Conflict of Interest
A conflict of interest arises when a financial, professional, or personal interest could reasonably be seen to influence judgement about a manuscript. Jurnal Penelitian Saintek (JPS) does not treat a conflict of interest as misconduct: what matters is that it is declared, so that readers, reviewers, and editors can judge the work in full knowledge of the circumstances.
▣ What Must Be Declared
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Financial | Funding or grants for the research; employment or consultancy; honoraria; paid expert testimony; shareholdings in a company affected by the findings; patents, royalties, or licensing income. |
| Material | Equipment, instruments, software licences, reagents, or samples provided free or at a discount by a party with an interest in the outcome. |
| Professional | Membership of a body with a stake in the findings; an advisory or editorial role connected with the subject; competing unpublished work on the same question. |
| Personal | A close personal relationship with an author, reviewer, or editor; a family interest in the outcome. |
| Institutional | Research that evaluates a product, process, facility, or programme belonging to the authors' own institution. |
✎ Authors
- Declare all potential conflicts in the Disclosure Statement and all funding in the Funding statement of the manuscript.
- Where there is nothing to declare, say so explicitly: “No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.”
- The corresponding author is responsible for collecting declarations from all co-authors.
- Research that tests or evaluates a device, material, method, or product in which an author has an interest must say so plainly in the Method, since this is common in applied science and engineering.
↻ Reviewers
- Decline an invitation where a conflict exists: recognising the authors, recent collaboration or co-authorship, working at the same institution, a supervisory relationship, or competing work on the same question.
- Where a conflict becomes apparent during review, stop and inform the editor.
- Do not use knowledge gained from a manuscript for personal, professional, or commercial advantage.
★ Editors
- An editor with a conflict of interest withdraws from handling the manuscript, and another editor takes it on.
- A manuscript submitted by an editor or an editorial board member is assigned to another editor, and the editor-author has no access to the identity of the reviewers or to any information about the review.
- Editors do not handle manuscripts from their own research group, their current or recent students, or their close collaborators.
⚑ When in doubt, declare. An undisclosed conflict that comes to light after publication is handled under the Research Misconduct policy and may lead to a correction notice. A declared interest, by contrast, rarely prevents publication.
See also the Publication Ethics, Authorship Policy, and Peer Review Process.
