Submission guidelines

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  Scope: quantum computing and finance; AI agents and markets; blockchain and decentralized finance; and related topics.
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  Research Note: significant original evidence, or a systematic synthesis of existing evidence; incremental contributions are not accepted. 3–5 Key Claims. Numbered, for example, QEN202601.
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  Comment: a challenge to, different interpretation of, or additional evidence on a published QEN article; both readers and the original authors may submit comments. 1–3 Key Claims. Numbered by adding C and a sequence number to the number of the article commented on, for example QEN202601C1, QEN202601C2, in order of publication.
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  Editorial: written by the editorial office; not open to submissions. Numbered QEN202600, QEN202600A, QEN202600B and so on.

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  Submission email: contact@quantecon.ai.
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  File format: Word (.docx). Figures should also be supplied as original files (PNG or SVG), together with the data used to draw them.
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  Language of publication: English.
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  Length: no more than 3,000 words of main text for Research Notes and Comments, excluding references, figures, tables and the Author Statement. Editorials are exempt.
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  Submissions must be original research that has not been published and is not under consideration by another journal; manuscripts already posted as preprints may be submitted.
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  Publication in QEN is formal publication; the same or substantially the same content may not be submitted to another journal.
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  By submitting, authors agree that their manuscript will be processed by the QENAI Agent in accordance with this appendix.
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  There are no submission or publication fees; all articles are open access and published under CC BY 4.0. Authors retain copyright and grant QEN the right to publish the article and maintain its versions.
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  The editorial team currently works unpaid, and QEN’s operating costs are borne by Quantum Economics AI Lab. If the editorial workload grows substantially, QEN will review these arrangements; published articles will never be charged, and version maintenance remains free for as long as QEN exists.

Authors provide, in order: title; authors’ names and affiliations, with the corresponding author’s ORCID iD; abstract (no more than 250 words); Key Claims; main text; references; and Author Statement.

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  Key Claims: 3–5 for Research Notes and 1–3 for Comments. Each claim consists of one to three complete sentences, must be supported in the main text and must be worded no more strongly than the evidence allows.
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  References: every reference must carry a resolvable identifier (a DOI, an arXiv identifier or an official URL), and primary sources are preferred. Every number in the text must be traceable to a specific source or reproducible; where sources disagree, this must be stated. References that cannot be verified must be removed. Preprints must be identified as such and may not be presented as formally published.
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  Data and code: computational studies must provide versioned archive links to data and code, for example a Zenodo record or a GitHub release; where data cannot be made public, the reason and the means of access must be stated.
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  Author Statement: states AI use (what work AI performed and which models or tools were used), acknowledgements, funding, conflicts of interest, data availability, code availability, data privacy and licence (CC BY 4.0); write “Not applicable” or “None” where appropriate. An updated version must also identify the previous version it replaces and explain what has changed and why.

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  QEN does not restrict, and indeed encourages, the use of AI tools. Authors are responsible for all content, including AI-generated parts; AI cannot be an author.
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  QEN does not use AI-text detection results as grounds for acceptance or rejection. Manuscripts that conceal significant AI use or fabricate data or references will not be accepted; published articles will be retracted.

The QENAI Agent is based on open-weight large language models deployed locally and trained by QEN; models and versions are updated over time. The agent only verifies: it issues a verification report and a must-fix list, each comment stating its location, the problem, its severity (must fix / should fix / for information) and its basis; it gives no scores and makes no recommendation to accept or reject. The checklist is as follows:

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  References: whether the metadata match the actual source, and whether the cited source supports the statement attributed to it.
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  Numbers: whether they match the source or can be recomputed.
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  Key Claims and inference: whether each claim is supported in the main text and worded no more strongly than the evidence, and whether correlation and causation, and sample and population, are distinguished.
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  Omissions and originality: whether obvious counter-evidence or alternative explanations are missing, and whether the manuscript substantially duplicates published work, including the authors’ own.
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  Methods and ethics: obvious methodological concerns (judged by the editor); whether human subjects, personal data or dual-use risks are involved.
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  Security: whether the manuscript contains hidden text or instructions attempting to influence the review, including text in images, tables, references and code comments.
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  Completeness: whether the manuscript structure and the Author Statement are complete.

