Confiict of Interest Declaration

According to the COPE Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (2003), “'Conflicts of interest occur when authors, reviewers, or editors have concerns that are not fully clear, and that may affect their decisions on whatever is published. They have been defined as those that would create a thoughtful reader feel misled or deceived when announced later.' Therefore, a particular procedure is adopted at Green Publishers for Declaration of presence or absence of Conflict of Interest for each submission to its journals. There is a possibility that researchers, scholars or field professionals have conflicts of interest impacting-or seem to be impacting- their research. To bring clarity to this possibility, Green Publishers’ makes it mandatory that all submissions to its journals carry a statement describing or denying any competing interest that will be included in the paginated published article. Below is a brief but not exhaustive list of some possible conflicts of interests:

  • Presence of relationships, allegiances, or hostilities to particular groups/organizations which may excessively impact one's judgments or procedures.
  • Bearing individual interests or personal gains that may overly impact one's judgments or procedures.
  • Collecting fee for advising
  • Keeping hold of obtained research funding.
  • Owning shares in an organization that may be influenced by the publication of your paper
  • Having acquired funds compensating you for visiting a relevant symposium or talk

However, the details of financial methods are not required to be necessarily revealed when a competing interest is declared. How to make a declaration? Include your Conflict of Interest Declaration at the end of the manuscript, after the Acknowledgements (if any) and before the References. If no conflict of interest exits, please include the statement “The Author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest.”