SEMINARE  POLICY  ON  AI  IN  SCHOLARLY  PUBLISHING

1. General Principles

Seminare supports the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted tools in research and scholarly publishing.

AI tools may support research, writing, analysis, communication, editorial work, and peer review, provided that their use remains under meaningful human supervision, is transparent where substantive, and does not replace human scholarly judgement or responsibility.

The use of AI does not in itself constitute misconduct and is not grounds for rejection of a manuscript. AI use is assessed according to its purpose, scope, transparency, methodological appropriateness, and impact on research integrity.

Human authors, reviewers, and editors remain responsible for their respective contributions, assessments, and decisions.

2. Use of AI by Authors

Authors may use AI tools where appropriate to support scholarly work, including language and writing assistance, translation, literature exploration, organisation and synthesis of research material, coding, data processing and analysis, visualisation, development of research materials, and other research-related tasks.

AI may also form part of the research methodology where this is scientifically justified. In such cases, its use must be described in the relevant methodological section in sufficient detail to allow readers to understand and evaluate the procedure.

Authors must critically review and, where appropriate, independently verify AI-assisted output. Particular care must be taken with factual claims, quotations, references, calculations, data, code, interpretations, and conclusions. AI-generated or AI-suggested references must be verified against the original sources before inclusion in the manuscript.

AI tools may also be used to create or modify figures, visualisations, code, and other research materials, and to process or analyse data, where methodologically appropriate. Authors must ensure that such materials accurately represent the underlying evidence and do not introduce fabricated, falsified, misleading, or materially distorted information.

AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship, intellectual contribution, approval of the final manuscript, and responsibility for its integrity remain exclusively human responsibilities.

Authors must also respect confidentiality, privacy, copyright, intellectual property rights, research ethics, and applicable data-protection requirements when using AI tools.

3. Transparency and Disclosure

Substantive use of AI tools by authors in the preparation, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of scholarly work must be transparently disclosed in the manuscript.

Where disclosure is required, authors must include an AI Tools Declaration identifying the AI tool used and briefly describing the purpose and scope of its use. Where relevant, the model, version, or provider should also be indicated.

Routine use of tools limited to spelling, grammar, formatting, reference management, or similar technical assistance does not normally require disclosure, provided that such tools do not generate or substantially modify scholarly content.

Authors are not normally required to reproduce complete prompts, interaction histories, or AI-generated outputs unless this information is methodologically relevant to the research or specifically requested by the Editorial Board.

Responsibility for adequate disclosure rests with the authors. The Editorial Board may request additional information where necessary to assess the transparency, reproducibility, or integrity of the submitted work.

4. Use of AI by Editors and Reviewers

Editors and reviewers may use AI tools to support appropriate editorial and peer-review tasks, provided that such use does not compromise confidentiality, independent scholarly judgement, research integrity, or the rights of authors.

Unpublished manuscripts, supplementary materials, personal data, confidential correspondence, or other confidential content must not be submitted to external AI systems unless adequate protection of confidentiality and data is ensured and such use is authorised within the journal’s editorial workflow.

Editors and reviewers remain fully responsible for their assessments, recommendations, and decisions. AI-generated evaluations must not replace independent scholarly judgement, and final editorial decisions must always be made by human editors.

Reviewers who make substantive use of AI in preparing a review must disclose such use, together with its purpose and scope, confidentially to the Editorial Board. This disclosure is part of the editorial record and does not need to be included in the review report. Routine technical or linguistic assistance does not normally require disclosure.

AI tools must not be used to identify authors in a double-blind review process, circumvent confidentiality safeguards, fabricate reviewer comments, or generate assessments that have not been independently considered and verified by the reviewer.

The journal may use appropriately governed AI tools for technical, linguistic, organisational, screening, quality-control, or other editorial purposes. Such use must remain subject to human oversight and comply with applicable requirements concerning confidentiality, data protection, publishing ethics, and editorial independence.

5. Final Principles

AI tools should be treated as instruments supporting scholarly and editorial work rather than as substitutes for human expertise, critical judgement, or accountability.

The use of AI does not alter established standards concerning originality, plagiarism, copyright, research ethics, data integrity, proper attribution, or scholarly reliability.

In cases not explicitly covered by this policy, the Editorial Board may assess the use of AI individually, taking into account its purpose, scope, transparency, research integrity, confidentiality, and current standards of scholarly publishing.

Seminare may update this policy as AI technologies, research practices, and relevant publishing standards evolve.