Competing Interests
Competing Interests
Purpose
Transparency regarding competing interests (also referred to as conflicts of interest) allows readers, reviewers, and editors to make informed judgments about a manuscript free from undisclosed bias.
What Constitutes a Competing Interest
A competing interest exists when an author, reviewer, or editor has a financial, professional, personal, or institutional relationship that could be perceived to influence, or actually influence, their judgment or conduct in relation to a manuscript. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- Financial ties, such as employment, consultancy, stock ownership, patents, or research funding related to the subject matter of the manuscript
- Personal relationships with individuals involved in the review or publication of the manuscript
- Academic or commercial competition with the authors of a manuscript
- Institutional affiliations that could reasonably be perceived to influence the outcome
Author Disclosure
All authors must disclose any competing interests at the time of submission, in the Declarations section of the manuscript. Where no competing interest exists, authors should explicitly state: "The authors declare no competing interests." Disclosed competing interests do not automatically disqualify a manuscript from consideration; they are evaluated for relevance and, where appropriate, published alongside the article for reader transparency.
Reviewer and Editor Disclosure
Reviewers and editors must disclose any competing interest relevant to a manuscript they are asked to handle and must recuse themselves from the review or editorial decision-making process where a genuine conflict exists.
Failure to Disclose
Failure to disclose a relevant competing interest is treated as a serious breach of the journal's publication ethics standards and may result in rejection, correction, or retraction of the affected work, in accordance with the journal's Publication Ethics and Corrections and Retraction policies.
