Policy on the use of artificial intelligence (AI)

Purpose and Scope

RETEE recognises the growing impact of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools on academic production. This policy establishes ethical, professional, scientific, and academic guidelines for the use of AI in the preparation of manuscripts submitted to the journal, in accordance with the recommendations of COPE, ICMJE, and the policies of leading international publishers.

Fundamental Ethical Principles

• Transparency: All use of AI must be explicitly stated in the manuscript.
• Human Responsibility: The content of the article is the sole responsibility of the human authors; AI cannot assume ethical, legal, or academic obligations.
• Scientific Integrity: The use of AI must not compromise the originality, truthfulness, or quality of the work submitted.
• Confidentiality: It is prohibited to upload unpublished manuscripts to public AI tools during their preparation or review, in order to protect sensitive data and copyright.

Guidelines for Authors

Permitted use:

• Assistance with grammar, style, translation or text structuring.
• Support in bibliographic research or information synthesis with human verification of sources.

Prohibited use:

• Generation of ideas, hypotheses, conclusions or results without human intervention.
• Creation, alteration or manipulation of images, figures or research data.
• Inclusion of unverified text, fabricated citations or potentially biased content.

Mandatory statement:

• • Authors must include a note in the manuscript (in the Methods or Acknowledgements section) specifying:
  • Tool used (name and version).
  • Purpose of use (e.g., linguistic correction).
  • Level of human intervention (verification, final editing).
• Authorship:
  • No AI tool may be listed as an author or co-author.
  • Recognition of AI assistance will only be made in the acknowledgements.

Guidelines for Reviewers and Editors

• Reviewers should not use generative AI tools to analyse manuscripts, write reviews or enter confidential texts into external platforms.
• Editors may use AI only for administrative support tasks (e.g., plagiarism checking or linguistic enhancements), always under human review.

Disclosure and Traceability

• The use of AI must also be disclosed in the cover letter.
• Authors must retain evidence of the disclosed use (prompts, software versions, procedures).

Sanctions and Compliance

Failure to comply with this policy may be considered an ethical violation and may result in:

• Rejection of the manuscript during review.
• Retraction of published articles if undeclared or improper use is detected.
• Notification to the relevant institutions in serious cases of scientific misconduct.

Review and Update

This policy will be reviewed periodically, adapting to technological developments and international best practices in scientific publishing ethics.

With this policy, RETEE reaffirms its commitment to ethical, responsible publishing in line with the