Conflicts of Interest Policy

Purpose

The Electronic Journal of Medical Research (EJMR) is committed to editorial independence, fairness, and transparency throughout the submission, peer-review, and publication processes. A conflict of interest (COI) exists when an author, reviewer, or editor has a competing interest, financial, personal, academic, institutional, or ideological, that could reasonably be perceived to influence, or actually influence, their judgment or conduct in relation to a manuscript. This policy applies to all authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members involved with EJMR, and is consistent with the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

1. What Constitutes a Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest may include, but are not limited to:

  • Financial: employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, patents, grants, or other funding related to the subject matter of the manuscript
  • Personal: close personal relationships with an author, reviewer, or editor involved in the manuscript, including family members, spouses/partners, or close personal friends
  • Academic or professional: direct collaboration with an author within the past three years (e.g., co-authorship, shared grant funding, thesis supervision), or academic rivalry that could bias judgment
  • Institutional: shared current or recent institutional affiliation with an author that could reasonably be seen to affect impartiality
  • Ideological: strong personal, political, or advocacy positions directly relevant to the manuscript's subject matter that could affect objective assessment

2. Author Disclosure

  • All authors must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest at the time of manuscript submission, using the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form.
  • Every submitted manuscript must include a Conflict of Interest statement in the manuscript itself, prior to the References section. This applies whether or not a conflict exists — authors with nothing to disclose must include an explicit statement such as: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
  • Authors must also disclose all sources of funding for the research described, including the role (if any) of the funding source in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or the decision to publish, in accordance with EJMR's Authorship and Contribution Policy.
  • Any conflict of interest discovered after submission or after publication must be reported to the Editorial Office immediately and will be addressed in accordance with Section 6 below.

3. Reviewer Disclosure and Recusal

  • Reviewers must assess, upon receiving an invitation to review, whether they have any conflict of interest with the manuscript, its authors, or the institutions involved.
  • Where a conflict exists, the reviewer must decline the invitation before beginning the review, without needing to disclose the specific nature of the conflict beyond confirming that one exists.
  • If a reviewer becomes aware of a conflict after a review has begun, they must notify the handling editor immediately and withdraw from the review.
  • Reviewers must treat all manuscripts as confidential and must not use knowledge gained through the review process for personal or professional advantage; this is considered a conflict of interest in its own right.

4. Editor and Editorial Board Disclosure and Recusal

  • Editors and editorial board members must disclose any relationship or interest that could affect their impartiality in handling a manuscript, including institutional, financial, personal, or collaborative ties to the authors.
  • Where an editor or editorial board member is an author, co-author, or otherwise has a conflict of interest with a submitted manuscript, including cases where an editor submits as corresponding author under EJMR's APC Waivers and Discounts Policy, that individual is recused from all editorial handling of the manuscript. The submission is instead assigned to another editor with no conflict of interest, who independently manages the peer-review process and the final decision.
  • The Editor-in-Chief maintains oversight of recusal cases to ensure they are applied consistently; if the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict, the matter is escalated to another senior editor or the Publisher.

5. Confidentiality

All conflict-of-interest disclosures are handled confidentially by the Editorial Office and are used solely to inform recusal and editorial-handling decisions. Published COI statements are limited to what is necessary for transparency in the published record; disclosures made solely for internal recusal purposes are not published unless directly relevant to the manuscript's content or findings.

6. Failure to Disclose and Corrective Action

Failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest is treated as a breach of publication ethics and is addressed in a manner proportionate to its severity and impact, consistent with COPE guidelines. Depending on the circumstances, this may include:

  • A request for the author(s) to provide the omitted disclosure, published as a correction or addendum
  • A formal Expression of Concern attached to the published article
  • Retraction of the article, reserved for cases involving a serious, material, undisclosed conflict that affected the integrity or conclusions of the published work

Any such action follows EJMR's Article Corrections, Retractions, and Withdrawal Policy.

7. Raising a Concern

Anyone who believes a conflict of interest has not been properly disclosed or handled by an author, reviewer, or editor may raise this through EJMR's Complaints and Appeals Policy.

8. Review

This policy is reviewed periodically to remain aligned with current COPE and ICMJE guidance on conflicts of interest in scholarly publishing.