A competing interest exists when an individual (or the individual’s institution) has financial, personal, or professional relationships with other persons or institutions that could unduly bias their actions or judgements. Competing interests may arise from such relationships, irrespective of whether the judgement is actually or potentially affected.
All participants, including authors, editors, and referees, are responsible for recognizing and disclosing all relationships during all stages of the scholarly publication process that could be viewed as presenting potential conflicts of interest.
During the submission process, the submitting author will be required to provide a statement, on behalf of all authors, declaring the existence of competing interests with respect to their work in the Competing Interests section. The submitting author is responsible for disclosing all competing interests that could have interfered or could be perceived as interfering with the objective data presentation and interpretation of their scientific work. Moreover, authors must disclose any potential competing interests they are aware of that might influence the evaluation and objective assessment of their manuscript by the referees and/or the editor.
Authors may provide editors with the names of persons they feel should not be asked to review the manuscript because of potential competing interests. When possible, authors should explain such concerns to facilitate the editor’s decision making whether or not to honor such requests.
Any relevant information regarding financial support of the work presented in the manuscript must be included in the Funding section of the published article. In the Acknowledgments section, the authors should provide all relevant information about individuals who donated reagents and materials or provided access to certain equipment for the accomplishment of the work.
Referees are asked to disclose any competing interests upon submission of their review report. All referees must declare any relationships that might be viewed as biasing their objectivity, such as but not limited to, recent collaborations with manuscript author(s). Referees who anticipate that the necessary objectivity for reviewing the manuscript would be seriously impaired should exclude themselves from the peer review of the manuscript.
Editors should be committed to an objective and fair evaluation of the submitted work. They must always take into consideration the competing interests disclosed by the authors and by the referees as well as be aware of any of their own competing interests during the assessment of a manuscript. The selection of referees with obvious competing interests is to be avoided (e.g., same institution/affiliation as any of the authors, recent collaboration/co-authorship).
Personal or Professional Competing Interests
Financial Competing Interests