The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and technologies in the research, authorship, and peer-review processes for submissions to the Sustainable Welfare journal is governed by this statement. Our primary objective is to maintain academic integrity, ensure transparency across all processes, and promote ethical standards in scholarly communication. Our journal permits the responsible and limited use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools in research processes, provided that they do not violate copyright, data privacy, and information security standards.
Adhering to internationally recognized ethical principles, including those established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Sustainable Welfare demands absolute transparency regarding the use of GenAI. GenAI tools may be utilized as supportive aids in technical areas such as language editing, literature synthesis, or data visualization during the manuscript preparation process. However, these tools must not replace the researcher's original intellectual contribution and must under no circumstances generate fabricated (hallucinated) data or content.
Because AI tools cannot fulfill the fundamental criteria for authorship—such as conceptualizing the study, conducting the research, and assuming scientific responsibility for the content—no AI tool can be listed as an author or co-author. The absolute responsibility for the accuracy, academic integrity, originality, and ethical compliance of the submissions lies solely with the human authors.
Authors who utilize GenAI tools during the manuscript preparation processes must fully comply with the following obligations:
Tool Declaration: The names and versions of all AI applications used (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Jasper AI, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, Runway, ElevenLabs, etc.) must be explicitly stated.
Scope of Use: The specific tasks for which these tools were employed (e.g., language editing, data visualization, code writing, etc.) must be clearly detailed.
Placement: This transparent declaration regarding AI usage must be clearly documented in the "Methodology" (or Research Method) section of the manuscript.
Citation Standards: All citations for text or images generated by AI must strictly comply with the current APA (7th Edition) guidelines.
AI Usage in Peer-Review Processes The evaluation and review processes of our journal are fundamentally reliant on human-centric judgment. While reviewers may utilize AI technologies to a limited extent to facilitate their review processes, these tools can never replace a reviewer's scientific expertise, critical analytical skills, and intellectual judgment.
This ethical statement will be periodically reviewed and updated to reflect evolving best practices in academic publishing and current advancements in artificial intelligence technologies.
