Table 1.
Conflict of interest (COI) policy for editors, authors and reviewers as indicated by different publishers
| Publisher | COI policy, sheet or statement/declaration | Pertain to editors (E), authors (A) or reviewers (R) |
|---|---|---|
| Bentham [1] | “Author’s responsibilities: … Any potential conflict of interest must be clearly acknowledged. …” (Bentham 2017a, 2018) | A |
| No exact rule for editors for stating their own COI. “Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any potential conflict of interest.” (Bentham 2017b); “The editor should evaluate manuscripts objectively based on their academic merit free of any commercial or self-interests” (Bentham 2018). | R | |
| Clear statement for reviewers: “Bentham Science respects requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have a competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; we therefore expect that reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out a review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.” (Bentham 2017c, 2018); “Notifying the journal editor about any financial or personal conflict of interest and declining to review the manuscript when a possibility of such a conflict exists.” (Bentham 2018). | ||
| De Gruyter [2] | “In order to encourage transparency without impeding publication, all authors, referees and editors must declare any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. There should be no contractual relations or proprietary considerations that would affect the publication of information contained in a submitted manuscript. A competing interest for a scholarly journal is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, review, or publication of research findings, or of articles that comment on or review research findings. Potential conflicts of interest exist when an author, editor or reviewer has financial, personal or professional interests in a publication that might influence their scientific judgment. | E, A, R |
| Examples of such conflicts include, but are not limited to: | ||
| • Financial conflicts: stock ownership; patents; paid employment or consultancy; board membership; research grants; travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings; gifts | ||
| • Personal conflicts: relationship with editors, editorial board members, or with possible reviewers who have had recent or ongoing collaborations with the authors, have commented on drafts of the manuscript, are in direct competition, have a history of dispute with the authors | ||
| • Professional conflicts: public associations with institutions or corporations whose products or services are related to the subject matter of the article; membership of a government advisory council/committee; relationship with organizations and funding bodies | ||
| Authors should declare whether they have any conflicts of interests that could have influenced the reporting of the experimental data or conclusions in their paper. Such a statement should list all potential interests or, if appropriate, should clearly state that there are none. The editors may decide not to publish papers when we believe the competing interests are such that they may have compromised the work or the analyses or interpretations presented. Upon submission of a manuscript, authors may suggest to exclude any specific editors or reviewers from the peer review of their article. It is the responsibility of authors to disclose in the Acknowledgments section any funding sources for the project or other relationships that are relevant. Authors are suggested to fill in the Conflicts of Interest Form and send the electronic version to the Journal Editor. | ||
| Editors should consider whether any of the above competing interests are relevant to them and the manuscript under consideration. Editor who believes that the conflict will preclude an impaired judgment should disclose to the Editor the nature of the conflict and decline to handle the paper. | ||
|
Reviewers should consider whether any of the above applies to them and declare any such competing interests. If they feel they cannot review a paper because of any competing interest, they should tell us. They should also declare any association with the authors of a paper.” For EICs: “Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an Editor’s own research without the explicit written consent of the author(s)” For Peer Reviewers: “Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submission.” For Authors: “All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.” (De Gruyter 2018) |
||
| Elsevier [3] | “Journal submissions are assigned to editors in an effort to minimize potential conflicts of interest. The following relationships between editors and authors are considered conflicts and are avoided: Current colleagues, recent colleagues, recent co-authors, and doctoral students for which editor served as committee chair. After papers are assigned, individual editors are required to inform the managing editor of any conflicts not included in the list above. In the event that none of the editors satisfy all of the conflict screens, co-editors who are least conflicted will be assigned to the manuscript. In addition, co-editors who are least conflicted are assigned for all paper submissions by sitting editors. Journal submissions are also assigned to referees to minimize conflicts of interest. After papers are assigned, referees are asked to inform the editor of any conflicts that may exist.”