Authors must register before submitting a manuscript. The submission process is designed to ensure that manuscripts meet the journal's standards for quality, originality, relevance, and publication ethics.

Authors should submit manuscripts through the journal's online submission system and ensure that the manuscript is consistent with the journal's Aims and Scope and the requirements set out in these Author Guidelines and the journal's Publishing Ethics.

Following submission, manuscripts undergo an initial editorial assessment for completeness, scope, originality, ethical compliance, and suitability for peer review. The journal may use iThenticate or an equivalent similarity-checking service as part of the initial assessment. Manuscripts that pass the initial assessment may be sent for peer review.

The journal uses a double-blind peer review process in which the identities of authors and reviewers are not disclosed to each other during peer review. Authors will be notified of editorial decisions through the online submission system or by email and may be invited to revise and resubmit their manuscripts.

Authors should provide their ORCID iD during submission where available. ORCID identifiers may be displayed with the published article and help distinguish authors from researchers with similar names.

Authors who do not yet have an ORCID iD can register for a free ORCID identifier.

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should ensure that all of the following requirements have been addressed:

In addition to the main manuscript, authors should provide the following documents or information where applicable:

• Cover Letter
• Supplementary Materials, including supplementary data, information, figures, tables, or other materials that support the manuscript, where applicable
• Ethics Approval Statement, when the research involves human participants, animals, or other research requiring ethical review
• Conflict of Interest Statement
• Funding Statement
• Data Availability Statement
• Author Contributions Statement, for manuscripts with multiple authors
• Preprint Disclosure, where the manuscript has previously been posted on a recognized preprint server

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all submitted documents are complete, accurate, and consistent with the information provided in the manuscript and submission system.

All submissions should include a cover letter. The cover letter should provide sufficient information to help the editors understand the nature and significance of the submission.

• Manuscript title and article type.
• All authors' names and affiliations.
  • All listed authors should meet the journal's authorship criteria.
  • The corresponding author should be clearly identified.
  • ORCID iDs should be provided where available.
  • Affiliations should generally follow the format: Department, University or Institution, City/State/Province, Postal Code, Country.
• Research significance and contribution. Briefly explain the research problem, objectives, principal findings, and the contribution of the manuscript to the field of synthetic ecological engineering.
• Originality statement. Confirm that the manuscript has not been formally published elsewhere and is not under simultaneous consideration by another journal.
• Author approval. Confirm that all authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript and agree to its submission to the journal.
• Relevant disclosures. Identify any preprint, funding, conflict of interest, ethical approval, or other information that the editors should be aware of.

Authors must provide 3–5 Article Highlights summarizing the main contribution of the manuscript. Highlights should help readers and editors quickly understand the research question, approach, principal findings, and significance of the work.

• The research problem, objective, or question addressed by the study
• The principal methods, materials, datasets, or analytical approaches used
• The most important findings or results
• The scientific or engineering contribution of the study
• Important environmental, ecological, technological, or practical implications, where applicable

The journal accepts the following principal article types. Manuscripts should be appropriate to the journal's scope and should follow the requirements for the selected article type.

These length requirements are intended as general guidance. Editors may consider manuscripts that require a different length when justified by the nature and scope of the work.

The following structure is recommended for Research Articles. Review Articles, Short Communications, Editorials, and other article types may follow a more flexible structure appropriate to their content.

Title

The title should be concise, informative, and accurately reflect the content of the manuscript. Titles should generally not exceed 20 words and should avoid unnecessary abbreviations, jargon, and excessive punctuation.

Abstract

The abstract should be limited to 200–250 words and provide a concise, self-contained overview of the study. For Research Articles, authors are encouraged to address the following elements where appropriate: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Significance. References should not normally be included in the abstract.

Keywords

Authors should provide 3–8 keywords following the abstract. Keywords should be specific and relevant to the manuscript and should help readers discover the article through academic databases and search systems. Keywords should generally be separated by semicolons.

The title, abstract, and keywords should be clear, concise, accurate, and representative of the manuscript because they are important for article discovery and indexing.

Introduction

The Introduction should provide a clear literature-based background to the research problem. It should identify the current state of knowledge, relevant gaps or unresolved issues, the rationale for the study, and the objectives or research questions addressed by the manuscript.

Section Headings

Headings and subheadings should be clearly differentiated and numbered consistently throughout the manuscript.

• Main headings: 1, 2, 3, etc.
• Subheadings: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.
• Further subdivisions: 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc., where necessary.

Materials and Methods

This section should describe the materials, study design, experimental procedures, datasets, analytical methods, models, and statistical approaches used in sufficient detail to allow the work to be evaluated and, where appropriate, reproduced. Relevant previous methods should be cited. Any substantial modification of an established method should be clearly described.

