Artificial Intelligence Policy

Clean Energy and Smart Technology (CEST) recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI) tools can support research and scholarly writing. Their use must uphold transparency, research integrity, confidentiality, and human accountability. This policy applies to authors, reviewers, and editors.

1. Authorship and Accountability

AI tools, including generative AI systems and large language models, cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. These tools cannot accept responsibility for published work, approve the final manuscript, or manage conflicts of interest.

Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content, including material prepared with AI assistance. They must verify the accuracy, originality, and reliability of the text, references, data, calculations, code, and illustrations.

2. Acceptable Use

Authors may use AI tools to improve language, translate text, organize content, assist with programming, or support research activities under human supervision.

AI assistance must not replace the authors’ critical assessment, scientific interpretation, or responsibility for the conclusions. All AI-assisted content must be reviewed and, where necessary, corrected before submission.

Routine spelling checks, reference formatting, and basic grammar checks do not require disclosure unless they generate or substantially rewrite content.

3. Disclosure Requirements

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI for drafting, substantive rewriting, translation, literature synthesis, code generation, or other substantive tasks.

A statement titled “Declaration of AI Use” must appear before the References section. It should identify the tool and provider, the version or access date where available, the purpose of use, and the authors’ verification process.

Example:

“During manuscript preparation, the authors used [tool name, provider, and version or access date] to assist with [specific purpose]. The authors reviewed and revised the resulting content and take full responsibility for the final manuscript.”

If no disclosure-requiring AI assistance was used, authors may state:

“The authors declare that no generative AI tools were used in preparing this manuscript.”

4. AI as a Research Method

When AI or machine learning forms part of the research methodology, authors must describe its use in the Methods section. Reporting must provide sufficient information to assess and reproduce the work, including relevant model specifications, datasets, preprocessing, validation procedures, evaluation metrics, and software configurations.

Authors must clearly distinguish measured observations from simulated or AI-generated data. Synthetic data may be used when scientifically justified and explicitly identified, but must never be presented as experimental observations.

Research-related AI use must be reported in the Methods section even when no generative AI was used to prepare the manuscript.

5. References and Source Verification

Authors must consult and verify the original sources supporting their claims. AI-generated references, quotations, DOIs, and factual statements must not be included without independent verification.

AI tools must not be cited as substitutes for scholarly evidence. Fabricated references, unsupported claims, plagiarism, and misleading attribution are unacceptable, regardless of how they were produced.

6. Images and Research Evidence

AI tools must not be used to fabricate, conceal, or misrepresent research evidence. This includes experimental images, instrument outputs, measurement records, and visual results.

AI-generated conceptual illustrations may be considered when their origin is disclosed in the caption and they are clearly distinguished from research evidence. When image generation or processing is part of the research method, the procedures must be described sufficiently for evaluation and reproducibility.

7. Confidentiality and Data Protection

Authors must not upload confidential, personal, proprietary, or restricted material to AI services without appropriate authorization and safeguards. They must comply with applicable consent requirements, data protection obligations, and intellectual property rights.

Reviewers and editors must not upload unpublished manuscripts, supplementary files, or review correspondence to external AI services without explicit authorization from the journal and adequate confidentiality protections.

8. Peer Review and Editorial Decisions

Peer review must reflect the reviewer’s own assessment. Reviewers must not delegate manuscript evaluation or recommendations to generative AI tools. Any permitted AI assistance must be disclosed to the editor.

Editors remain responsible for editorial assessments and publication decisions. AI-assisted screening may support these activities, but must not determine acceptance, rejection, or findings of misconduct without human examination.

AI-detection scores alone are insufficient grounds for rejecting a manuscript or establishing misconduct.

9. Noncompliance

Undisclosed substantive AI use, fabricated content, confidentiality breaches, or other violations may result in requests for clarification, manuscript revision, rejection, or post-publication action.

The journal will assess concerns individually and give authors an opportunity to respond. Corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions may be issued when warranted by the evidence and the journal’s publication ethics procedures.

10. Policy Review

CEST may revise this policy as AI technologies and scholarly publishing practices develop. Authors, reviewers, and editors should consult the current policy when submitting or evaluating manuscripts.