Conflict of Interest

According to Conflicts of Interest stated by COPE, Conflicts of Interest are situations that have the potential to influence people’s judgement, and such situations may affect, or may be perceived to affect, every stage of research, from planning to applying for or allocating funding, conducting a study, interpreting data and reporting research. Art and Science Press asks all parties to disclose the potential Conflicts of Interest before publishing, and the Publisher will ensure that authors’ conflicts of interest are disclosed to editors and readers followed by the COPE’s advice. If competing interests are verified or arise after publication, the Publisher will inform and progress the debate followed by the Discussion/guidance document on handling competing interests of COPE. Authors should provide the ICMJE Disclosure Form during the submission section.

As authors:

Authors should disclose any potential competing interests, including but are not limited to personal/affiliation relationships, beliefs, financial support, paid expert testimonies, etc. The corresponding authors should provide a summary statement of “Conflict of Interest” in the manuscript during submission section. If not conflicts of interests, authors should state: There is no conflicts of interest. If any disclosures, please state the details of grants, position, patent, competitors. That is helpful for editors to avoid stakeholders in the peer review process.

As reviewers:

During peer review requested, the reviewer candidate must disclose potential conflicts of interest to the Journal. Any possible conflicts involving this work, the candidate will not be appointed as a reviewer. According to COPE, “if during peer review, reviewers suspect undeclared author conflicts of interest, they need to inform the editor, who should follow the relevant COPE flowchart before continuing with review”. If reviewers realize that there may some conflicts of interest to disclose during peer review, such as being as the same institution as one of the authors, the Journal will take actions followed Practical guidance to peer reviewers of COPE.

As editors:

The editor who is one of the authors or from the same institution with one of the authors or other conflicts such as competing interests, should avoid the whole article process. Any editor processing the manuscript must not participate any decision of peer review.

As publisher:

According to COPE, “If readers of published articles report possible undisclosed author conflicts of interest, the journal should follow the relevant COPE flowchart and issue a correction if appropriate, or even retraction. If necessary, according to the discussion/guidance document, an author’s institution may be requested to investigate possible missing conflicts of interest, but the institutional contact also must be free of any relevant conflicts of interest”. For undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article or a submitted manuscript, the Publisher take the best practices followed by the Post-publication conflicts of interest of COPE.