About the Journal

Focus and Scope Horizontes Transversales is a space for interdisciplinary academic dialogue that publishes original research, literature reviews, case studies, academic essays and short communications. Its scope covers the following thematic areas:

  • Social Sciences and Humanities.
  • Health, Psychology and Well-being.
  • Economics, Management and Innovation.
  • Law, Public Policy and Governance.
  • Science, Technology and Digital Transformation.

Target Audience Horizontes Transversales is aimed at researchers, lecturers, undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners, public policy makers, civil society organizations and decision-makers interested in the journal's thematic areas, in Ecuador, Latin America and internationally.

Publication Frequency Horizontes Transversales is published twice a year: the first issue in the first half of the year (January–June) and the second in the second half (July–December). The journal follows continuous publishing: accepted articles are published individually as soon as the editorial process is complete. Each article shows its own publication date.

Open Access Policy This journal provides immediate open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Publisher Horizontes Transversales is published and endorsed by the Fundación Pastaza Unida y Solidaria, which is responsible for the scientific publication. Technological support, infrastructure management and platform administration are carried out in strategic collaboration with Grupo Horizontes.

Copyright Notice Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, with the work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to use the work with an acknowledgement of its authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors may enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in Horizontes Transversales.

Journal History Horizontes Transversales was created as a sister journal of Horizontes Amazónicos, both published by the Fundación Pastaza Unida y Solidaria. It responds to the need for a dedicated venue for research in the social sciences, health, economics, law and technology, with a commitment to disseminating rigorous knowledge that fosters dialogue between disciplines and offers solutions to the social, institutional and productive challenges of the country, the region and the world.

Privacy Statement The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Interoperability (OAI-PMH) The journal exposes its metadata through the OAI-PMH protocol at https://transversales.horizontesamazonicos.org/oai, in Dublin Core (oai_dc), JATS, MARCXML and RFC1807 formats. Each article page also includes Dublin Core and Highwire Press (citation_) meta tags.

Digital Preservation Policy Horizontes Transversales ensures the long-term preservation of its content through the following measures: (1) all articles are published in open, standard formats (PDF, HTML and JATS XML) that ease future migration; (2) each article will receive a persistent DOI registered with Crossref, ensuring it can be located even if the web address changes; (3) metadata are disseminated through OAI-PMH for harvesting by external indexing and discovery services; (4) the self-archiving policy allows authors to deposit the published version without embargo in institutional and subject repositories, creating additional copies outside the journal; (5) the Fundación Pastaza Unida y Solidaria, as publisher, is responsible for keeping the original files and maintaining access to all published issues.

Peer Review Process

Horizontes Transversales subjects all manuscripts to a rigorous double-blind peer review process.

Process stages

  1. Initial editorial review (1–5 business days): The editor-in-chief evaluates whether the manuscript meets the scope and minimum quality standards.
  2. Assignment to reviewers (5–10 business days): A minimum of two independent external reviewers are assigned. Both the author and reviewers remain anonymous to each other.
  3. External review (30–45 business days): Each reviewer evaluates originality, methodological rigor, results, and relevance, issuing a recommendation: accept, accept with revisions, or reject.
  4. Editorial decision: The editor-in-chief communicates the decision considering both reports. With contradictory opinions, a third reviewer is requested.
  5. Revisions and acceptance: The author submits a revised version with a response letter. The accepted manuscript goes through final editing before publication.

The average time between submission and final decision is 60 to 90 business days.

Publication Costs

Horizontes Transversales is an open-access journal with institutional funding. No fees of any kind are charged to authors:

  • Submission fee: No
  • Article processing charge (APC): No
  • Page or color charges: No

Publication is completely free for all authors, regardless of their institution or country of origin.

Self-Archiving and Repository Policy

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, authors are permitted to deposit in institutional or subject repositories:

  • The preprint (version prior to peer review): at any time.
  • The accepted manuscript (post-peer review): immediately upon acceptance.
  • The published version (editorial PDF): immediately upon publication.

No embargo periods apply. All deposits must include the full citation and a link to the official version.

Editorial Ethics and Best Practices

Horizontes Transversales is committed to the highest ethical standards, aligned with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Author responsibilities

  • Originality: The submitted work must be original, unpublished, and not under simultaneous evaluation in another journal.
  • Authorship: Only those who have made a substantial contribution to the work should be listed as authors.
  • Conflict of interest: Authors must declare any financial or institutional relationships that could influence the results.
  • Ethical approval: Research involving human beings or animals must have approval from an institutional ethics committee.

Reviewer responsibilities

  • The review process is strictly confidential. Reviewers must not share information about the manuscript.
  • Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and decline the review if one exists.
  • Reviewers must not use generative AI tools in their review reports.

Retractions and corrections

The journal will follow COPE procedures in confirmed cases of misconduct. Articles with significant errors will be corrected or retracted with a visible note.

Artificial Intelligence Policy

Horizontes Transversales establishes the following guidelines on the use of generative AI tools, aligned with COPE and DOAJ recommendations:

  • Authors: Must explicitly declare any use of generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini) beyond spell-checking or formatting. AI cannot be listed as an author or cited as an academic source.
  • Reviewers: Must not use generative AI to prepare their review reports.
  • Editors: May use automated tools for plagiarism detection, always under human supervision.