Conflict of interest exists when a participant in the publication process (author, peer reviewer, or editor) has a competing interest that could unduly influence (or be reasonably seen to do so) his or her responsibilities in the publication process (submission of manuscripts, peer review, editorial decisions, and communication between authors, reviewers, and editors).

 

Authors. All authors are required to report their financial conflicts of interest related to the research and written presentation of their work and any other relevant competing interests.  In addition to financial COI, policies for authors will be extended to other types of competing interests that might affect (or be seen to affect) the conduct or reporting of the work.  Journals will disclose all COIs that they themselves thought were important during the review process.  Declarations of the authors should explicitly state funding sources and whether the organization that funded the research participated in the collection and analysis of data and interpretation and reporting of results.

 

Reviewers.  Reviewers also have to declare their COI with the content or authors of a manuscript. Declarations of the reviewers should explicitly state their financial conflicts of interest, institutional association, author associations, COI, and all other relevant COIs that preclude them.

 

Editors.  Editors will not be involved in any editorial decisions or in the editorial process if they have their manuscripts or manuscripts of close professional/ institutional colleagues or family members, or have a financial COI with respect to a particular manuscript submitted to their journal.  When editors submit their own work to their journal, it will be handled by colleagues in the editorial office, and the editor/author will recuse themselves from discussion and decisions about it. Some journals list editors’ competing interests on their website, but this is not a standard practice. Declarations of the editors should explicitly state their financial conflicts of interest, institutional association, author associations, COI, and all other relevant COIs that preclude them.