Journal Policy
Conflict of Interest Policy
Journal of Biological and Sustainability Sciences
Policy Statement
The Journal of Biological and Sustainability Sciences is committed to transparent, fair, unbiased, and ethical publication practices. All authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and other participants in the publication process must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.
A conflict of interest exists when personal, financial, professional, academic, institutional, commercial, or other relationships could influence, or appear to influence, the objectivity of research, peer review, editorial judgment, or publication decisions.
Disclosure of a conflict of interest does not automatically prevent publication or participation in peer review. The purpose of disclosure is to allow editors, reviewers, authors, and readers to evaluate the information transparently.
Types of Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest may be financial or non-financial. Authors, reviewers, and editors should disclose any relationship or circumstance that could reasonably be viewed as influencing the manuscript, review, or editorial decision.
- Financial relationships, including employment, consultancy, honoraria, grants, stock ownership, paid expert testimony, patents, royalties, or sponsored research.
- Personal relationships, including close friendship, family relationship, personal disagreement, or personal competition.
- Academic relationships, including direct supervision, recent collaboration, shared grants, institutional affiliation, or co-authorship.
- Professional relationships, including advisory roles, committee membership, board membership, or organizational responsibilities.
- Institutional or commercial interests that could affect the perception of objectivity.
- Intellectual or ideological commitments that may strongly affect impartial evaluation.
Financial Conflicts
Financial conflicts may include funding, salaries, consultancy fees, speaker payments, paid advisory roles, stock ownership, patents, royalties, travel support, equipment support, or any financial relationship with an organization that may benefit from the publication.
Non-Financial Conflicts
Non-financial conflicts may include personal relationships, academic rivalry, institutional loyalty, strong intellectual beliefs, professional competition, or involvement in the development of a product, method, policy, or technology discussed in the manuscript.
Author Responsibilities
Authors must disclose all conflicts of interest at the time of manuscript submission. The corresponding author is responsible for collecting conflict of interest information from all co-authors and ensuring that the declaration is accurate and complete.
- Authors must include a conflict of interest statement in the manuscript.
- If there are no conflicts, authors should state that they have no conflict of interest to declare.
- Authors must disclose funding sources, sponsor roles, and any relationship that may affect interpretation of the work.
- Authors must update the journal if a conflict is identified after submission or publication.
- Authors must not hide commercial, institutional, personal, or academic relationships relevant to the manuscript.
Example Author Declarations
No conflict of interest:
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.
With disclosed conflict:
The authors declare the following competing interests: author-specific details, funding relationships, consultancy roles, patents, institutional relationships, or other relevant interests should be described clearly.
Funding-related statement:
The funder had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit the article for publication.
Reviewer Responsibilities
Reviewers must decline a review invitation or inform the editor if they have any conflict of interest that could affect impartial evaluation of a manuscript.
- Reviewers should not review manuscripts from close collaborators, students, supervisors, colleagues, competitors, or personal contacts when impartiality may be affected.
- Reviewers should disclose recent collaboration, shared grants, institutional links, or professional relationships with authors.
- Reviewers must not use unpublished manuscript content for personal or professional advantage.
- Reviewers must maintain confidentiality during and after the peer review process.
- Reviewers should notify the editor if they recognize a conflict after accepting a review invitation.
Editor and Editorial Board Responsibilities
Editors and editorial board members must manage manuscripts fairly and avoid handling submissions where they have a conflict of interest.
- Editors should recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have a personal, financial, institutional, academic, or professional conflict.
- Editors should not make decisions on manuscripts submitted by close collaborators, students, supervisors, family members, or institutional colleagues when impartiality may be questioned.
- If an editor has a conflict, the manuscript should be assigned to another qualified editor.
- Editorial decisions must be based on academic merit, research quality, ethical compliance, originality, and journal scope.
- Editors must protect confidential information obtained during the editorial process.
Editor as Author
If an editor or editorial board member submits a manuscript to JBSS, they must not participate in the peer review, editorial assessment, reviewer selection, or decision-making process for that manuscript.
Reviewer Confidentiality
Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents. Unpublished data, ideas, figures, methods, or interpretations must not be shared, copied, or used without permission.
Funding and Sponsor Disclosure
Authors must disclose all sources of financial support, including grants, institutional funding, commercial sponsorship, equipment support, laboratory support, fieldwork support, and article processing charge support.
Authors should clearly state the role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, and publication decision. If the funder had no role, this should be stated clearly.
Management of Conflicts
When a conflict of interest is disclosed or identified, the journal may take appropriate steps to protect the fairness and integrity of the editorial process.
- Request additional disclosure from authors, reviewers, or editors.
- Assign a manuscript to a different editor.
- Invite independent reviewers without relevant conflicts.
- Publish a conflict of interest statement with the article.
- Request correction of an incomplete or inaccurate disclosure.
- Investigate undisclosed conflicts discovered after publication.
- Issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction if necessary.
Undisclosed Conflicts
Failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest may be treated as a publication ethics concern. The seriousness of the issue will depend on the nature of the conflict, whether the omission was accidental or intentional, and whether it affected the research or publication decision.
If an undisclosed conflict is discovered after publication, the journal may request an explanation, publish a correction, update the conflict statement, issue an expression of concern, or take further editorial action where necessary.
Contact for Conflict of Interest Questions
Questions about conflict of interest disclosure, reviewer conflicts, editor recusal, sponsor roles, or publication ethics may be directed to the editorial office.