Checklist: before submitting your manuscript

Defining the role of authors

Defining the role of authors and agreeing on authorship for both publications and research data is important. 'Agreeing on authorship - Recommendation for research publications of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK 2018’ requires that authorship is agreed before submission for publication and agreed separately for each manuscript. Also funders require that researchers follow guidelines on authorship. 

Reliability of the publication channel

When selecting a publication channel, you should pay attention to the openness and reliability of the publication channel.

The number of questionable publication channels is constantly increasing. So-called predatory journals charge for publishing, but neglect the obligations of the scientific publication, such as rigorous peer review. However, shortcomings in the quality of the editorial work may also be caused by lack of competence or resources. 

Funders' open access requirements

If the research has been funded by external funding, please check your funder's open access requirements from the funding decision before submitting your manuscript to a journal. Funders committed to Plan S initative, such as EU and Research Council of Finland (former Academy of Finland), encourage to publish in open access journals in projects where the funding call has started after 1 January 2021.

Openness of the publication channel

Aalto University aims to publish all publication types according to open access principles. Open access publishing is one of the key instruments for increasing the impact of the research conducted at Aalto University. Open CC licenses allow authors to give permission in advance for certain uses of their material.

Open access fees

Open access fees are article processing charges (APC fees) collected by publishers.

Aalto University provides open access agreements with several publishers. With the help of these agreements, our researchers can publish their articles open access without article processing charges or get discounts on them. Before submitting your manuscript, please check in advance whether the  journal is included in our agreements and under what conditions the agreement can be utilized.

Affiliations in publications

Aalto University can be indicated as an affiliation when the publication is based on a person's research or expert work conducted at Aalto University. When submitting a manuscript, indicate your affiliation with the department (not only the research group), e.g.

Name, Aalto University, Department of Computer Science

ORCID identifier

Use unique ORCID researcher identifier in publications and funding applications to enhance your visibility and ensure compatibility of your information across different systems. Researcher identifiers aim to lessen the problems caused by ambiguity in researcher names. Many publishers and research funders require researchers to have an ORCID identifier.

Data availability statements 

Scientific journals are becoming increasingly interested in data underlying the submitted articles. Journals are increasingly requiring or suggesting that authors add a data availability statement to their manuscript. With data availability statements you are able tell about your data and its possible availability to the readers.

Externally funded projects  

The project information should be found in all externally funded scientific publications. Funders require that the name of the project, project number and funder are mentioned in the acknowledgement section of the publication. Always check your funder’s instructions. If not available, apply these examples:  

• This article was funded by the Academy of Finland's Flagship Programme under Projects No. 318890 and 318891 (Competence Center for Materials Bioeconomy, CERES). 
• We acknowledge the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ERC Advanced Grant Agreement No. 788489, “BioElCell”).

Please note that in addition to project acknowledgement, European Union requires following disclaimer also in scientific publications: "Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them."

By mentioning the project number in your publication, we can link your publication under the correct project in ACRIS research information system. It is also possible to generate reports on project-specific publications from ACRIS.

Projects in ACRIS

Aalto University research infrastructures 

If you have utilized Aalto's research infrastructure in your research, include infrastructure in the acknowledgement section of your publication. Examples:

• The computational resources provided by  Aalto Science-IT are acknowledged… 
• The authors acknowledge the provision of facilities and technical support by Aalto University OtaNano – Nanofabrication Centre, Otanano -Nanomicroscopy Center  and  Science-IT. 
• The authors acknowledge the Aalto University Bioeconomy research infrastructure as well as Raw Materials Research Infrastructure. 

By mentioning the infrastructure in your publication, we can link your publication under the correct infrastructure in ACRIS research information system. This helps infrastructure managers both in user statistics and reporting.

Acknowledging research infrastructures in ACRIS

Publishing preprint in a repository

If you wish to publish your manuscript (preprint, version prior to peer review) in a publication repository, check from Open policy finder or directly from publisher whether the policy of the target journal is clear that a preprint will not pre-empt its publication. Please note that social media network services (e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu) are usually not acceptable repositories by publishers.

Several repositories allow the possibility to use CC licenses for the preprint versions. However, if possible, we recommend using restrictive licenses for preprints (e.g. the non-exclusive license offered by arXiv), to limit re-use before the final publication of the peer-reviewed article.

Webinar: How to publish preprints 3.11.2022

Contact information

For any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Open Science and ACRIS team ([email protected]).