GMPC-Policy on Conflicts of Interest

According to the COPE Guidelines, conflict of interest encompasses any non-transparent issues, i.e., personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial issues that may influence the decision of the author, reviewers, and editors, and if they disclosed afterward, they would cause a logical reader to feel misled or deceived. There should be no agreements between authors and study sponsors, either profit or non-profit, to avoid interference with the author's access to the study data, independent data analysis and interpretation, and manuscripts preparation and publication.

Funding sponsors' involvement in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript writing, or decision to publish must be disclosed. An example of such statements is, "The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, and analyses or the decision to publish the manuscript".

The authors are responsible for identifying and disclosing any circumstances or interests that may improperly influence the presentation or interpretation of the research results.

Conflicts of interest can be disclosed within the manuscript in a separate section, "Conflicts of Interest," before the reference list. Examples of disclosures: i) if there are no potential conflicts, the authors should state: " The authors declare no conflicts of interest" ii) if there are potential conflicts, the authors should state; Conflicts of Interest: Author X has received research grants from Company A.

Last updated: 15-Feb-2023