1. JOURNAL PUBLISHING SCHEDULE
Journal of Global Innovations in Agricultural Sciences (JGIAS), the official journal of the Society for Innovative Agriculture (SIA), is an international journal, published in English, quarterly during second month of each quarter.
2. MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Types of Papers/Articles
Original Articles: Original articles must present scientific results that are essentially new and should be structured according to the guidelines given below.
Review Papers: Review papers should be comprehensive, fully referenced expositions of subjects of general interest, including background information and detailed critical analyses of current work in the field and its significance, often with figures and drawings. They should be designed to serve as source materials.
Perspectives Articles: Perspectives articles provide a brief perspective on recent developments relevant in the field of Plant Breeding. Note that these should not be full reviews, which should instead be submitted as Review Papers.
Methods Papers: We welcome papers describing new or improved methods that are of relevance to the broader field of Plant Breeding. Please note that methods that are highly specialized and useful only for a relatively small crop or group of researchers will not be considered with priority. We aim for papers that are of broader interest. The paper can be presented in a protocol-style or narrative method-style.
Opinion Papers: This category allows researchers to present a new synthesis of the field, future projections, or discussions and speculations that go beyond the level of a standard Review Paper. By definition, these are opinionated narratives that help the research field forward.
Submission Process
Manuscripts should be submitted online at Paper Submission System. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission portal. Once you have registered, click here to go to the submission form. Authors are encouraged to use Microsoft Word (font Times new Roman, size 12) to prepare their manuscript.
Submission declaration and verification
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Turnitin or other.
Reviewer Suggestions
During the submission process, please suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. Please provide detailed contact information (address, homepage, official e-mail). The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. You may identify appropriate Editorial Board members of the journal as potential reviewers. You may suggest reviewers from among the authors that you frequently cite in your paper.
3. EDITORIAL PROCEDURE AND PEER-REVIEW
Initial Checks
All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office are checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's scope or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound.
Peer-Review
Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it is assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. These experts may also include Editorial Board Members of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.
Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.
Editors and Editorial Staff as Authors
Editorial staff or editors shall not be involved in processing their own academic work. Submissions authored by editorial staff/editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author. Journal staff are not involved in the processing of their own work submitted to any SIA journals.
Editorial Decision and Revision
All the articles, reviews and communications published in JGIAS go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The managing editor will communicate the decision, which will be one of the following:
- Accept after Minor Revisions:
The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given five days for minor revisions.
- Reconsider after Major Revisions:
The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point-by-point response of the reviewer’s comments. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors are asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version is returned to the reviewer for further comments.
- Reject:
The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.
All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.
Manuscript withdrawal
It is possible that authors may wish to withdraw their manuscript after submission to the journal. Possible reasons could include major technical error, or the desire to submit the results to a different journal. In all such cases, manuscripts can of course be withdrawn at the authors’ discretion.
Author Appeals
Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewer’s comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board member to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.
Production and Publication
Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the journal website.
4. MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
The responsibility for the preparation of a paper according to the layout and style of the journal lies with the author(s). The research papers, not according to the format of the journal, will not be accepted. Sample Paper
General Considerations:
- Research manuscripts should comprise:
- Front matter: Title, Author list, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords, Short title
- Research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions.
- Back matter: Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, References.
- Review manuscripts should comprise the front matter, literature review sections and the back matter. It is not necessary to follow the remaining structure.
- Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation/initialism should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.
- SI Units (International System of Units) should be used.
- Accession numbers of RNA, DNA and protein sequences used in the manuscript should be provided in the Materials and Methods section.
- Equations: If you are using Word, please use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a picture format.
Front Matter:
These sections should appear in all manuscript types
- Title: The title of manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports trial data, or is a systematic review. When species, gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used.
- Author’s and Affiliations: Authors' full names must be provided. Author(s) complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country must be written. At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author, and their email address and other details included at the end of the affiliation section. After acceptance, updates to author names or affiliations may not be permitted.
- Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
- Keywords: Five to eight pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.
Research Manuscript Sections:
- Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully, and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
- Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any equipment/software used.
- Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
- Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible, and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
- Conclusions: This section is mandatory, with one or two paragraphs to end the main text.
Back Matter:
- Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).
- Funding: All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not refund article processing charges (APC) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper.
Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section.
- Author Contributions: Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.
For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”, please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation. Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work.
- Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. Any projects funded by industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state “The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study”. For more details please see Conflict of Interest.
- Sample CRediT Author Statement: Qasim M: Conceived the idea, designed the study, supervised research project and wrote the article; Li W: Co-supervised research study and performed data analysis; Ghorab AA: Assisted in field data collection and layout of experiment; Kumar A: Contributed in the framing and executing the research idea, assisted in design layout and proofreading; Naqvi SA: Assisted in data collection and laboratory work; John Q: Reviewing and editing
Funding: This research was supported, in part, by Plant Research Laboratories, Warsaw, Poland for the micropropagation experiment and sharing the production costs.
