Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when a financial, personal, professional, or institutional relationship could reasonably be seen to influence, or appear to influence, the research, its review, or editorial decisions. Having a conflict of interest is not misconduct. Failing to disclose one is a problem.

Authors

• Authors must disclose in the manuscript any relationship or interest that could be seen as influencing the work, including funding, employment, consultancy, institutional ties, or personal relationships with people or organizations connected to the research.
• Sources of external research funding must be stated in the Acknowledgments section.
• If there is nothing to disclose, the manuscript should include the statement: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Reviewers

• Reviewers must tell the editor about any conflict of interest and decline the review if they cannot be objective, for example when they have worked with the authors, belong to the same institution, or are competitors or close associates of the authors.
• Reviewers must not use unpublished material from a manuscript for their own benefit.

Editors

• Editors must step aside from handling any manuscript where they have a conflict of interest, including manuscripts written by themselves, colleagues in the same institution, family members, or close associates.
• Such manuscripts are assigned to another editor who has no conflict, and the author-editor has no access to the review process or the decision.

Undisclosed conflicts

If a conflict of interest that should have been disclosed is found after publication, the journal may publish a correction, and in serious cases may proceed under the Allegation of Research Misconduct procedure.