Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial or non-financial relationship that could influence, or reasonably be perceived as influencing, the research, evaluation, or editorial decision.

Conflicts of interest may include employment relationships, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, patents, funding, travel support, personal relationships, academic competition, or institutional roles related to the manuscript. The existence of a conflict does not automatically result in rejection, but it must be disclosed and managed transparently.

All manuscripts must include a conflict-of-interest statement. When no conflicts exist, the following statement should be included:

“The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.”

Authors must also disclose all sources of funding, grant numbers when applicable, and the funder’s role in study design, data collection and analysis, interpretation of results, manuscript preparation, and the decision to publish. When the work received no specific funding, this must be stated explicitly.

Reviewers and editors must recuse themselves when a conflict could compromise their impartiality. The management of the conflict will be recorded in the editorial file.