(Elsevier 2017a) + FACTSHEET Conflict of Interest (Elsevier 2017b). “Any potential editorial conflicts of interest should be declared to the publisher in writing prior to the appointment of the editor, and then updated if and when new conflicts arise. The publisher may publish such declarations in the journal. The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers which s/he has written him/herself or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Further, any such submission must be subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, peer review must be handled independently of the relevant author/editor and their research groups, and there must be a clear statement to this effect on any such paper that is published [10]. The editor shall apply Elsevier’s policy relating to the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers, e.g. the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines [1].” (Elsevier 2017c) | E, A, R |
| Emerald [4] | “All conflicts of interest should be declared by the author, editor or reviewer. | E, A, R |
| Conflicts of interest include: | ||
| • A financial or personal interest in the outcomes of the research; | ||
| • Undisclosed financial support for the research by an interested third party; | ||
| • A financial or personal interest in the suppression of the research; | ||
|
A note to highlight the background to financial support for the research from third parties or any other possible conflict of interest must be added to the paper prior to review. If a conflict of interest is suspected, then this should be reported to the editor or Emerald. A concern regarding an editor should be raised with the journal publisher or book commissioning editor at Emerald. Emerald will follow the flowcharts presented by COPE in cases of a suspected conflict of interest.” | ||
| Hindawi [5] | Managing Conflict of Interest | E, A, R |
|
“Authors Conflicts for authors are most often associated with the risk of bias in a manuscript. As an author, if you have any interest or association that could be seen to have influenced your decision-making process, you should ensure that it is declared at the time of submission. …Whether or not you believe a conflict of interest exists, you will be asked to include a statement in your manuscript. If you believe no conflicts exist, you will be asked to confirm this in writing. Editors As a member of a journal’s Editorial Board, you need to be very aware of the risk of conflicts when handling a manuscript. Firstly, you should assess your own potential conflicts. If you have recently coauthored with the author of the manuscript, you could be perceived to be influenced by your relationship. Similarly, if you have recently shared an affiliation or employment history with the author, it could also be seen to be inappropriate for you to handle their work. Hindawi aims to avoid assigning papers to Editors who might have conflicts, but we also expect our Editors to declare any conflicts. If you believe a conflict exists, you should refuse to handle the manuscript… Reviewers By agreeing to peer review a manuscript you are providing essential neutral assessment. As such, you should ensure that you have no conflicts of interest that could be seen to prevent you from acting in an impartial manner. You should ensure that you have no recent association with the author and that you have not previously coauthored with them. You should also not have a recent shared employment history…” | ||
| IEEE [6] | “Conflict of interest is defined as any situation in which a member’s or volunteer’s decisions or votes could substantially and directly affect the member’s or volunteer’s professional, personal, financial or business interests. …Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement. IEEE members, non-members or volunteers in an elected or appointed position and volunteers, editors and others involved in making procurement decisions or other activities that could represent a potential conflict of interest as determined by the IEEE Audit Committee shall submit annually a completed Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement to the Director, IEEE Internal Audit, at the Operations Center. Forms shall be on file within 30 days of assuming his/her position or, in the case of elected positions, within 30 days of acceptance of the nomination, or as otherwise determined by the IEEE Audit Committee. The IEEE staff shall notify every individual requested to file a Conflict of Interest of the applicable deadline. Failure to submit a form shall result in automatic removal from service on the committee, board or election slate, as the case may be.” (IEEE 2017a) | E (R) |
| “Individuals involved in making procurement decisions or other activities that could represent a potential conflict of interest must complete the Principles of Business Conduct/Conflict of Interest form every year” (IEEE 2017b) | ||
| Inderscience [7] | As a duty of authors in Author Copyright Agreement. | A |
| No exact description on need for declaring COI for editors and reviewers | ||
| NPG [8] | “For the purposes of this statement, competing interests are defined as those of a financial nature that, through their potential influence on behaviour or content or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a publication… | E, A, R |
| Application to authors | ||
| Unless/until the article is published, authors' declarations will be considered confidential, and will not be disclosed to peer-reviewers. | ||
