Publish — Policies

Competing Interest

A competing interest, also known as a conflict of interest, is a situation in which a person's professional judgement may be influenced or could be perceived as influenced by a range of factors, including financial gain, material interest, or some other personal or professional interest. Conflicts of interest include financial and non-financial.

In line with publication ethics practices recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and other similar organizations, IntechOpen's contributing authors, editors, and peer reviewers are required to declare fully all possible or actual conflicts of interest.

In each instance of a possible conflict of interest, IntechOpen aims to disclose the situation in as transparent a way as possible in order to allow readers to judge whether a particular potential conflict of interest has influenced the work of any individual Author, Editor, or Reviewer. IntechOpen takes all possible conflicts of interest into account, pre- and post-publication, and ensures maximum transparency in implementing its policies.

Examples of, but not limited to, competing interest:

Financial and material

• employment or paid consultancy
• ownership of stocks or shares
• past and/or present work or consulting work for the research funder
• grants received
• membership in a relevant board
• payment to Reviewer/Editor of financial fees (lectures, royalities, consultancy, etc.) by the Author or their institution
• acceptance of gifts from the Reviewer/Editor/Author
• patents (pending or actual)
• other direct or indirect sources of funding or material benefit gained by the Reveiwer/Editor through the Author

Non-financial

• professional or personal relationships with institutions and funding bodies, including non-governmental organizations, research institutions and charities
• membership in relevant company boards or governmental organizations
• personal relationships, either through friendship, marriage, acting as a mentor, family relationships, or being a student of other contributors, with authors, reviewers or editors
• personal, religious, ideological, academic, or political convictions that might influence the publication process or be perceived as relevant to the published content.

Authors

All authors submitting to any IntechOpen journals should be aware of the responsibilities of authorship.

You may wish to consider questions such as these to determine if there is a conflict of interest:

• Did you or your co-authors receive funding from a third party that has a direct interest in the results in your manuscript? or
• Do you or any of your co-authors have affiliations with commercial organisations associated with the work in your manuscript (this could include patents, royalties, employment, or copyright)?
• Do you have any relationship, professional or personal, that could be perceived as influencing or that influences the results of your work?

In order to maintain transparency, the authors should fully disclose actual competing interests or those that might be perceived as such.

If no conflict exists, please state: “The authors declare no conflict of interest“.

The corresponding author declares the competing interest on behalf of all participating authors. The corresponding author should declare the competing interest on behalf of contributors as well.

All manuscripts submitted to IntechOpen journals must have a funding statement and a conflict-of-interest statement. These statements will be included in the published version of manuscripts, even if no conflicts exist.

Editors and Reviewers

In assessing their potential conflict of interest, the editors and reviewers should consider the following:

• Have they had any form of collaboration with the author(s) (including co-authorship) recently or currently that could be perceived as or that presents a competing interest
• Do they share the same affiliation as the author(s)
• Are they in any personal relationship with the author(s) that prevents them from evaluating and handling the submitted manuscript objectively
• Do they have any current or recent financial relationship with the authors (including grants) or the funding body that funded the research

The editors are required to declare all and any conflict of interest that might influence or could be perceived as influencing their editorial practices.

All reviewers are required to declare possible competing interests at the beginning of the evaluation process. If a reviewer feels he or she might have any material, financial or any other conflict of interest with regards to the manuscript being reviewed, he or she is required to declare such concern and, if necessary, request exclusion from any further involvement in the evaluation process. A reviewer's potential conflicts of interest are declared in the review report and presented to the editor, who then assesses whether or not the declared potential or actual conflicts of interest had, or could be perceived to have had, any significant impact on the review itself.

Funding

If there is a conflict, for example with funding that may be perceived to influence the research or results, this must be clearly stated and declared.

All manuscripts submitted to IntechOpen journals must have a funding statement and a conflict-of-interest statement. These statements will be included in the published version of manuscripts, even if no conflicts exist.

Policy last updated: 2023-01-23