Results

The Results section should present the findings clearly and logically. Results should be supported by appropriate figures, tables, statistical analyses, or other evidence where applicable. Extensive interpretation should generally be reserved for the Discussion section.

Discussion

The Discussion should interpret the principal findings in relation to previous research and the objectives of the study. Authors should discuss the scientific, ecological, engineering, environmental, or practical implications of the findings where appropriate. Limitations and directions for future research may also be addressed. A combined Results and Discussion section is acceptable when appropriate.

Conclusions

The Conclusions section should summarize the principal findings and their significance without simply repeating the Results section. Authors may also identify important implications and future research directions.

Author Contributions

For manuscripts with multiple authors, a brief statement should describe the substantive contributions of each author to the research and manuscript. Contributions may include conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, writing, review and editing, supervision, or other relevant activities.

Publishing Ethics

Authors must comply with the journal's Publishing Ethics. The manuscript should include relevant ethical statements where required by the nature of the research.

Funding

Authors should disclose all sources of financial support for the research and manuscript preparation.

If the research received no external funding:
“This research received no external funding.”

If the research received funding:
“This research was funded by [NAME OF FUNDER], grant number [XXX].”

Authors should provide the funder's official name and grant information accurately. Where applicable, authors may consult Crossref's funding information to verify standardized funder names.

Data Availability

Authors should provide a Data Availability Statement indicating where the data supporting the findings can be accessed and under what conditions. Where appropriate, a persistent identifier or direct link to the dataset should be provided.

When data cannot be made publicly available because of privacy, confidentiality, legal, ethical, or other restrictions, the statement should explain the applicable restrictions and, where possible, describe how qualified researchers may request access.

Conflict of Interest

All authors should disclose any financial, professional, personal, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation.

If there are no relevant conflicts of interest, authors may use the following statement:

Acknowledgements

The Acknowledgements section may recognize substantive assistance or support from individuals or organizations that does not meet the criteria for authorship. Examples may include technical assistance, administrative support, language or editorial assistance, provision of equipment or materials, and other appropriate contributions.

Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI

Authors should disclose the use of artificial intelligence or generative AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript where such use is relevant and required by the journal's Publishing Ethics. AI tools should not be listed as authors. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and appropriate attribution of all submitted content, including content produced or assisted by AI tools.

Figures, Tables, and Equations

All figures and tables should be cited in the text and placed close to their first relevant mention rather than collected only at the end of the manuscript.

Figures and tables should have concise and informative titles or captions. Where necessary, legends should explain symbols, abbreviations, panels, units, and other information required to understand the presented material without referring repeatedly to the main text.

Examples:

• Figure 1. [Figure title]
• Figure 2. [Figure title]
• Table 1. [Table title]
• Table 2. [Table title]

Figures and tables should be numbered consecutively and separately according to their order of appearance in the manuscript.

Equations should be provided in an editable format rather than as images. Equations should be numbered consecutively, with equation numbers placed consistently, and authors are encouraged to use an appropriate equation editor such as MathType where necessary.

The journal uses a numbered citation system for in-text citations. References should be numbered consecutively according to their first appearance in the text and enclosed in square brackets, for example [1], [2], and [3]. Each in-text citation must correspond to a complete reference entry in the reference list.

The reference list should follow the bibliographic principles of the APA 7th edition, while retaining the journal's numbered citation and reference-list system.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that references are accurate, complete, and consistent with the original publications. Authors should verify author names, article titles, journal titles, publication year, volume, issue, page range or article number, and DOI information before submission.

Where a DOI is available, it should be presented in the standard format: https://doi.org/xxxxx.

Articles published by Synthetic Ecological Engineering (SEE) are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated for specific material.

Authors retain appropriate rights in their work while granting the rights necessary for publication and distribution under the CC BY 4.0 license. The CC BY 4.0 license permits others to share and adapt the published work, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors and source, a link to the license is provided, and any changes are indicated.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they have the necessary rights and permissions for third-party materials included in their manuscript. Material that is not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license should be clearly identified, and appropriate permission should be obtained where required.

The journal supports transparency, reproducibility, and integrity in scholarly research. Authors are encouraged to make the data, code, materials, and protocols underlying their research publicly available whenever possible.

Authors should include a Data Availability Statement in their manuscript indicating:

Recommended repositories include institutional repositories, discipline-specific repositories, and recognized general repositories.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that shared data comply with ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, and intellectual property requirements.

The journal does not require mandatory public release of data when legal, ethical, privacy, commercial, or security considerations prevent disclosure. In such cases, authors should clearly explain the restrictions in the Data Availability Statement.

Editors may request access to underlying research data during peer review or post-publication investigations when necessary to verify research integrity.