| The published article (Article, Letter, Brief Communication, Review, Perspective, Insight) indicates the authors' response using one of the following standard sentences: | ||
| • The authors declare competing financial interests: details accompany the full-text HTML version of the paper at (url of journal website). | ||
| • The authors declare no competing financial interests. | ||
| Application to referees | ||
| The Nature journals invite peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. However, just as financial interests need not invalidate the conclusions of an article, nor do they automatically disqualify an individual from evaluating it. We ask peer-reviewers to inform the editors of any related interests, including financial interests as defined above, that might be perceived as relevant. Editors will consider these statements when weighing reviewers' recommendations. | ||
| Application to editors | ||
| All Nature journal editorial staff are required to declare to their employer (Nature Publishing Group) any interests — financial or otherwise — that might influence, or be perceived to influence, their editorial practices. Failure to do so is a disciplinary offence…” (NPG 2017) | ||
| “Application to authors | ||
| Authors must disclose and specify any competing interest during the submission process, via declarations in the manuscript submission system. For certain types of content, declarations may be collected via the Nature Research disclosure form. The corresponding author is responsible for providing a declaration on behalf of all authors. For peer reviewed contributions, authors' declarations are disclosed to peer reviewers in full. However, if authors have opted for double-blind peer review, during the peer review process reviewers will be provided with a minimal statement disclosing the existence of any financial or non-financial interest, to prevent the disclosure of authors' identities. Reviewers will be provided the full competing interests declarations at the time of acceptance. Authors opting for double-blind peer review should provide their minimal statement (either "The authors declare the existence of a financial/non-financial competing interest" OR "The authors declare no competing interests") in the submission system and a complete statement of disclosure in their cover letter. | ||
| In addition to any declarations in submission systems or forms, all authors regardless of peer review model are required to include a statement at the end of their published article to declare whether or not they have any competing interests. The published article indicates the authors' response using one of the following standard sentences: | ||
| • The authors declare the following competing interests: | ||
| • The authors declare no competing interests. | ||
| We recognize that some authors may be bound by confidentiality agreements. In such cases, in place of itemized disclosures, we require authors to state: "The authors declare that they are bound by confidentiality agreements that prevent them from disclosing their competing interests in this work." | ||
| We do not require authors to state the monetary value of their financial interests. | ||
| Application to referees | ||
| The Nature Research journals invite peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. However, just as financial interests need not invalidate the conclusions of an article, nor do they automatically disqualify an individual from evaluating it. We ask peer-reviewers to inform the editors of any related interests, including financial interests as defined above, that might be perceived as relevant. Editors will consider these statements when weighing reviewers' recommendations. | ||
| Application to editors | ||
| All Nature Research journal editorial staff are required to declare to their employer any interests — financial or otherwise — that might influence, or be perceived to influence, their editorial practices. Failure to do so is a disciplinary offence.” (NPG 2018) | ||
| OUP [9] | “…requires declaration of any Conflict of Interest upon submission. Depending on the journal, you may also be asked to submit signed Conflict of Interest form(s) if your article is accepted for publication…In both cases the corresponding author has to be in a position to report for all co-authors. | E. A. R |
| What is a ‘Conflict of interest’? Any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications or opinions stated – including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition… | ||
| Who should make the declaration? The corresponding author is expected to obtain the relevant information from all co-authors … | ||
| All referees are either asked to decline to review a manuscript if they have a potential conflict or declare any potential conflict. | ||
| All Editors have submitted a Conflict of Interest statement to the publisher or society. Editors would not handle the review of a manuscript if there was a potential Conflict of Interest, and instead would pass it on to another editorial colleague.” | ||
| PLoS [10] | “Authors, reviewers, and editors must declare potential competing interests, or interests that may be perceived as such, as they relate to the research. A competing interest may relate to a person or an entity and may be of a financial, non-financial, professional or personal nature.” | E, A, R |
| SAGE [11] | “A Declaration of Conflicting Interests policy refers to a formal policy a journal may have to require a conflict of interest statement or conflict of interest disclosure from a submitting or publishing author… | E, A |
