Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
Energy and Environmental Research is committed to maintaining high standards of research integrity, publication ethics, scientific transparency, environmental responsibility, and editorial independence.
Authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher are expected to comply with applicable ethical, scientific, professional, institutional, and regulatory requirements.
The journal's publication-ethics framework is informed by recognized principles of responsible scholarly publishing, including the COPE Core Practices and other applicable professional and scientific standards.
Research Integrity
Research must be conducted and reported honestly, accurately, transparently, and responsibly.
The journal does not tolerate fabrication, falsification, manipulation, selective reporting intended to misrepresent findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, or other practices that compromise the integrity of the scholarly record.
Environmental and Scientific Responsibility
Research involving environmental systems, natural resources, ecosystems, climate, pollution, energy technologies, or sustainability should be conducted responsibly and reported accurately.
Authors should distinguish established findings from assumptions, projections, scenarios, modelling outputs, and speculative interpretations.
Field Research and Permissions
Authors conducting field research must comply with applicable laws, regulations, institutional requirements, land-access requirements, collection permissions, environmental regulations, and other relevant authorization requirements.
Where permits or permissions are required, they should be obtained before the research is conducted and appropriately disclosed where relevant.
Hazardous Materials and Research Safety
Research involving hazardous chemicals, pollutants, biological materials, radiation, dangerous environmental conditions, or other potentially harmful materials must comply with applicable safety and regulatory requirements.
Researchers are responsible for conducting such work according to appropriate institutional and professional safety procedures.
Research Involving Human Participants and Personal Data
Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, personal information, or identifiable data must comply with applicable ethical, legal, and institutional requirements.
Where ethical approval or informed consent is required, the relevant information should be provided in the manuscript.
Research Involving Animals
Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international animal-welfare requirements.
Where ethical approval is required, authors should provide appropriate approval information and describe relevant measures taken to minimize pain, distress, or unnecessary animal use.
Data Integrity and Transparency
Research data must be accurately collected, analyzed, presented, and preserved.
Authors should provide a Data Availability Statement where applicable and should identify legitimate restrictions on access to data.
Data must not be fabricated, falsified, selectively manipulated, or otherwise misrepresented.
Software, Models, and Computational Materials
Where software, models, algorithms, or computational methods materially support the research, authors should provide sufficient information for appropriate evaluation and, where reasonably possible, reproducibility.
Authors should identify important assumptions, software versions, data sources, and relevant licenses where applicable.
Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship must accurately reflect meaningful contributions to the research and manuscript.
Guest, gift, and ghost authorship are not permitted.
Individuals who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship may be acknowledged with their permission.
Changes to Authorship
Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors must be submitted to the editorial office with an appropriate explanation and confirmation from the affected authors.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members must disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest that could reasonably affect research, peer review, interpretation, or editorial decisions.
Conflicts may include financial interests, employment, consultancy, funding, patents, institutional relationships, personal relationships, professional collaborations, competitive interests, or other relevant circumstances.
Funding and Financial Support
All sources of financial support for the research or preparation of the manuscript must be disclosed.
Where applicable, authors should describe the role of the funding organization in study design, data collection, analysis, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit or publish.
Peer-Review Ethics
The journal uses a single-anonymous (single-blind) peer-review process.
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, provide objective and constructive assessments, disclose conflicts of interest, and avoid using unpublished information for personal or professional advantage.
Reviewer recommendations are advisory and do not constitute the final publication decision.
Editorial Independence
The Editor-in-Chief has overall responsibility for the journal's editorial direction, peer-review integrity, publication ethics, and final editorial decisions.
The Editor-in-Chief may delegate manuscript handling and decision-making to a qualified Senior Editor, Associate Editor, or other formally designated editor.
Such delegation does not remove the Editor-in-Chief's overall responsibility.
Editorial decisions must not be influenced by commercial interests, optional service payments, advertising, sponsorship, authors, reviewers, or other inappropriate external pressure.
Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication
The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, inappropriate text reuse, duplicate or redundant publication, fabricated or falsified content, manipulated images, or other forms of research and publication misconduct.
Similarity-detection tools may be used as part of editorial screening. A similarity percentage alone does not establish plagiarism; the nature, location, extent, and context of the overlap will be considered.
Research and Publication Misconduct
The journal may investigate concerns involving:
- Plagiarism;
- Fabrication;
- Falsification;
- Duplicate or redundant publication;
- Inappropriate image manipulation;
- Data manipulation;
- Authorship misconduct;
- Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- Manipulation of peer review;
- Failure to obtain required research permissions or approvals; and
- Other forms of research or publication misconduct.
Where necessary, the journal may request clarification or supporting documentation from authors, institutions, ethics committees, or other relevant parties.
Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI
Authors must disclose substantial use of generative AI or other AI-assisted technologies in preparing manuscripts.
AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, citations, interpretation, and ethical compliance of their work.
AI must not be used to fabricate or falsify research data, results, references, images, or other scholarly information.
Reviewers and editors must also protect confidential manuscript information when using AI-assisted technologies.
Corrections
A correction may be published when a post-publication error affects the accuracy or clarity of an article but does not invalidate the overall scholarly record.
Retractions
An article may be considered for retraction where reliable evidence indicates that the published work is substantially unreliable or involves serious research or publication misconduct.
Expressions of Concern
Where substantial concerns exist but an investigation is incomplete or available evidence is insufficient for an immediate correction or retraction, the journal may publish an expression of concern.
Post-Publication Concerns
Readers, authors, reviewers, institutions, and other interested parties may communicate credible concerns regarding published articles to the editorial office.
The journal will assess such concerns and take appropriate action when supported by reliable evidence.
Complaints and Appeals
Authors may submit legitimate complaints or appeals concerning editorial or publication processes.
Complaints and appeals should be handled fairly, confidentially, and independently where appropriate.
Production and Technical Support
Authors who require assistance with final manuscript preparation, production-related technical checks, or file preparation after acceptance may request optional Production and Technical Support for USD 50 per manuscript.
This service is entirely optional and is not a condition of acceptance or publication. Authors who prepare their own final files do not need to pay this charge.
Payment for this optional service does not influence peer review, editorial assessment, acceptance, or publication decisions.
External Publication-Ethics and Research Guidance
The journal may refer to recognized external guidance relevant to the subject and research design, including:
- COPE Core Practices
- EQUATOR Network Reporting Guidelines
- World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, where applicable to human health research
- ICMJE Recommendations, where applicable to biomedical research
The applicability of any external guideline depends on the research design, discipline, article type, and applicable ethical or regulatory requirements.