Preprints & Conference Proceedings

Preprint dissemination is an established and valuable part of scholarly communication, particularly across technical, engineering, computational, and rapidly developing scientific disciplines, where Authors benefit from sharing findings, methods, and technical developments with the wider community ahead of formal peer review. The Journal supports the early and open sharing of research through recognised preprint services, institutional repositories, Author websites, and appropriate scholarly communication platforms. The Journal does not treat a preprint as the published version of record. A manuscript submitted to the Journal that has previously appeared as a preprint is submitted for peer review in the same way as any other manuscript, and proceeds through the Journal's full editorial and peer-review process before it can be published.

The Journal considers a manuscript for publication where the underlying research has not been published elsewhere in its entirety and where the submitted work is original or a derivative development of previously disseminated material. This requirement applies with particular emphasis to Exploratory Papers, the Journal's flagship article type, for which the underlying work must not have been published elsewhere in its entirety, regardless of any prior preprint or conference dissemination. Work previously presented through conference proceedings is considered where the submitted manuscript provides a meaningful development of the earlier work, identifies and cites the prior publication, and carries the necessary permissions and attribution for any reused material.

A manuscript submitted to the Journal, including one previously disseminated as a preprint or through conference proceedings, must not be under consideration at another journal at the same time. Authors confirm, at submission, that the manuscript is not simultaneously submitted elsewhere. This requirement protects the transparency of the peer-review process; a simultaneous submission that comes to the Journal's attention is treated as a competing interest under the Journal's Competing Interests policy and is addressed accordingly.

Authors disclose any relevant preprint version at submission, including its DOI, location, and applicable licence, and clearly identify any substantial relationship between the submitted manuscript and previously disseminated versions or related publications. Where the Journal subsequently publishes the manuscript, Authors are required to update the preprint record with the formal publication details and a link to the published version.