Acknowledgments: The authors wish to acknowledge Plant Research Laboratories, Warsaw, Poland for sharing the laboratory and essential data for cost analysis.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
- Disclaimer: Disclaimer is a statement denying responsibility intended to prevent civil liability arising for particular acts or omissions. If there is no disclaimer, then write “None”.
- References: Citations and References are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.
In the text, reference citations should quote the surnames of the authors in one of the two ways: With the year in parentheses: “Baqar (997) has shown…”. With the name and year in parentheses: “According to recent findings (Baqar, 1997)…”. Multiple references should be as follows: Baqar et al., 1997 and 1998; Baqar et al., 1997a and b; et al. as Italics.
References are listed alphabetically by surname. Secondly, use chronological order for references with identical authorship. The sequence of names of authors (invert name of first author only), year of publication, title {lower case letters except for books, proceedings of international seminars/workshops and important research reports where capitals are used for first letters of various words), abbreviated name of periodicals, volume and number of first and last pages of the article. All reference entries must be cited in the body of the paper. Do not include unpublished material, except theses, in the references. Some examples are:
- Article in journal, magazine and serial publication:
Iqrar, M., M. Ismat, R.H. Qureshi, S. Nawaz and I.A. Mehmood. 1994. Paddy yield affected by planting techniques in a salt-affected soil. Journal of Global Innovations in Agricultural Sciences 31:401-405.
- Books (including bulletins, reports, multivolume works, series):
Steel, R.G.D. and J.H. Torrie. 1980. Principles and Procedures of Statistics: A biometrical approach, 2nd ed. McGraw Hill Book Co., New York.
- Chapter in a book:
Wiseman, J. 1990. Variability in the nutritive value of fats and non-ruminants, pp. 232-234. In: J. Wiseman and J.A. Cole (Ed.), Feedstuffs Evaluation. Butterworths, London.
- Conference, symposium or workshop proceedings:
Muhammad, S. and A. Ghafoor. 1986. Reclamation of two saline-sodic soil series through subsoiling and gypsum application using marg class="p-cus"inal water for leaching, pp. 221-223. In: R. Ahmad and A.S. Pietro (Eds.), Prospects for Biosaline Research. Proc. US-Pak. Biosaline Res. Workshop, 22-26 Sept. 1985. University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan.
- Dissertation or thesis:
Kirkegaard, J.A. 1990. Effect of compaction on the growth of pigeon pea on clay soils. Ph.D. diss., Dept. Soil Sci., Univ. Queensland, Australia.
- Software and websites:
National Agricultural Statistics Service. 1997. Crops County data. Available online at http://usda.mannlib.comell.edu/data-sets/crops/9X100
- Organization/ Govt. department documents:
Ministry of Finance. 2009. Economic Survey of Pakistan 2008-09. Finance and Economic Affairs Division, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of Pakistan, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Tables and Figures:
- File for Figures and Schemes must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). Common formats are accepted; however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS and PDF are preferred.
- All Figures and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their number (Arabic numerals) of appearance (Figure 1, Table 1, etc.).
- All Figures and Tables should have a short explanatory title and caption. The same data may not be presented in tabular and graphical form.
- All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.
Citation Policy:
- Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing), the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.
- Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.
- Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.
- Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.
- Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
- In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations”. This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.
5. RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS
RESEARCH ETHICS
Research Involving Plants:
Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild) including collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oryza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.
Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
An example of Ethical Statements:
Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country).
Arabidopis mutant lines (SALKxxxx, SAILxxxx,…) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX , institute, city, country).
Research Involving Animals Subjects
The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals, and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly accepted '3Rs [1]':
- Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,
- Reduction in number of animals used, and
- Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.
Authors must include details on housing, husbandry and pain management in their manuscript.
For further guidance authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures [2], American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [3] or European Animal Research Association [4].
If national legislation requires it, studies involving vertebrates or higher invertebrates must only be carried out after obtaining approval from the appropriate ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’. Research procedures must be carried out in accordance with national and institutional regulations. Statements on animal welfare should confirm that the study complied with all relevant legislation. Clinical studies involving animals and interventions outside of routine care require ethics committee oversight as per the American Veterinary Medical Association. If the study involved client-owned animals, informed client consent must be obtained and certified in the manuscript report of the research. Owners must be fully informed if there are any risks associated with the procedures and that the research will be published. If available, a high standard of veterinary care must be provided. Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript.
An example of Ethical Statements:
The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXXXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXXX.
Sex and Gender in Research
We encourage our authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research –SAGER – guidelines’ and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms. Article titles and/or abstracts should indicate clearly what sex(es) the study applies to. Authors should also describe in the background, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the design of the study; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender, where appropriate; and discuss respective results. If a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given in the Discussion. We suggest that our authors consult the full guidelines before submission.
