Any association between authors, reviewers, or editors that prevents an accurate and unbiased presentation, peer review, editorial judgement, or publishing of a manuscript is referred to as a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest might include an organisation or an individual, be financial or non-financial, professional or personal.
Authors
Authors are accountable for disclosing all affiliations and activities (such as employment, consultancy fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licences, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc.) that could influence or be perceived to influence their work when they submit a manuscript of any kind or format. The ICMJE advice on “Author Responsibilities—Conflicts of Interest” will be adhered to by IRJMS when it comes to author conflict of interest issues. To simplify and standardise author disclosures, the ICMJE has created a Disclosure Form. When submitting their manuscripts, authors must provide the properly completed and signed form under the “additional files” area. Additionally, they can email it to editor@irjms.com. Please click the link to see the comprehensive ICMJE suggestions for disclosing for disclosure of financial and non-financial relationships and activities, and conflicts of interest.
Reviewers
Reviewers must disclose to journal editors any relationships or activities that might influence their opinions of the article, and if such a possibility exists, they should withdraw from evaluating a particular paper. Reviewers are not allowed to further their personal agendas by reviewing a piece before it has been published. To disclose the conflicts of interest, kindly utilise the review form available at your reviewer login area.
Editors and Journal Staff
Final manuscript judgements must be made by IRJMS editors who have no financial, professional, or personal stake in any of the issues they consider. If other editorial staff members take part in editorial decisions, they must disclose to editors their present financial interests (since they may affect editorial judgements) and abstain from any choices where a conflict of interest occurs. The information that editorial staff learns from dealing with manuscripts cannot be used for personal advantage. Editors who submit their own work to this journal should delegate management of the manuscript to a staff member in the editorial office and abstain from discussions and decisions pertaining to the document.
Note: These policies are based upon the ICMJE recommendations.
Additional Information
You may find the following useful resources to refer to for more information on Conflict of Interest policies, existing codes of practices and more general good practice in relation to journal publication ethics:
- View the Guidelines published on good publication and the Code of Conduct by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).
- View the guidelines published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).