Conflict of interests policy
All the authors, reviewers, members of Editorial Board, and editors shall inform about potential conflicts of interests, to ensure objectivity and transparency of the publishing process. This policy aims to prevent the impact of conflict of interests on the results of research and on the decision-making process related to publishing.
Conflict of interests may occur when authors, reviewers, members of Editorial Board, editorial staff or editors have the interests that are not quite clear and may affect the judgment on the published content; when authors, reviewers, members of Editorial Board, editorial staff or editors have relations that may bias the decision on publishing.
The authors, when submitting the article’s manuscript, shall inform the journal’s editorial office on any kind of financial or other substantial conflict of interests, which could have affected the research results or their interpretation:
- financial relations (direct job placement, fees, consultations, grants, membership in groups of interests, licensing, etc.);
- nonfinancial relations (professional and/or personal relations, academic rivalries, ideological or religious beliefs).
All the conflicts must be expressly identified in order to make it clear if the authors could have been prone to a bias and how this could have affected the work.
Also, the authors should indicate the role of sponsors (if any) in conducting the research, writing the manuscript, and giving consent to its submission.
Editor-in-Chief (or a specially appointed member of Editorial Board) shall nominate reviewers in view of the absence of any conflict of interests. To this end, Editor-in-Chief shall compare the affiliation of authors and reviewers, to assure they have no joint publications in international databases or participation in joint projects. In cases of conflict of interests, Editor-in-Chief shall nominate an unbiased reviewer.
The journal’s editorial office shall receive declarations from all the authors and reviewers on any kind of the existing or potential conflict of interests, which may affect the decisions related to submission and preparation of the manuscript to printing.
The reviewers shall declare any sort of conflict of interests, which may affect their capacity for objective assessment of the manuscript. The reviewers shall promptly inform the editorial office that:
- they have financial or personal relations with the author(s) or organizations engaged in the research;
- there exists direct competition between their own research and the manuscript reviewed by them;
- there exists personal interest or bias that may affect the objectivity of assessment.
When a conflict is identified, reviewers shall abandon the handling the manuscript.
The editors shall not edit the manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interests resulting from competitive, joint or other relations with any of the authors, or with companies or institutions associated with the research.
Members of Editorial Board, Editor-in-Chief, editors of “Science and Science of Science” journal are eligible for the submission of their manuscripts to the journal, but they shall not take decisions on publishing of their own scientific works in the journal. To prevent a conflict of interests, these manuscripts shall be processed without their involvement.
When the author/coauthor is a member of Editorial Board, the manuscript shall be subject to scrutiny for the compliance with the journal’s requirements and policies on the articles’ content and technical formatting. When the article receives positive responses and recommendations in keeping with independent “anonymous reviewing”, the final decision on its publishing shall be taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief and/or the independent executive editor who does not have a conflict of interests.
When the manuscript is submitted to the journal’s editorial office by Editor-in-Chief, the final decision on the article and the nomination of independent reviewers shall be guided by Deputy Chief Editor of the journal or the independent executive editor. The article’s approval for printing shall rely on the received reviews.
