Editorial Structure and Governance Model

1. Governance Principles

ETII's editorial governance model is based on the following principles:

• Editorial independence: academic decisions are made by qualified editors on scholarly grounds.
• Academic competence: editorial roles are assigned to researchers with relevant disciplinary expertise and academic experience.
• Transparency: editorial roles, policies, responsibilities, and decision procedures are publicly described.
• Accountability: editors are expected to act consistently with journal policies and accepted standards of scholarly publishing.
• Impartiality: editorial decisions should not be influenced by nationality, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, commercial interests, or other irrelevant considerations.
• Conflict management: editors must disclose and appropriately manage actual or perceived conflicts of interest.
• Research integrity: the editorial structure supports the identification and resolution of ethical, methodological, and publication-integrity concerns.
• Continuity: editorial appointments, succession, role changes, and service records should be managed in a documented and orderly manner.

2. Editorial Structure

The editorial structure of ETII normally consists of:

Additional roles may be established where required by the journal's development, including Guest Editors for Special Issues, advisory members, statistical or methodological advisors, ethics advisors, or other specialist editorial functions.

3. Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief is the journal's principal academic leader and holds overall responsibility for the integrity, scholarly direction, and quality of ETII's editorial decision-making.

Principal responsibilities include:

• providing overall academic leadership for the journal;
• maintaining and developing the journal's aims and scope;
• overseeing editorial standards and peer-review quality;
• appointing or recommending qualified Associate Editors and Editorial Board Members;
• ensuring appropriate handling of conflicts of interest;
• making or supervising final academic decisions on manuscripts;
• ensuring that editorial decisions are supported by appropriate scholarly evaluation;
• overseeing the handling of appeals, complaints, and serious publication-integrity matters;
• monitoring the overall performance and balance of the Editorial Board;
• supporting the journal's international, interdisciplinary, and academic development; and
• protecting editorial independence from inappropriate external influence.

4. Associate Editors

Associate Editors provide subject-area and methodological expertise across the principal research domains covered by ETII.

Their responsibilities may include:

• conducting or supporting initial manuscript assessment;
• determining whether manuscripts are appropriate for external peer review;
• identifying and inviting qualified independent reviewers;
• monitoring the quality and relevance of reviewer reports;
• assessing revised manuscripts and author responses;
• providing recommendations or editorial decisions within delegated authority;
• identifying emerging research areas relevant to ETII;
• supporting Special Issues and thematic editorial initiatives;
• promoting high-quality submissions within their areas of expertise; and
• supporting consistent application of journal policies.

5. Section Editors

Where ETII establishes formal subject sections, Section Editors may be appointed to coordinate manuscript handling and academic development within defined areas of the journal.

Section Editors operate under the journal's general editorial policies and remain accountable to the Editor-in-Chief.

The creation of a section does not establish an independent publication unit and does not remove final oversight from the journal's central editorial governance structure.

6. Editorial Board Members

Editorial Board Members contribute disciplinary expertise, international perspective, and scholarly guidance to the journal.

Their responsibilities may include:

• providing advice on the journal's scientific and technological direction;
• reviewing manuscripts within their areas of expertise when appropriate;
• recommending qualified reviewers or subject experts;
• identifying important emerging research themes;
• supporting Special Issues or thematic initiatives where appropriate;
• promoting high standards of research integrity and scholarly communication;
• supporting the international visibility and disciplinary reach of ETII; and
• providing feedback on journal policies and editorial development.

Membership of the Editorial Board does not guarantee involvement in every editorial decision and does not provide preferential treatment for manuscripts submitted by Board Members or their collaborators.

7. Editorial Office

The Editorial Office provides administrative and technical support for journal operations.

Its functions may include:

• managing manuscript records and editorial correspondence;
• supporting reviewer invitations and reminders;
• checking submission completeness and metadata;
• supporting plagiarism and integrity screening procedures;
• maintaining editorial records;
• supporting accepted-manuscript production workflows;
• maintaining author, reviewer, and editor communications;
• supporting DOI, metadata, indexing, and publication infrastructure; and
• assisting with policy implementation and administrative compliance.

Editorial Office staff do not replace academic editors in scholarly assessment and do not independently determine whether a research manuscript should be accepted for publication.

8. Role of the Publisher

ETII is published through the INATGI academic publishing platform.

The publisher provides the institutional, technical, publishing, archival, metadata, production, and operational infrastructure required to support the journal.

