Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Intelligent Computing for Energy and Environment (ICEE) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and follows the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All parties involved in the act of publishing — editors, authors, reviewers, and the publisher — are expected to adhere to the following standards.

Editors' Responsibilities

Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on their intellectual merit and relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, religion, nationality, seniority, or institutional affiliation. Editors maintain the confidentiality of submitted material, avoid conflicts of interest, base decisions on the validity and importance of the work, and take responsible action when ethical concerns are raised regarding a submitted or published article. Editors monitor peer-review reports for coercive or self-serving citation requests and may edit or remove such requests before a review is shared with the authors.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers assist editorial decisions through objective, constructive, and timely evaluation. They treat manuscripts as confidential documents, do not use unpublished material for personal advantage, declare any competing interests, and alert the editor to any substantial similarity between the manuscript and other published work.

Reviewers may recommend additional references only where genuinely necessary to strengthen the scholarly quality of the manuscript, and any such suggestion must be accompanied by a clear scholarly justification. Reviewers must not request that authors cite the reviewer's own work, or the work of associates, for the purpose of increasing citations. Such coercive citation is regarded by ICEE as a form of reviewer misconduct. Authors are under no obligation to include references suggested by reviewers and will not be disadvantaged for declining to do so. Editors reserve the right to remove coercive or self-serving citation requests from a review before it is shared with the authors, and confirmed instances may result in the reviewer being removed from the journal's reviewer pool.

Authors' Responsibilities

Authors must ensure that their work is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under consideration by another journal. Data must be accurate and, where appropriate, made available. Authorship must be limited to those who have made a significant contribution. All sources must be properly cited, and references should be included solely on scholarly merit; authors are not required to add citations suggested during review unless they agree those citations are scholarly justified. Authors must disclose any financial or other conflicts of interest and cooperate with the editor in the event that errors or ethical concerns are identified.

Publisher's Responsibilities

Elamena Academic Press supports the editorial independence of the journal and is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of published content, and to working with editors to resolve ethical issues in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Citation Integrity

ICEE is committed to honest citation practice. Citations must reflect genuine scholarly relevance and must never be used to artificially inflate the citation counts of any individual, group, or journal. Coercive citation by reviewers or editors, and citation manipulation by authors (including excessive self-citation), are considered breaches of publication ethics and will be addressed in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. The corresponding author ensures that all named authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission. Individuals who contributed but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged. Any change to authorship after submission must be approved by all authors and requires editorial agreement.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose, at submission, any financial or personal relationships that could be perceived to influence their work, including funding sources, employment, consultancies, and other competing interests. Reviewers and editors must likewise declare any competing interests and recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where a conflict exists.

Misconduct

Allegations of research or publication misconduct — including plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, redundant or duplicate publication, improper authorship, coercive or manipulated citation, and undisclosed conflicts of interest — will be investigated in line with COPE procedures. Where misconduct is confirmed, the journal will take appropriate action, which may include correction, retraction, or notification of the authors' institutions.

Plagiarism and Similarity Screening

All submissions are screened for originality using similarity-detection software before peer review. Manuscripts found to contain plagiarism, including self-plagiarism or redundant publication, will be rejected or, if already published, subject to correction or retraction in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Corrections and Retractions

Where a significant error is identified in a published article, the journal will issue a correction (erratum or corrigendum). Where findings are found to be unreliable as a result of error or misconduct, or where the work constitutes plagiarism or unethical research, the article may be retracted in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines. Corrections and retractions are linked to the original article and made freely available.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors who believe their manuscript has been handled unfairly, or who wish to appeal an editorial decision, may contact the Editor-in-Chief at editor@icee-journal.org with a clear explanation of the grounds for appeal. Appeals are considered by the Editor-in-Chief and, where appropriate, by an editor not previously involved in the decision. Complaints regarding editorial process, ethics, or conduct will be handled promptly and in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Research Data

ICEE encourages authors to make the data underlying their findings available, to the extent that ethics and confidentiality permit, and to include a data availability statement in their manuscript.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI tools do not qualify for authorship, as they cannot take responsibility for the work. Authors who use AI-based tools in preparing a manuscript must disclose such use in the methods or acknowledgements section. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of their submission, including any content produced with the assistance of such tools.