Conflict of Interest Policy

A declaration of competing interests (when they exist) is essential to ensure the PPCRJ has all the necessary information throughout the peer review and publication process to prioritize the readers' interests. It is not always possible to exclude all competing interests, and although they do not comprise an admission of wrongdoing or an automatic disqualification for a manuscript - full disclosure constitutes an essential step to ensure adequate conduct of all PPCRJ authors, reviewers and editors within and beyond the publication process.

As a practical guideline, any competing interest that could embarrass you or any PPCRJ stakeholders should it become public information after your work was published is best highlighted within the disclosure form to be completed by each named author at the time of manuscript submission.

Possible conflicts include and are not limited to:

Financial conflict - present or anticipated paid employment or consultancy, ownership of stocks or shares, royalties, present or anticipated research funding and grants (including salaries, resources and any additional expenses), present or anticipated patents, gifts and donations; Travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings;

Non-financial conflict - unpaid affiliation or membership in an organization, unpaid expert witness, unpaid role on an advisory board, personal conflict be it political, religious or other that is related to an article’s topic and may result in bias, personal relationships with those involved in the submission or evaluation of an article (this includes friend, family member, spouse, current or previous mentor, etc, who are authors, reviewers, editors or members of the PPCRJ’s editorial board).

PPCRJ ensures that all conflicts of interest are clearly detailed online, and in each published article.

Disclosure and review process for manuscripts co-authored by editorial team

PPCRJ editorial team are required to declare any interests that might influence their editorial activities. In particular, they should exclude themselves from managing manuscripts in cases where there is a potential conflict of interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one of the authors of a submitted manuscript or sharing the same affiliation as one of the authors.

Members of the PPCRJ editorial team are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and the peer-review will follow the strict double-blind process as usual. When an editorial member is an author on a submission, they will not be involved in the editorial process of the manuscript, will not have access to confidential information on the process, or input into the decision to publish the article. Finally, the editorial team member status will be disclosed in the conflict of interest section of the published paper.