All articles published by Bone & Joint Open are made freely and permanently available online without subscription charges. Authors retain the copyright of their work but agree to license their work according to a Creative Commons Attribution License. Authors should select the correct licence that meets the requirements of their funding body. The standard licence used is CC-BY-NC-ND unless specified otherwise. Full details of the licences are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses.

BJO confirms compliance with the UK Wellcome Trust’s revised requirements, including publication under a CC-BY licence. The publishers confirm that they will refund Author Publication Charges to the Wellcome Trust for any article where they fail to comply with these requirements, unless the failure to comply is caused by circumstances outside the control of the publishers.

Article Publication Charge (APC)

For the standard CC-BY-NC-ND license, BJO applies an Article Publication Charge (APC) of £882 for each article accepted for publication. For CC-BY-ND or CC-BY licenses, the APC is £930 for each article accepted for publication. VAT will be added for payments received from UK-based institutions/individuals. Payment can also be made in USD or EUR. Submission to BJO is free of charge, and no fee is payable unless your article is accepted for publication.

After a paper has been accepted by the journal, an email requesting payment of the APC (article processing charge) will be sent to the corresponding author. Upon receipt of the payment, the paper will then move to the first stage of the production process. It is at this stage that the journal incurs substantial costs including editing and typesetting. It is for this reason that the Society will not refund the APC after payment has been received. However, the journal will consider a refund in the case of a paper being published with the incorrect licensing.

All refunds will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Waivers and discounts

We appreciate that some authors do not have access to funding to cover publication costs. In these instances, we ask that the authors contact the journal. No payment information is requested before an article is accepted. The ability to pay cannot affect the editorial decision. BJO offers a 100% waiver to corresponding authors from institutions based in Hinari Group A countries, and a 50% waiver to authors from institutions based in Hinari Group B countries. For more information about Hinari, click here. In recognition of reviewers' support, any reviewer that returns a full review, on time, can receive a 10% discount on the article publication charge for a paper for which they are the corresponding author, if submitted within 12 months of completing the review. Current members of the British Orthopaedic Association are also entitled to receive a 10% discount on the article publication charge.