Política editorial para uso y no uso de inteligencia artificial (IA)

Sincronía recognises the development and usefulness of artificial intelligence (AI) tools as resources that may support certain academic, scientific and editorial activities. Their use must comply with principles of transparency, human accountability, academic integrity, traceability, data protection, confidentiality, respect for intellectual property, and the prevention of bias and misinformation.

This policy draws upon the Chapultepec Principles: Declaration of Ethics and Good Practices for the Use and Development of Artificial Intelligence, the Heredia Declaration: Principles on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Scientific Publishing, and applicable international good practices concerning integrity and ethics in scholarly publishing.

1. General principles

Artificial intelligence shall be regarded as an auxiliary tool and may not replace the critical thinking, reasoning, interpretation, intellectual creativity or responsibility of the people involved in research and scholarly publishing.

Authorship is reserved exclusively for human beings. An artificial intelligence tool, model or system may not be listed as an author, co-author or contributor with authorship status, since it cannot assume responsibility for the content of a work or meet the criteria required for academic authorship.

Any person using artificial intelligence tools is responsible for reviewing and verifying the accuracy, authenticity and relevance of content obtained through them, including citations, references, DOIs, data, translations, interpretations and any other information incorporated into the manuscript.

The use of artificial intelligence does not exempt authors, reviewers or members of the editorial team from their intellectual, ethical, academic or professional responsibilities.

No substantive editorial decision may be delegated exclusively to an artificial intelligence system. Decisions concerning acceptance, rejection, requests for revision, correction, retraction or any other editorial determination shall remain the responsibility of human members of the editorial team.

2. Transparency and disclosure of artificial intelligence use

Authors must explicitly disclose whether they used generative artificial intelligence tools during the research, preparation, writing, translation or revision of the manuscript whenever such tools contributed to the generation, transformation, analysis or interpretation of its content.

Where such tools have been used, the disclosure must specify, as applicable:

Name of the tool, application or model used.
Version, where identifiable.
Purpose for which it was used.
Section, activity or stage of the work in which it was used.
Scope of its involvement.
Relevant prompt, instruction or query provided to the system when this information is necessary to understand or reproduce the AI intervention.
Date of use when relevant for traceability.
An explicit statement that the authors reviewed and validated the outputs and assume full responsibility for the final content.

Transparent disclosure of the use of artificial intelligence shall not, in itself, constitute grounds for rejection of a manuscript.

3. Disclosure statement

Where generative artificial intelligence tools were not used

“We, the authors, declare that no generative artificial intelligence tools were used to produce, transform, analyse or interpret the academic content of this manuscript. The ideas, arguments, analyses, results and conclusions are the responsibility of the authors.”

Where artificial intelligence tools were used

“We, the authors, declare that artificial intelligence tools were used during the research, preparation or revision of this manuscript and transparently disclose their purpose, scope and the activities or sections in which they were employed. We further declare that we reviewed and validated their outputs and assume full intellectual, ethical and academic responsibility for the final content of the manuscript.”

Where applicable, the disclosure shall include the following information:

TOOL OR APPLICATION USED	USE	SECTION	PROMPT / INSTRUCTION
ChatGPT-5	Style and clarity editing	Introduction	“Review the clarity, coherence and fluency of the following academic text. Do not add arguments, citations or references that are not present in the original.”
ChatGPT-5	Academic language refinement	Conclusions	“Convert this text into a formal academic style while maintaining exactly the same content and meaning.”
DeepL	Preliminary translation	Summary / Abstract	Initial Spanish–English translation for subsequent review and validation by the authors.
Grammarly	Linguistic correction	Complete manuscript	“Identify spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors while preserving the document’s argumentative structure.”
LanguageTool	Style review	Complete text	“Suggest improvements in readability and linguistic consistency without altering the academic content.”

4. Permitted uses and authors' responsibilities

Artificial intelligence tools may be acceptable as auxiliary resources for activities such as:

Spelling and grammar correction.
Review of syntax and readability.
Assistance with language and style editing.
Formal standardisation of texts.
Linguistic assistance.
Translation, provided that the resulting text is subsequently reviewed and validated by the authors.
Preliminary organisation of information.
Other auxiliary tasks that do not replace the intellectual, methodological, analytical or argumentative contribution of the authors.

Where the use of artificial intelligence has a substantive role in generating, transforming, analysing or interpreting academic content, such use must be disclosed in accordance with this policy.

Artificial intelligence may not be used to:

Commit plagiarism or misappropriate content.
Fabricate, falsify or manipulate data or results.
Create interviews, testimonies, experiments, sources, observations or procedures that were not actually conducted.
Generate or incorporate non-existent or fabricated bibliographic references, citations, DOIs or other sources.
Present automatically generated outputs as the author's own intellectual analysis without subjecting them to critical assessment.
Deliberately conceal substantive intervention by artificial intelligence.
Generate or reproduce discriminatory content or biases incompatible with the principles of equality, diversity, human dignity and respect for fundamental rights.

5. Confidentiality, personal data and intellectual property

The use of artificial intelligence systems must respect confidentiality, privacy, personal data protection, intellectual property and copyright.

Authors, reviewers and members of the editorial team must refrain from entering personal or sensitive data, confidential information, unpublished manuscripts or materials whose disclosure has not been authorised into external artificial intelligence systems, unless adequate institutional, technical and contractual safeguards are in place to protect such information.

