Articles are evaluated fairly and are not necessarily rejected when any competing interests are declared.
Regarding Editors and Reviewers
Journal submissions are assigned to editors in an effort to minimize potential conflicts of interest. The following relationships between editors and authors are considered conflicts and are avoided:
- current colleagues,
- recent colleagues,
- recent co-authors, and
- doctoral students
for which editor served as committee chair.
After papers are assigned, individual editors/reviewers are required to inform the editor-in-chief of any conflicts not included in the list above. In the event that none of the editors/reviewers satisfy all of the conflict screens, co-editors/reviewers who are least conflicted are assigned to the manuscript.
Regarding Authors
The authors are asked to include a Declaration of Conflicting Interests (financial, academic and other kinds) at the end of their manuscript after any Acknowledgements and prior to the Funding Acknowledgement (if relevant), Notes (if relevant) and References, under the heading 'Declaration of Conflicting Interest'. If no conflict exists, authors should include information 'The Author(s) declare(s) that there are no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could influence the work reported in this paper '.