The publisher may be responsible for:

• publishing-platform infrastructure;
• journal hosting and technical maintenance;
• production systems;
• metadata management;
• DOI and identifier infrastructure;
• archiving arrangements;
• financial administration;
• legal and operational support;
• website and distribution infrastructure; and
• implementation of publishing policies.

9. Editorial Independence

Publisher personnel, administrative staff, commercial partners, sponsors, advertisers, service providers, or other external parties must not improperly influence manuscript acceptance or rejection.

The payment or non-payment of publication charges must not determine whether a manuscript receives a favorable editorial decision.

10. Separation of Editorial and Financial Decisions

Editorial evaluation and financial administration are functionally separated.

Editors should not make publication decisions based on:

• whether an author has paid or can pay a publication fee;
• an author's commercial relationship with the publisher;
• sponsorship arrangements;
• advertising relationships;
• institutional purchasing relationships; or
• other financial considerations unrelated to scholarly quality.

11. Editorial Appointments

Editorial appointments are based primarily on academic qualifications, disciplinary expertise, publication experience, professional standing, research integrity, and the journal's need for appropriate subject-area and geographical representation.

Relevant considerations may include:

• active research engagement;
• relevant scholarly publication record;
• experience in peer review or editorial activities;
• subject-area expertise relevant to ETII;
• professional and ethical standing;
• ability to contribute to editorial work;
• international and disciplinary diversity; and
• absence of unmanaged conflicts of interest.

12. Terms of Service and Renewal

Editorial appointments may be made for defined or renewable periods according to the needs of the journal.

Continuation or renewal may consider:

• academic engagement;
• participation in editorial activities;
• quality and timeliness of manuscript handling;
• contribution to peer review;
• compliance with journal policies;
• professional conduct; and
• the evolving disciplinary needs of ETII.

13. Resignation, Inactivity, and Removal

Editors and Editorial Board Members may resign from their roles at any time by informing the journal.

An editorial appointment may also be reviewed, suspended, or ended where there is:

• prolonged inactivity;
• persistent failure to perform agreed editorial responsibilities;
• serious or repeated conflicts of interest;
• breach of manuscript confidentiality;
• inappropriate reviewer or citation practices;
• substantiated research or publication misconduct;
• conduct that significantly undermines the integrity of the journal; or
• other substantial failure to comply with journal policies.

14. Editorial History

ETII seeks to maintain an accurate record of editorial service, including changes in editorial leadership and Board membership where appropriate.

Editorial-history information may include the editor's name, institutional affiliation, editorial role, and relevant period of service.

Historical records support transparency, continuity, and accountability in journal governance.

15. Conflicts of Interest

Editors must disclose any relationship or interest that could reasonably affect, or appear to affect, their impartiality in handling a manuscript.

Potential conflicts may arise from:

• recent or ongoing collaboration;
• institutional relationships;
• supervisory or mentoring relationships;
• close personal relationships;
• financial interests;
• commercial competition;
• intellectual-property interests;
• direct academic disputes; or
• other circumstances capable of undermining objective editorial judgment.

16. Editorial Recusal

Where a significant conflict exists, the editor must not participate in reviewer selection, review assessment, editorial discussion, or the final publication decision.

The manuscript should instead be assigned to another qualified and independent editor.

17. Manuscripts Submitted by Editors

Editors and Editorial Board Members may submit manuscripts to ETII, but such submissions receive no preferential treatment.

An editor who is an author, co-author, collaborator, or otherwise conflicted with a manuscript must be excluded from all editorial handling of that submission.

The manuscript should be managed independently under the same peer-review and publication standards applied to other submissions.

18. Special Issues and Guest Editors

Special Issues form part of ETII and remain subject to the journal's standard peer-review, research-integrity, conflict-of-interest, open-access, and editorial-governance policies.

Guest Editors may be appointed to provide specialist academic leadership for a defined theme, but their authority remains subject to ETII's overall governance structure.

Guest Editors are expected to:

• act within the approved scope of the Special Issue;
• apply the same peer-review standards used for regular submissions;
• select independent and qualified reviewers;
• disclose conflicts of interest;
• avoid handling manuscripts where they are conflicted;
• maintain manuscript confidentiality; and
• operate under the oversight of the journal's permanent editorial leadership.

19. Guest Editor Conflicts

A Guest Editor must not handle a manuscript where a significant conflict exists.

