed to be compatible with leading OA and ethical bodies:

• DOAJ-readiness: Public OA statement, licensing, APC/waiver transparency, and copyright retention.
• COPE: OA does not override publication ethics; misconduct may still lead to retraction/withdrawal with a public notice kept online. 
• ICMJE: OA articles must still contain disclosures, funding, and trial registrations.
• OAI-PMH / PKP PN: OA metadata can be harvested by libraries and aggregators.

This alignment ensures that the journal’s openness does not compromise scholarly rigor.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is there any embargo period?

No. Articles are immediately open to the public upon publication, as shown by the legacy OA page that offers full-text visibility.

Can I reuse JHCR figures in my lecture?

Yes, provided you cite the article, name the authors, and state that it was published in the Journal of Hematology and Clinical Research (JHCR) under CC BY 4.0.

Does open access mean no peer review?

No. All JHCR articles are peer reviewed under a double-blind system, as stated on several policy pages. OA affects access, not quality control. 

What if I cannot pay the APC?

Apply for a waiver during submission and describe your circumstances. The waiver page confirms that waivers are considered “on case-to-case basis.”