| Many scholars, researchers and professionals may have potential conflicts of interest, that could have an effect on – or could be seen to – have an effect on their research. As a result, some SAGE journals require a formal declaration of conflicting interests enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated published article. | ||
| A potential conflicting interest might arise from relationships, allegiances or hostilities to particular groups, organizations or interests, which may influence excessively one’s judgments or actions. The issue is particularly sensitive when such interests are private and/or may result in personal gain. | ||
| The same obligations equally apply to editors or guest editors writing an editorial that will be published in the journal.” | ||
| Also author obligations are defined regarding conflicting interests. “In your Journal Publishing Contributor Agreement you will be asked to certify that: | ||
| 1. All forms of financial support, including pharmaceutical company support, are acknowledged in your Contribution. | ||
| 2. Any commercial or financial involvements that might present an appearance of a conflict of interest related to the Contribution are disclosed in a covering letter accompanying the Contribution and all such potential conflicts of interest will be discussed with the Editor as to whether disclosure of this information with the published Contribution is to be made in the journal. | ||
| 3. That you have not signed an agreement with any sponsor of the research reported in the Contribution that prevents you from publishing both positive and negative results or that forbids you from publishing this research without the prior approval of the sponsor. | ||
| 4 That you have checked the manuscript submission guidelines to see whether the journal requires a Declaration of Conflicting Interests and have complied with the requirements specified where such a policy exists.” | ||
| Springer [12] | “A conflict of interest is a situation in which financial or other personal considerations from authors or reviewers have the potential to compromise or bias professional judgment and objectivity. Authors and reviewers should declare all conflicts of interest relevant to the work under consideration (i.e. relationships, both financial and personal, that might interfere with the interpretation of the work) to avoid the potential for bias.” | A, R |
| Taylor and Francis [13] | “A conflict of interest can occur when you (or your employer or sponsor) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, that could influence your research. | A |
| Full disclosure is required when you submit your paper to a journal. The journal editor will use this information to inform his or her editorial decisions…” | ||
| Wiley [14] | “Editors, authors, and peer reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively. These might include relevant financial interests (for example, patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker’s fees), or personal, political, or religious interests” and detailed description about tasks, responsibilities of all parties how to avoid and manage COIs. | E, A, R |
[1]Bentham (2017a) http://benthamscience.com/publishing-ethics-main.php; (2017b) http://benthamscience.com/editorial-policies-main.php; (2017c) http://benthamscience.com/reviewers-guidelines-main.php; (2018) https://benthamscience.com/publishing-ethics-main.php
[2]De Gruyter (2017) http://degruyteropen.com/you/journal-author/editorial-policies/other-stm/; (2018) https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ejnm.2013.5.issue-4/ejnm-2013-0037/ejnm-2013-0037.xml
[3]Elsevier (2017a) https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-accounting-and-economics/policies/conflict-of-interest-policy, Elsevier (2017b) https://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest, Elsevier (2017c) https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/publishing-ethics
[4]Emerald (2017) http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/authors/writing/best_practice_guide.htm
[5]Hindawi (2017) https://about.hindawi.com/managing-conflicts-of-interest/
[6]IEEE (2017a) IEEE Policies 2017 https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee_policies.pdf; (2017b)https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/compliance/business_conduct_and_conflict_of_interest.html
[7]Inderscience (2017) http://www.icmmcmse2017.org/university/publication/form/Copyright%20Form%20(IJCSE).pdf(document no longer available)
[8]NPG (Nature Publishing Group) (2017, 2018) http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/competing.html
[9]OUP (Oxford University Press) (2017) https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/authors/authors_faqs/conflicts_of_interest
[10]PLoS (2017) https://www.plos.org/editorial-publishing-policies
[11] SAGE (2017 https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/declaration-of-conflicting-interests-policy
[12]Springer-Nature (2017) https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/editors/publishing-ethics-for-journals/4176#c4230
[13]Taylor and Francis / Informa (Routledge) (2017) http://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/what-is-a-conflict-of-interest/
[14]Wiley (2014) Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics - Wiley Author Services https://authorservices.wiley.com/asset/photos/Ethics_Guidelines_26.04.17.pdf