Manuscripts authored by Guest Editors, close collaborators, members of their immediate research groups, or other conflicted parties should be assigned to an independent editor.

20. Peer-Review Oversight

Editors are responsible for ensuring that peer review is conducted in accordance with ETII's Peer Review Policy.

This includes:

• selection of suitably qualified reviewers;
• assessment of reviewer independence;
• monitoring the quality of reviews;
• recognition of inappropriate reviewer requests or behavior;
• evaluation of conflicting reviewer recommendations;
• protection of reviewer confidentiality; and
• ensuring that editorial decisions are not based solely on numerical reviewer voting.

21. Research Integrity Oversight

The editorial leadership is responsible for responding appropriately when concerns arise regarding:

• plagiarism;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• data fabrication or falsification;
• inappropriate image manipulation;
• authorship disputes;
• citation manipulation;
• peer-review manipulation;
• ethical approval concerns;
• undeclared conflicts of interest;
• misrepresentation of data, methods, or results; or
• other potential breaches of research or publication integrity.

22. Complaints and Appeals

Authors and other stakeholders may raise legitimate concerns regarding editorial procedure, peer review, conflicts of interest, publication ethics, or editorial decisions.

Where appropriate, a complaint or appeal should be evaluated by an editor who was not directly responsible for the disputed action.

Appeals should be based on substantive scholarly or procedural grounds and should not be treated as an automatic second round of peer review.

23. Authority for Editorial Decisions

The final academic responsibility for acceptance or rejection rests with the responsible academic editor, normally the Editor-in-Chief or an appropriately delegated independent editor.

Editorial decisions should consider:

• originality;
• methodological rigor;
• technical validity;
• quality of evidence;
• scholarly significance;
• relevance to the journal;
• peer-review reports;
• author responses;
• research-integrity requirements; and
• compliance with journal policies.

24. Reviewer Recommendations and Editorial Judgment

Peer reviewers advise the journal but do not independently determine publication decisions.

Editors are expected to assess the reasoning, evidence, relevance, and quality of reviewer comments rather than treating reviewer recommendations as a simple numerical vote.

25. Confidentiality and Data Protection

Editors and journal staff must protect confidential manuscript information, reviewer identities where applicable, editorial correspondence, unpublished data, and other sensitive information obtained through the editorial process.

Confidential editorial materials must not be used for personal advantage or disclosed to unauthorized third parties.

26. Artificial Intelligence in Editorial Work

Editors remain personally accountable for scholarly and editorial decisions and must not delegate academic judgment to generative artificial intelligence systems.

Confidential manuscripts, unpublished research data, reviewer reports, or other protected editorial materials should not be uploaded to public or unauthorized AI systems.

Where approved technological tools are used to support administrative or editorial processes, such use must preserve confidentiality, data protection, intellectual-property rights, fairness, and human accountability.

27. Disciplinary and International Diversity

ETII seeks an editorial structure that reflects the interdisciplinary and international nature of intelligent industry and emerging technologies.

The journal therefore seeks appropriate diversity in:

• research disciplines;
• technical expertise;
• methodological backgrounds;
• institutions;
• countries and regions;
• academic career stages; and
• industrial and application perspectives where relevant.

Diversity considerations support editorial breadth but do not replace academic competence and research-integrity requirements.

28. Editorial Performance Review

The journal may periodically review the effectiveness of its editorial structure.

Relevant considerations may include:

• quality of editorial handling;
• timeliness;
• participation in peer review;
• compliance with journal policies;
• subject-area coverage;
• international representation;
• responsiveness to integrity concerns; and
• contribution to journal development.

29. Editorial Policy Development

Major editorial policies are developed and reviewed through the journal's academic and publishing governance structure.

Changes may respond to:

• developments in scholarly publishing standards;
• changes in research-integrity practices;
• new technologies;
• legal or regulatory requirements;
• indexing or preservation requirements;
• feedback from authors, reviewers, and editors; and
• the evolving academic scope of the journal.

30. Accountability and Transparency

ETII seeks to make its editorial structure, principal policies, peer-review model, open-access arrangements, publication fees, publisher identity, and relevant contact information publicly available.

The journal aims to ensure that readers and authors can distinguish clearly between:

• academic editorial responsibility;
• peer-review responsibility;
• administrative support;
• publishing operations;
• financial administration; and
• publisher-level infrastructure.

Editorial Governance at a Glance