Refund Policy

The Journal of Social Impact Studies (JSIS) is committed to maintaining transparency, fairness, and integrity in all financial transactions related to publication. This Refund Policy outlines the conditions under which publication-related payments—such as Article Processing Charges (APCs), print copy fees, or other service charges—may be refunded.

1. General Principles

  • APCs and other publication fees are used to cover essential publishing services, including editorial handling, peer review, copyediting, typesetting, DOI assignment, online hosting, archiving, and indexing.

  • Since these processes begin immediately upon submission or payment, full refunds are generally not possible once processing has commenced.

2. Situations Eligible for Refund

Refunds will be considered in the following cases:

  1. Duplicate Payment

    • If a payment is processed more than once for the same manuscript, the excess amount will be refunded in full.

  2. Technical or Administrative Error

    • If an error by JSIS results in an incorrect charge, a full refund will be issued.

  3. Article Rejection Before Peer Review

    • If a manuscript is rejected before it enters the peer review process, the payment will be refunded in full.

  4. Article Withdrawal Before Peer Review

    • If an author withdraws a manuscript before the peer review process begins, a partial refund (up to 75% of the paid fee) may be issued after deducting administrative costs.

3. Situations Not Eligible for Refund

Refunds will not be provided in the following cases:

  • The manuscript has entered or completed the peer review process.

  • The manuscript has been accepted, and production has started (e.g., copyediting, layout, DOI registration).

  • The author withdraws the manuscript for reasons unrelated to the journal’s performance.

  • The published article is later retracted due to ethical violations (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication, authorship disputes) attributable to the authors.

4. Refund Request Procedure

  • Refund requests must be submitted in writing to the JSIS editorial office within 30 days of payment.

  • The request should include:

    • Proof of payment.

    • Manuscript ID and title.

    • Reason for refund.

  • Approved refunds will be processed within 14 business days through the original payment method.

5. Currency and Bank Charges

  • All refunds will be processed in the same currency as the original payment.

  • JSIS is not responsible for currency fluctuations or bank charges incurred during the refund process.