Borders and Territories
Potential disputes over borders and territories may have particular relevance for authors in describing their research or in an author or editor correspondence address, and should be respected. Content decisions are an editorial matter and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies parties involved.
SIA stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
PUBLICATION ETHICS
SIA follows the code of conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and COPE’s guidelines when a misconduct is suspected or alleged. The following issues are highlighted.
- Originality and plagiarism: The authors should ensure that their work is original, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, then this must be appropriately cited or quoted.
- Data access and retention: Authors may be asked to provide raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such data.
- Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publication: An author should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication.
Please note that SIA uses the Turnitin to screen manuscripts for plagiarism risks. By submitting your manuscript to SIA, you are agreeing to any originality checks your manuscript may undergo during the peer-review and production and processes. Where author or peer reviewer misconduct is identified, a due process will be followed to investigate the issue, giving those involved a right to appeal in a formal way. The publisher and editors will deal with the allegations of research misconduct according to COPE guidelines.
6. CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS
All SIA journals have the same policy regarding corrections and retractions. We differentiate between Addendum, Erratum, Corrections, Retractions (or Partial Retractions), and Comments.
Addendum: If crucial results (e.g., additional affiliation, clarify some aspect of methods/analysis, etc.) were unintentionally omitted from the original publication, the original article can be amended through an Addendum. The Addendum will be published, with article numbers added, in the current issue of the journal. A hyperlink to the Addendum will also be added to the original publication, but the original paper does not need to be updated.
Erratum: Errata should be published for scientifically relevant formatting changes, or changes to authorship if the author or contributor list is incorrect when a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included. Scientifically relevant formatting issues that require an Erratum might include missing or unclear figures, or errors introduced during proofreading (e.g., missing text). Minor errors that do not affect readability or meaning (e.g., spelling or grammatical errors) do not qualify for an Erratum. All authors should proofread the final version carefully.
Author Name Change Policy: Some authors might wish to change their name following publication. In such cases, SIA will update and republish the article and re-deliver the updated metadata to the appropriate indexing services. SIA is aware that name changes can be sensitive and/or private in nature, for a variety of reasons that may include alignment with gender identity, marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Therefore, to protect author identity, an Erratum will not be published, and co-authors will not be notified. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.
Corrections: Corrections should be submitted for any scientifically relevant errors in published articles. 1) Any changes may be evaluated by the academic editors. 2) Any changes after publication that affect the scientific interpretation (e.g., changes to a misleading portion of an otherwise reliable publication, an error in a figure, error in data that does not affect conclusions, or addition of missing details about a method) are announced using a Correction. This is a separate publication that links to the original paper, which is updated. A note will also be added to the Article Versions Notes and to the abstract page, which tells the readers that an updated version was uploaded.
Retractions: Sometimes an article needs to be completely removed from the body of research literature. This could be due to inadvertent errors made during the research process, gross ethical breaches, fabrication of data, large amounts of plagiarism, or other reasons. Such articles threaten the integrity of scientific records and need to be retracted. SIA follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction. Potential Retractions are thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field. If a Retraction is published, the original publication is amended with a “ RETRACTED” watermark, but will still be available on the journal’s website for future reference. However, retracted articles should not be cited and used for further research, as they cannot be relied upon. Retractions are published using the same authorship and affiliation as the article being retracted, with page numbers added, as a separate item in the current issue of the journal. That way, so that after the issue is released, the Retraction can be marked within the indexing databases. Partial Retractions might be published in cases where results are only partially wrong. A paper will only be completely removed in very exceptional circumstances, where leaving it online would constitute an illegal act or be likely to lead to significant harm. Expression of Concern for complex, inconclusive, or prolonged situations, an Expression of Concern may be published. If investigations into alleged or suspected research misconduct have not yet been completed or prove to be inconclusive, an editor or journal may wish to publish an Expression of Concern, detailing the points of concern and what actions, if any, are in progress.
7. REVENUE SOURCES
This is a self-financed Open Access journal, not supported by any agency or government. Article processing charges are the only source of income. These resources support operating expense, including copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management.
8. ARTICLE PRINTING CHARGES
All articles published in SIA Journals are published in full Open Access. There are no processing charges for submitted articles. To provide free access to readers, and to cover the costs of peer review, copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management, an article processing charge of PKR 25,000 (national) and US$ 300 (international) applies to papers accepted after peer review. The Article Printing Charges are based on reduced rates for authors of low- and middle-income countries.
We consider individual waiver requests for articles on a case-by-case basis, and they may be granted in cases of lack of funds. To apply for a waiver, please request during the submission process. A decision on the waiver will normally be made within three working days. Requests made during the review process or after acceptance will not be considered.