Conflict of Interest Policy

 conflict of interest exists when professional judgement about a piece of research may be influenced by other interests: financial, personal, institutional, or academic. Having a conflict is not misconduct; failing to declare it is.

1. Types

Financial (funding, honoraria, shareholding, patents, consultancy, employment); personal (family, close friendship, or hostility); institutional (shared institution or research group); academic (direct competition or strongly opposed positions); and ideological or political affiliations.

2. Author Obligations

Every manuscript must include a Conflict of Interest Statement before the references, together with full disclosure of funding sources and grant numbers.

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article.

3. Reviewer Obligations

Reviewers must decline where they recognise the authors and have a close or difficult personal relationship, share an institution, have had a supervisory relationship within five years, have co-published or collaborated within three years, are working on directly competing research, or hold a financial interest. Conflicts discovered mid-review must be reported to the editor immediately. Reviewers must not require citations to their own work as a condition of acceptance.

4. Editor Obligations

Editors must recuse themselves where a conflict exists. Manuscripts authored by editors or board members are handled entirely by an independent editor, with no access for the author-editor to the review files or decision process in OJS. Editorial-team articles are capped at [20%] of each issue.

5. Consequences of Non-Disclosure

Before publication: return for completion or rejection where concealment is deliberate. After publication: a Corrigendum carrying the correct declaration, or retraction where the conflict affects the validity of the results.