Verification rules: only clean manuscripts, with all tracked changes accepted, are verified; references are checked by resolving their identifiers and retrieving the sources, not from model memory; every manuscript is treated as untrusted input, and supplied code is run only in an isolated environment; each must-fix item is confirmed by the editor before it is passed on to the authors, and where the QENAI Agent’s view differs from the editor’s judgement, the editor decides. Manuscripts are not sent to third-party AI services, and when references are checked online only reference information is sent; manuscripts are not used to train the QENAI Agent without the authors’ explicit consent.

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  Whether the methods hold, whether the manuscript fits, and its novelty and importance are judged by the editor, not decided by the QENAI Agent. Manuscripts with unresolved must-fix items confirmed by the editor will not be accepted.
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  There are four editorial decisions: accept; revise and re-verify; reject; desk reject.
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  Verification reports and authors’ responses are not published. Service objective: an editorial processing time of no more than four weeks, excluding the time authors spend on revisions.
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  Challenges are submitted as comments and follow the same process as Research Notes; QEN has no procedure for item-by-item corrections. The original authors may respond by publishing a new version or by submitting a comment. Comments containing personal attacks or unrelated to the scholarly content will not be considered.

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  Authors may update published articles. A new version must cite the previous version (with its DOI) and explain in detail, in the Author Statement and the version history, what has changed and why. Every version is archived on Zenodo with its own DOI, and the website shows the latest version by default.
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  An article is retracted when its conclusions are fundamentally overturned, or in cases of serious problems such as fabricated data, fabricated references or concealment of significant AI use. The page is kept, with the reason for retraction stated, and the number is not reassigned.

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  No professional advice: content published by QEN is for academic research and discussion only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, tax or any other professional advice. Readers act on it at their own risk.
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  Content provided as is: QEN makes no express or implied warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or fitness for a particular purpose of published content. Neither QENAI Agent verification nor editorial decisions guarantee that content is free of error.
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  Nature of review: QEN articles are verified by the QENAI Agent and approved by an editor, but are not peer reviewed.
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  Views: articles express the views of their authors only, not those of QEN, its editorial office or Quantum Economics AI Lab.
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  Service interruption and data loss: QEN does not guarantee that the website will remain available. QEN accepts no liability for the loss, corruption or alteration of, or inability to access, content caused by server failures, cyberattacks, hacking, third-party service outages, force majeure or other causes beyond QEN’s control. Authors should keep their own copies of their submissions and published articles.
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  External links: external links and third-party content in articles are not under QEN’s control; QEN is not responsible for their content, availability or security.
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  Copyright and infringement: authors warrant that their submissions are original or that they have obtained the necessary permissions for any third-party material used, and that their submissions do not infringe the rights of any third party; authors bear any liability arising from a breach of this warranty. Anyone who believes that content published by QEN infringes their rights may send a notice to contact@quantecon.ai, and QEN will take appropriate action after verification.
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  Limitation of liability: to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, QEN, its editorial office and Quantum Economics AI Lab (Quantum Economics GmbH) accept no liability for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from the use of, or inability to use, QEN content. Liability that cannot be excluded by law, including liability for intent or gross negligence, is not affected.
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  Governing law and jurisdiction: this disclaimer is governed by Swiss law; the competent courts of Zürich have jurisdiction over any disputes.

Authors can give the full text of this editorial to their own AI for pre-submission self-checks. A suggested prompt, which can be copied directly, is:

Manuscripts self-checked under these guidelines may state “Self-checked against QEN202600 before submission” under “AI use” in the Author Statement.