Investigaciones Regionales – Journal of Regional Research acknowledges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, including tools based on machine learning and generative models, may provide benefits for research and scientific communication. However, their use must be ethical, transparent, and responsible, in line with best practices in academic publishing and with the guidelines of international bodies for editorial ethics such as COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).
For the purposes of this policy, “AI” is understood as any tool or system that employs artificial intelligence techniques – including generative models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or any others that may emerge subsequently, as well as automated tools for the analysis or generation of text, data, or images – to assist in writing, analysis, translation, visualization, or other aspects related to academic production.
Any content generated or assisted by AI must be reviewed and validated by the authors, who must ensure that it contains no errors, biases, inconsistencies, or fabricated information introduced by the tool, and that it does not exceed the uses permitted by the journal.
a) Permitted uses under critical author supervision
Support for auxiliary tasks not related to authorship: grammar, spelling, punctuation, and similar proofreading tasks, always with human verification.
Reference and citation control and formatting.
Conducting initial bibliographic searches.
Support for, but not replacement of, statistical analysis or modelling.
Data and database processing, code programming, and code debugging.
b) Limited permissibility under critical author supervision
Language clarity, improvement of style, tone, or other writing elements. AI must not constitute a significant proportion of paragraph drafting.
Generation of basic visual aids or illustrations (provided they are obtained and reviewed ethically) and do not infringe any copyright, whether of the generating system or other rights holders.
c) Non-permitted uses
Generating complete manuscripts or substantial portions of content and text.
Inventing or falsifying data, images, or results.
Automatically summarizing or reformulating published works in a way that constitutes plagiarism.
Creating content that infringes copyright or other legal rights or reproduces identifiable third-party materials without permission.
Authors are fully responsible for:
a) The originality, absence of plagiarism (including self-plagiarism), integrity, and quality of the submitted content, even if part of the work has been carried out with AI support.
b) Ensuring the absence of errors, biases, and hallucinations, whether their own or caused by AI. This also includes proper attribution of sources, materials, and external data.
c) Reviewing and editing the parts or results produced with AI support and ensuring that they meet academic and legal standards.
d) AI tools may not be listed as authors. They do not meet international authorship criteria because they do not assume ethical responsibility nor can they be held accountable for content. Only individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the work may be listed as authors.
The journal will ensure compliance with its AI policy. To this end, it may use all means at its disposal to monitor the use of AI in submitted articles, while respecting ethical limits.
Under any of these methods, detection of AI-generated writing above reasonable thresholds (indicatively 20%), or detection of other non-permitted AI interventions, will result in the automatic rejection of the manuscript, with no possibility of resubmission.
The journal is not responsible if a manuscript that violates the AI use policy passes the reasonable controls established by the journal. In all cases, responsibility lies with the authors. The journal reserves the right to withdraw any published manuscript if it is found to have violated the AI use policy.
a) Mandatory disclosure: whenever AI tools are used at a relevant stage of the work (e.g., writing, structuring, or analysis), authors must explicitly declare this in the manuscript. This includes the name and version of the tool, the purpose of use, and the extent of its contribution.
b) The declaration must state that the authors reviewed and assume responsibility for all AI-assisted content.
c) Location of the declaration: disclosure may appear in a section titled “Declaration of AI use,” in Acknowledgements, in the Methodology, or in a footnote, as appropriate, so that it is clear to reviewers and readers.
d) In all cases, declared AI use must not violate the rules or exceed the thresholds previously established.
The journal will maintain controls within ethical limits and will preserve confidentiality at all times (e.g., COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers). The journal will require its editors and reviewers to uphold this commitment.
a) Internal editorial use: within these limits, the editorial board may use AI for auxiliary tasks such as checks or detection of plagiarism or similarity, always under the principle of human supervision, without delegating scientific evaluation decisions to automated systems or compromising confidentiality.
b) Confidentiality in review: reviewers must not upload any content from manuscripts under evaluation into AI tools that do not guarantee confidentiality, unless there is explicit authorization from the authors and the editor.
If an article violates the AI use policy, the journal may:
a) Notify the authors of the issue.
b) Automatically reject the manuscript at any stage of the review process.
c) Withdraw the article if it has already been published.
d) In the most serious cases or in cases of repeated violations, ban future submissions from any of the authors involved.
The journal reserves the right to modify and update its AI policy to align it with best academic practices.
