Editorial Policy on Institutional Diversity and Prevention of Endogamy

In order to ensure transparency, impartiality, and academic diversity throughout the editorial process, INQUIDE – Ingeniería Química y Desarrollo, a publication of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the University of Guayaquil, establishes the following policy to prevent institutional endogamy:

1. Principle of Institutional Independence The journal actively promotes the participation of authors affiliated with institutions other than the publisher, aiming to strengthen scientific plurality and avoid editorial bias.

2. Restriction on Institutional Authorship For all submitted manuscripts, the first author must not be affiliated with the University of Guayaquil, the publishing institution of the journal. This measure is intended to preserve the objectivity of the editorial process and align with best practices recommended by international indexing systems such as Web of Science, Scopus, SciELO, and Redalyc.

3. Permitted Institutional Participation Authors affiliated with the University of Guayaquil may participate as co-authors, provided that the first author belongs to a different institution and the manuscript undergoes double-blind peer review.

A maximum of 30% of the authors of the paper may be affiliated with the University of Guayaquil.

4. Monitoring and Transparency The journal will periodically monitor the institutional affiliation of published authors to maintain a balanced representation between internal and external contributions. This information may be publicly reported as part of the journal’s editorial indicators.

5. Justified Exceptions In exceptional cases—such as international collaborations, inter-institutional projects, or thematic calls—the participation of an internal first author may be considered, provided that it is properly justified and the integrity of the editorial process is preserved.