Situations involving economic or personal benefit may give rise to a conflict of interest. The reliability of the scientific process and of published articles is directly related to the objective management of such conflicts at the stages of planning, conducting, writing, reviewing, editing, and publishing research.
Financial relationships are the most easily identifiable forms of conflict of interest and may undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and science itself. Nevertheless, personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual commitments may also create conflicts of interest.
Authors should avoid agreements with sponsors, whether for-profit or non-profit, that may restrict access to research data or interfere with the analysis, interpretation, writing, and publication of the manuscript.
Editors are responsible for safeguarding impartiality during the evaluation process. Accordingly:
All authors, reviewers, and editors are required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest to the journal. Such disclosures are taken into account in order to ensure that the review process is conducted transparently and independently.
Our Editorial Board applies these principles meticulously in order to preserve the impartial and ethical conduct of evaluation procedures.