A conflict of interest can also be known as ‘competing interest’. A conflict of interest can occur when you, or your employer, or sponsor have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, that could influence your research.
When you submit your paper to a journal, full disclosure is required. You can declare the conflict of interest in your cover letter or on the manuscript submission form in the journal’s online peer-review system.
Conflict of interests can be financial or non-financial in nature. To maintain transparency, any associations which can be perceived by others as a conflict of interest must also be declared. If there are no competing interests to declare, authors should include a statement to the article to confirm that there are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.
Some examples of financial and non-financial conflicts of interests include: grants from an entity, paid to the author or organization; royalties being received by the authors or their institutions; personal fees received by the authors as honoraria, royalties, consulting fees, lecture fees, or testimonies; holding a position on the boards of industry bodies or private companies that might benefit, or be at a disadvantage financially or reputationally from the published findings; involvement in legal action related to the work; personal, political, religious, ideological, academic and intellectual competing interests which are perceived to be relevant to the published content