Publications and ethics

Below is a brief summary of European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) organisation and management of its Proceedings.

• The EWTEC Proceedings are the official proceedings of the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC). EWTEC conference series was fully established in 1993 as EWEC (the “T” for Tidal was added in 2005) providing the technical and scientific knowledge exchange focusing on ocean renewable energy with special emphasis on wave and tidal energy. The EWTEC Proceedings are widely respected for their high standards in the quality of academic and industrial contributions. EWTEC is an unincorporated association (ewtec.org) with an Executive Board and International Technical Committee whose members are all recognised experts within the offshore energy field – see list at EWTEC website.
• The European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference is assigned to a highly recognised Chair through a rigorous selection process voted on by the two committees.
• The EWTEC Proceedings are published every two years as outcomes of the reviewed articles from the conference which is also held every two years. The Guest Editor is the Chair of the Conference supported by the overall Editor in Chief Prof AbuBakr S. Bahaj.
• The current postal address of EWTEC Secretariat is: Sustainable Energy Research Group, Building 178, Boldrewood Innovation Campus, Southampton, SO16 7QF, UK.

One issue is published every two years following the EWTEC conference schedule.

Each submission is subject to single-blind peer review by a minimum of two independent reviewers both at the abstract stage and the submitted manuscript. The reviewers are assigned by EWTEC Track Directors, who handle the process throughout and led by the chair of the conference. Reviewers are required to state any competing interests before completing a review. All communications between authors and Track Directors, and between Track Directors and reviewers, are through the EWTEC online submission system. This ensures traceability.

At the point of submitting an abstract to EWTEC, authors agree to transfer copyright to EWTEC on acceptance of their final manuscript in the EWTEC proceedings. The copyright statement is included in Appendix A. If the manuscript is withdrawn at any stage up until the proceedings are finalized, copyright is not transferred and authors retain rights over the submission. In the case that the paper is, with the consent of the authors, is selected for the Conference special issue of the International Marine Energy Journal (IMEJ,marineenergyjournal.org), EWTEC will transfer the copyright back to the authors (as IMEJ articles are published under the CC-BY licence) and the paper will be removed from the proceedings, with a permanent note linking to the online open-access article.

The general EWTEC policy requires that authors should only submit original work that neither has appeared elsewhere for publication, nor is under review for another publication or conference. The submitting author is responsible for obtaining agreement of all co-authors and any consent required from employers or sponsors before submitting an article. The EWTEC conference strongly discourages courtesy authorship and authors may be asked by reviewers to state the contribution of each author. It is the obligation of the authors to cite only relevant prior work.

In simple terms, plagiarism is defined as presenting another author’s work as if it were your own. It can range from a single sentence to an entire article. It also includes data, text, figures and analysis methodology. Any submissions where plagiarism is suspected is declined immediately. Minor infringements, for example omitting a reference to a non-essential figure copied from a source, are dealt with during the review and copy-editing stages.

All submissions including research involving humans or animals, or using personal data, are required to state that appropriate ethical review has taken place and approval granted by the appropriate body (a university research ethics committee, for example).

There are a large number of potential ethical breaches that can be committed in the process of publication, many of which are listed by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) web site.
If reviewers, Track Directors or authors believe that they have identified a case of misconduct this is immediately notified the Editors, who will investigate, and if necessary take action, using the flowcharts produced by COPE as guidance.

If an author believes that an editor has unfairly treated them in respect of the processes described above, they can contact the current Conference Chair confidentially. The Conference Chair will investigate the matter appropriately and make the final decision.

EWTEC Copyright statement (2022 version):

1. By ticking the box to accept the copyright statement, all authors of this submission hereby assign to the EWTEC all worldwide rights under copyright that may exist in and to the above paper, including any revised or expanded derivative works submitted to the EWTEC as a response to its review process by the undersigned based on the paper. However, unless the paper is selected for a journal, this assignment does not preclude authors rights to publish an extended and more detailed work based on the EWTEC paper in a journal of their choosing. (For the avoidance of doubt, “extended and revised” means that material from the EWTEC conference paper makes up no more than 40% of the journal paper).
2. In the event that the author(s) accepts that their paper could be considered for inclusion in a journal, they hereby consent that the EWTEC may transfer copyrights for the paper, including any revised or expanded derivative works submitted to the EWTEC, to any journal of their choosing for publication.
3. The author(s) hereby warrant that the paper is original and that they are the author of the paper. Where the paper incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the works of others, the author(s) obtained any necessary permission. Where necessary, the author(s) obtained all third party permissions and consents to grant the license above and has provided copies of such permissions and consents to the EWTEC.

• The authors retain rights in any idea, process, procedure, or articles described in the paper, including the right to seek patent protection for them.
• The authors may use the paper to perform, lecture, teach, and carry out research. The author may display and distribute the paper in printed form for non-commercial use.
• The undersigned represents that he/she has the power and authority to make and execute this assignment.
• In the event the above work is not accepted and published by the EWTEC or is withdrawn by the author(s) before acceptance by the date announced on the EWTEC web site, the copyright transfer shall become null and void.
• For jointly authored Works, all joint authors should sign, or one of the authors should sign as authorized agent for the others.
• A pre-print version of a paper without EWTEC logos, header, footer or page numbers may be uploaded by the authors to an online repository after the conference has ended. It should be made clear that the version is not the final version as appearing in the proceedings.