Competing interests

Defining Conflicting Interests

A conflicting interest encompasses any circumstance that might prevent or reasonably be construed to prevent the comprehensive and impartial exposition, peer evaluation, Editorial decision formulation, or publication of scholarly or non-scholarly articles submitted to ScienceBank. These conflicting interests may encompass financial and non-financial, vocational, or personal factors. They may emerge in association with an institution, establishment, or other individuals.

Failure to disclose conflicting interests can lead to the direct dismissal of a manuscript. If an undisclosed conflicting interest surfaces after publication, ScienceBank will adhere to COPE guidelines and release a public notification to the academic community.

Financial conflicting interests

The definition of Financial Conflicting Interests includes but are not limited to:

• Employment or consultancy that is paid
• Gifts
• Equity or stock ownership
• Membership in governing boards
• Applications for patents (anticipated or actual), whether individually applied for or affiliated with the institution representing the Authors and in which the Authors might have an interest
• Research grants (from any origin, restricted or unrestricted)
• Subsidies for travel and compensation for speaking engagements or participation in conferences

Non-financial conflicting interests

Non-financial conflicting interests include but are not limited to:

• Affiliation (remunerated or unpaid) with organisations and funding entities, inclusive of non-governmental bodies, research institutions, or charitable foundations
• Association with lobbying or advocacy groups
• Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) relevant to the subject of the article that could hinder an impartial publication process (at any stage encompassing Authorship, peer review, Editorial decision-making, or publication)
• Personal associations (e.g., friendships, spousal connections, familial relationships, existing or past mentorships, adversarial affiliations) with individuals involved in the article's submission or evaluation, such as Authors, Reviewers, Editors, or members of the ScienceBank's Editorial Board or the shareholders of ScienceBank
• Serving as an expert witness in legal proceedings that are relevant to the domain of research
• Involvement in governmental or advisory panels
• Writing or consulting for an educational enterprise

Mandatory Declarations of Conflicting Interests by Role

All parties should consider including conflicting interests regardless of time span if conflicts could be reasonably interpreted as conflicting as per the provided definition.

Authors

Upon submission, Authors are required to list all conflicting interests related to the presented research. This includes but is not limited to:

• Declaring all sources for funding—including all co-Authors.
• Description of the funder's role in the research's design; data collection, analysis, and interpretation; drafting of the paper; and/or resolution to submit for publication
• Stating whether Authors are currently, or have been, members of ScienceBank’s Editorial board
• Declaration of acting as an expert witness in legal proceedings that are relevant to the domain of research
• Acknowledgment of participation in, or oversight of, a committee affiliated with an organisation that might gain from the article's publication

Editors and Reviewers

Editors (whether professional or academic, salaried, or voluntary) and Reviewers are obligated to declare their conflicting interests and disqualify themselves from participating in manuscript assessment when warranted.

Typical grounds for Editors and Reviewers to abstain from engaging in the peer-review process could encompass but are not limited to:

• Co-employment at the same institution or entity as an Author, either presently or within the past three years
• Collaboration with an Author, either presently or within the past three years
• Publication collaboration with an Author within the previous five years
• Concurrent or recent association (within the past five years) with an Author on grant endeavours
• Financial affiliations with the organisation that funded the research
• Personal affiliations with an Author that impede unbiased manuscript evaluation

Readers

ScienceBank reserves the right to remove comments made by readers who do not state a conflict of interest when posting their remarks.

Editorial Procedures and Determinations

ScienceBank Editors must factor in all conflicting interests during the review process and ensure that, in their judgement, bias has not been introduced by the Authors, Reviewers, or the Editors themselves. Editors must ensure that conflicts of interest are appropriately declared and clear to readers when manuscripts are published.