Publication policies

For everyone

The right to access, analyze, and publish work based on proprietary Rubin data is limited to Rubin data rights holders - but there are key exceptions to facilitate scientific collaboration.

Learn more about the Rubin data policy.

Papers published that are based on Rubin data products should cite the relevant papers for the Rubin data releases and the LSST Science Pipelines.

Find out how to cite Rubin Observatory.

For Science Collaboration members

The individual Science Collaborations have unique publication policies that apply to papers written by their members which use software or derived data products that were developed within the collaboration. They may also have an internal publication review process.

Science Collaboration members are recommended to check their collaboration's policies before preparing and submitting manuscripts.

For Commissioning team members

All Rubin staff and in-kind contributors to Rubin Commissioning (as named in SITCOMTN-050) must abide by the policies in the "Information Sharing During Commissioning" document (SITCOMTN-076).

For Rubin staff

The Rubin Observatory Construction Project has a publication policy that applies to Rubin staff and covers technology papers that describe LSST infrastructure and data releases that result from Project-funded work.

The policy does not cover, e.g., scientific journal articles with Rubin staff co-authors who contributed to the work with their independent research time, or papers by Rubin staff based on published data products.

The policy does cover papers that:

• describe infrastructure work to design, develop, construct, commission, or operate Rubin Observatory;
• have any authors who are supported by Rubin Observatory Project funds to work to design, develop, construct, commission, or operate Rubin Observatory;
• are based on access to non-public Rubin Observatory/LSST data;
• are based on access to non-public intellectual property of Rubin Observatory Project.

Publications to which the Policy applies must follow the internal review process with the Publication Board.