Conflict of Interest

Authors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships or activities that could influence, or could reasonably be perceived as influencing, their research or manuscript.

Conflicts may include relationships involving:

• Employment
• Consultancy
• Research funding
• Financial interests
• Patents
• Personal relationships
• Professional relationships
• Institutional interests

Editors and reviewers must also disclose relevant conflicts and should recuse themselves from decisions or reviews where appropriate.

Where no conflict exists, authors may provide a statement such as:

"The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest."

The journal encourages transparent disclosure because potential conflicts may affect the perceived or actual independence of scholarly work.