Responsible use of AI

Authorship and responsibility

AI systems cannot take responsibility for a scholarly work and must not be named as authors. Human authors remain accountable for every claim, citation, dataset and image, including material produced with AI assistance. Fabricated references or results are unacceptable regardless of how they were generated.

Disclosure by authors

Disclose substantive use of generative AI in drafting, translation, coding, analysis or image creation. Identify the tool and explain its role, together with the checks performed by the authors. Routine spelling and grammar correction does not normally require a separate disclosure unless it materially changes the content. Use that forms part of the research method must be described sufficiently for evaluation.

Confidentiality in review

Editors and reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, personal data or confidential reports to public AI tools or services that do not provide an authorised confidential environment. Any permitted assistance must be checked by the responsible person and must not replace expert judgement. Authors, reviewers and editors should consult any additional journal-specific requirements.

Website assistance

An automated website response is general guidance. The published journal policies and written confirmation from the editorial office take precedence for manuscript-specific decisions, fees and rights.