Conflict of Interest Policy

General

Authors are required to disclose all sources of institutional, private and corporate financial support for their study. Donors of materials (for free or at a discount from current rates) should be named in the source of funding and their location (town, state/county, country) included.

Other donors will be identified in the text. If no funding has been available other than that of the author's institution, this should be specified upon submission. Authors are also required to disclose any potential conflict of interest. These include financial interests (for example patent, ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, speaker's fee,) or provision of study materials by their manufacturer for free or at a discount from current rates.

Author's conflict of interest (or information specifying the absence of conflicts of interest) and the sources of funding for the research if any will be published under a separate heading entitled “Conflict of Interest and Sources of Funding Statement”.

a. Authors
When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work. The ICMJE has developed a Form for Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest to facilitate and standardize authors’ disclosures. ICMJE member journals require that authors use this form, and ICMJE encourages other journals to adopt it.

b. Peer Reviewers
Reviewers should be asked at the time they are asked to critique a manuscript if they have conflicts of interest that could complicate their review. Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they’re reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.

c. Editors and Journal Staff
Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration. Other editorial staff members who participate in editorial decisions must provide editors with a current description of their financial interests or other conflicts (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which a conflict of interest exists. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff. Guest editors should follow these same procedures.

Reporting Conflicts of Interest

Articles should be published with statements or supporting documents, such as the ICMJE conflict of interest form, declaring:

  • Authors’ conflicts of interest; and
  • Sources of support for the work, including sponsor names along with explanations of the role of those sources if any in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; the decision to submit the report for publication; or a statement declaring that the supporting source had no such involvement; and
  • Whether the authors had access to the study data, with an explanation of the nature and extent of access, including whether access is on-going.

To support the above statements, editors may request that authors of a study sponsored by a funder with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome sign a statement, such as “I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.”

Declaration of Competing Interests

A competing interest—often called a conflict of interest—exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of an article in Le travail humain when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.

We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with an article, we should know about any competing interests that authors may have, and that if we publish the article readers should know about them too. We are not aiming to eradicate such interests; they are almost inevitable. We will not reject your article simply because you have a conflict of interest, but we want you to make a declaration on whether or not you have competing interests. (We also ask our staff and reviewers to declare any competing interests.)

A declaration of interests for all authors must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication. It should take one of two forms, depending on what type of article you are submitting.

Below Are Some Examples for Different Sorts of Disclosures

No competing interests
"All authors declare no support from any organization for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Grant funding for research but no other competing interest
"All authors declare they have had financial support from ABC Company for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Mixed
"All authors declare they have received support from any organisation for the submitted work; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB foundation, DF does consultancy for HHH and VVV companies; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Incessant Nature Science (INS) Publishers journals group has a transparent publications policy and adheres in principle to the Conflict of Interest policy recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). INS Journals does not discriminate on the basis of the source of material submitted, provided full disclosure is provided and appropriate declaration of interest statements and acknowledgments are included in published manuscripts. Thus, we require that authors/submitters include comprehensive ‘Declaration of Interest’ and ‘Acknowledgements’ sections in submitted articles. All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. It is the sole responsibility of authors to disclose any affiliation with any organization with a financial interest, direct or indirect, in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript (such as consultancies, employment, paid expert testimony, honoraria, speakers bureaus, retainers, stock options or ownership, patents or patent applications or travel grants) that may affect the conduct or reporting of the work submitted. All sources of funding for research are to be explicitly stated. If uncertain as to what might be considered a potential conflict of interest, authors should err on the side of full disclosure.

More specifically, we request for the following:

  • All relevant potential conflicts of interest for each named author and/or a statement of no-conflicts if there are none relevant to the contents of the article for any author(s).
  • Disclosure of how the article is funded, and specifically, the disclosure of any and all pharmaceutical company funding (partial or total) OR a statement that there was no involvement of a pharmaceutical/other company (if this is the case).
  • Comprehensive explanation of the role of the sponsors in article preparation (if the article is sponsored in part or whole).
  • Disclosure of any medical writing/editorial assistance with the preparation of the article (the medical communication agency and the individuals involved need to be named).

Contributions from individuals who do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged in the ‘Acknowledgments’ section. This should include details (with professional affiliations) of any other contributorship, such as data analysis, statistics, data collection, technical assistance, special thanks, personal assistance, and dedications.

The ‘Declaration of Interest’ and ‘Acknowledgements’ sections will be made available to reviewers and will appear in the published article. Please note that the Editor(s) or Publisher can make or suggest changes to these statements where necessary. If any potential conflicts of interest are found to have been withheld following publication, the journal will proceed according to the Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines.

The intent of this policy is not to prevent authors with any particular relationship or interest from publishing their work, but rather to adopt transparency such that reviewers, editors, the publisher, and most importantly, readers can make objective judgements concerning the work product.

Once published, the article will be made free to read and reuse upon publication under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license 4.0

The published article can be distributed under the terms of the Creative Common Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.