The contents of manuscripts submitted for review constitute confidential information. They must not be used to train, feed or improve external artificial intelligence systems where this would result in loss of confidentiality, unauthorised transfer of information or use of the content for purposes other than the editorial process.

6. Use of artificial intelligence during peer review

Academic peer review must be conducted by human specialists, and reviewers remain solely responsible for their reports.

Artificial intelligence may not replace the reviewer's critical reading, specialised analysis or academic judgement.

Reviewers must not upload, copy or enter, in whole or in part, an unpublished manuscript, its supplementary files or confidential information relating to it into external artificial intelligence systems without the express authorisation of the editorial team and without sufficient safeguards for confidentiality and data protection.

Where the journal exceptionally authorises the use of an artificial intelligence tool to support an auxiliary task during peer review, the reviewer must disclose its use to the editorial team, specifying the tool used, its purpose and the scope of its involvement.

The reviewer remains fully responsible for all observations, recommendations and conclusions contained in the review report.

Failure to comply with these provisions may result in the review report being disregarded and, where appropriate, in the reviewer being excluded from future peer-review processes.

7. Use of artificial intelligence in the journal's editorial processes

The journal may use artificial intelligence tools to provide technical support for certain editorial tasks, including:

Preliminary review of compliance with editorial requirements.
Checking the structure and formal organisation of manuscripts.
Preliminary review of bibliographic references.
Identification of possible inconsistencies.
Language and style review.
Assistance with translations.
Organisation and processing of metadata.
Preliminary analysis related to academic integrity.
Other technical or auxiliary tasks that facilitate editorial management.

The use of these tools shall be subject to the following principles:

Human accountability. Outputs generated by artificial intelligence systems shall be considered auxiliary and must be reviewed and interpreted by members of the editorial team.

No automation of substantive decisions. No manuscript shall be accepted, rejected, sanctioned, corrected or retracted solely as the result of a determination produced by artificial intelligence.

Transparency. The journal shall publicly disclose its institutional use of artificial intelligence tools when these form part of its editorial procedures.

Explainability and traceability. Where the output of an artificial intelligence tool plays a significant role in an editorial action, the responsible editorial team must be able to review, explain and justify that action on the basis of verifiable academic or editorial criteria.

Confidentiality and data protection. Unpublished manuscripts, personal data, sensitive information or confidential content shall not be entered into tools whose technical, contractual or data-processing conditions do not provide adequate safeguards for editorial use.

Prevention of bias and misinformation. Outputs generated by automated systems shall be critically assessed, taking into account the possibility of errors, false or non-existent information, and linguistic, cultural, disciplinary, social or other forms of bias.

Artificial intelligence shall therefore have an exclusively instrumental and auxiliary role and shall never replace the professional judgement of the editorial team or academic peer review by specialists.

8. Systems for detecting artificial intelligence-generated content

Automated systems designed to estimate or detect the possible use of artificial intelligence may be used solely as auxiliary tools within the journal's academic integrity review procedures.

Percentages, indicators or results generated by such systems shall not, by themselves, be regarded as conclusive evidence of a breach of this policy.

Where an automated system identifies relevant indications, the editorial team shall conduct an additional review and may request clarification from the authors or obtain other verifiable evidence before reaching a decision.

Any determination concerning potentially improper or undisclosed use of artificial intelligence shall be made by human decision-makers and shall be based on the totality of the available evidence.

9. Breaches of this policy

Deliberate omission, concealment or misrepresentation of information concerning the substantive use of artificial intelligence tools may be regarded as a breach of academic ethics and integrity.

Depending on the nature, extent and seriousness of the case, the journal may:

Request clarification or additional documentation.
Require amendments or corrections.
Editorially reject the manuscript.
Disregard a review report.
Publish a correction where appropriate.
Withdraw or retract an article in accordance with the applicable editorial policies.
Notify the authors' affiliated institution where the seriousness of the case and the available evidence justify such action.

Decisions shall be made by human decision-makers, based on verifiable evidence, and shall observe the principles of proportionality, impartiality and editorial due process.

10. Reference frameworks

The journal adopts the following as guiding frameworks for the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence:

The Chapultepec Principles: Declaration of Ethics and Good Practices for the Use and Development of Artificial Intelligence, presented in 2026 by Mexico's Ministry of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (Secihti) and the Agency for Digital Transformation and Telecommunications (ATDT).
The Heredia Declaration: Principles on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Scientific Publishing.
Applicable international recommendations and good practices concerning ethics, integrity and transparency in scholarly publishing.

In accordance with these frameworks, the journal shall promote respect for human rights; human responsibility and oversight; transparency, explainability and traceability; the protection of data and intellectual property; the prevention of bias and misinformation; cultural and linguistic diversity; and the strengthening of human knowledge and capabilities.

Given the rapidly evolving nature of artificial intelligence technologies, this policy shall be periodically reviewed and updated in response to technological developments, available evidence, and emerging national and international standards concerning ethics and research integrity.

This policy, titled “Editorial Statement on the Use and Non-Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI),” was developed based on documents, guidelines, and regulatory proposals drafted by Nicolás Medina García for the journal Sincronía. These materials were adopted and adapted to the characteristics, objectives, and editorial needs of Horizontes de la Gestión Cultural.