Open Access Policy

The Caucasus Journal of Social Sciences is a fully open access journal. All content is made freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication, without charge to readers or their institutions, without subscription, registration requirements, access barriers, or any embargo period.

The journal has made its published articles freely available online since its establishment in 2008. Beginning with the 2023 publishing year, the journal adopted its current Diamond Open Access publishing model and the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), formalising its open access policy in accordance with the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).

The journal adheres to the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and supports the unrestricted dissemination of scholarly research to advance global knowledge exchange, research visibility, and academic impact.

Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to the full texts of articles, index, transmit, and otherwise use the published content for any lawful purpose, without requesting prior permission from the publisher or the authors, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source, and that such use complies with the terms of the applicable Creative Commons licence.

All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This licence permits unrestricted use, distribution, adaptation, and reproduction in any medium, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the licence is provided, and any changes made are clearly indicated. The applicable Creative Commons licence is clearly identified on each published article, including in the article metadata and full-text PDF.

Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal the right of first publication. Authors also grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, distribute, and share the published material in accordance with the terms of the CC BY 4.0 licence.

Where third-party material is included in an article, such material is clearly identified, and its reuse remains subject to the permissions and licensing terms established by the original copyright holder.

The journal operates under a Diamond Open Access publishing model and does not charge any fees for manuscript submission, editorial processing, peer review, or publication (no Article Processing Charges – APCs).

To ensure transparency of the editorial process, the dates of manuscript submission, acceptance, and publication are displayed for every published article.

Authors may deposit the published Version of Record in institutional, disciplinary, or other recognised repositories without restriction, provided that the original publication in the Caucasus Journal of Social Sciences is properly acknowledged.

Authors are encouraged to make the data, code, and other research materials underlying their publications openly available in appropriate repositories, where ethically, legally, and contractually possible, in accordance with the journal's Data Sharing and Reproducibility Policy and recognised open science practices.