Competing Interests and Funding

Everyone involved in a manuscript must declare anything that could affect their judgement, or could reasonably look as if it does. This applies to authors, reviewers, and editors. Declaring an interest does not disqualify anyone. Hiding one is misconduct.

• Financial: employment, consultancy, shares, patents, paid speaking, research grants, or honoraria from an organisation that could gain or lose from the work, within the past three years.
• Professional: working at the same institution, collaborating or co-authoring in the past three years, a supervisor–student relationship, or direct competition in the same research.
• Personal: family relationships, close friendships, or personal disputes.
• Intellectual or ideological: strongly held beliefs, or an advocacy role, related to the subject of the manuscript.

Every article includes a Competing Interests statement. If there are none, it says: "The authors declare no competing interests." Interests are declared at submission and updated if they change before publication.

Every article includes a Funding statement. It names each funder, the grant number, and the authors who received the funding. Funders are identified using standard identifiers (ROR IDs or the Crossref Open Funder Registry), and are sent with the article's metadata. The statement also explains any role the funder had in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or the decision to publish. If there was no specific funding, the statement says: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors."

• Reviewers decline an invitation if they have a competing interest that could affect their review. If they are unsure, they tell the editor.
• Editors never handle a manuscript where they have a competing interest as described in 6.1. This includes manuscripts from their own institution, from recent co-authors, or from their own students. Such manuscripts are given to another editor who has no conflict.
• Editors and board members declare their competing interests when they are appointed, and update the declaration whenever it changes. The editorial office keeps a record.

If a significant undisclosed interest comes to light, the editor follows COPE guidance. Before publication, the manuscript may be returned for correction, or rejected. After publication, a correction is issued. If the undisclosed interest undermines confidence in the findings, the article is retracted.