Competing Interest

Last Updated: July 2026

Introduction and Scope of Disclosure

The integrity of the scholarly record is our highest priority. To maintain public trust and safeguard scientific objectivity, all participants in the publication process—including authors, peer reviewers, and editors—must fully disclose any relationships or interests that could be perceived as inappropriately influencing their professional judgment. This obligation applies to any relevant connections, activities, or interests that occurred within the 36 months prior to the manuscript's submission.

Categories of Competing Interests

Competing interests span a broad spectrum of personal, professional, and financial ties. Financial conflicts encompass direct employment, commercial consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, patents, or direct funding from for-profit entities. Non-financial interests, which can be equally impactful, include political affiliations, intense academic competition, deep-seated personal or ideological beliefs, and past professional collaborations that might introduce bias into the research or its evaluation. Furthermore, participants must declare any intellectual or legal interests, such as intellectual property rights affected by the publication or active advisory roles for government agencies related directly to the research topic.

Author Responsibilities and Disclosure Protocols

Authors are required to declare all potential conflicts at the point of submission through the online system. This declaration must clearly outline the specific role of funding bodies in the study design, data collection, analysis, and the decision to publish. If no competing interests exist after reviewing the mandatory 36-month window, authors must explicitly state that no conflicts have been declared. Every published article will include a mandatory transparency statement reflecting these disclosures.

Institutional and Internal Submissions

We recognize that members of our editorial board or internal staff occasionally submit their own research for publication. To guarantee absolute independence and fairness, any manuscript submitted by an editor or internal staff member undergoes a completely separate, blinded pathway. These individuals are strictly barred from accessing the review system for their own work, play no role in selecting peer reviewers, and hold no voting rights or influence over the final editorial decision. An independent editor from outside the authors' institution handles the entire evaluation to ensure objective scrutiny.

Peer Review and Editorial Evaluation

For editors and peer reviewers, a strict recusal policy applies. Any individual with a conflict of interest must immediately step down from the peer-review or decision-making process. For reviewers, a conflict is automatically triggered if they are affiliated with the same institution as the authors, have a past or present mentor-mentee relationship with the primary investigators, or have co-authored a paper with any member of the research team within the last three years. In these instances, editorial responsibility is delegated to independent peers, and all unpublished materials remain strictly confidential.

Funding Independence and Enforcement

Sponsors and funding bodies exercise no influence or voting rights regarding editorial decisions, manuscript acceptance, or publication timing. Final decisions rest solely on scientific merit and contribution to the field. Should undisclosed interests come to light after publication, an investigation will be launched in strict accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Depending on the severity of the omission, actions may range from formal corrections and expressions of concern to a full retraction, institutional notification, or a temporary suspension of publishing privileges. Authors may appeal conflict-related decisions with supporting evidence by contacting our Integrity Officer at legal@etflin.com.