Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest in publishing can be defined as conditions in which an individual holds conflicting or competing interests that could bias editorial decisions. Conflicts of interest may be potential or perceived, or they may be factual. Personal, political, financial, academic, or religious considerations can affect objectivity in numerous ways. Open Exploration requires all authors and editors to disclose any existing and potential conflict of interest when submitting or accepting review assignments, to ensure a transparent and objective review process for manuscripts. COPE has published flowcharts that illustrate a suitable process for investigations of suspected undisclosed conflicts of interest. Open Exploration also adheres to the COPE flowcharts to handle conflicts of interest.

Definition of Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). 

Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself.

Conflicts can also occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships or rivalries, academic competition, and intellectual beliefs. 

Author

All Open Exploration journals require authors to provide a statement at the end of their manuscripts to disclose any potential or existing conflict of interest relevant to the work. If the author has no conflict of interest, the statement should be “The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.”. The corresponding author must ensure that all authors are aware of the requirement to disclose any conflict of interest. 

Reviewer

When asked to evaluate a manuscript, reviewers must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. Reviewers are asked to recuse themselves from handling a paper if the conflict makes them unable to, or lead to the perception that they may be unable to, form an impartial scientific judgment. A reviewer who has a potential conflict but believes that it does not preclude his or her from making a proper judgment must disclose the conflict to the editorial office. Such conflict is taken into account when the editors make decisions.

Editors, Board Members, Guest Editors, Editorial Staff

When editors, board members, guest editors, and other editorial staff receive review assignments, they must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript according to the Conflicts of Interest Checklist from the journal. And when they are presented with papers where their interests may be perceived to impair their ability to make an unbiased editorial decision, they should disclose the conflicts of interest to the editorial office, withdraw from discussions, deputize decisions, or suggest that authors seek publication in a different journal. In this case, the Editor-in-Chief will decide whether to assign another editor.

The manuscripts submitted by the editorial board members and guest editors are handled separately by other editors, and the submitting editor is not involved in the decision-making or the review process. 

Funding

All sources of funding should be declared by naming financially supporting bodies followed by any associated grant numbers in square brackets under the heading “Funding” at the end of the manuscript. Authors must describe the role of the study sponsor(s) in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication, if any.