Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest is not misconduct. Failing to declare one is.

What must be declared

Anything a reasonable reader might think could have influenced the work or its assessment:

  • Financial — funding, grants, consultancy, honoraria, royalties, employment, or a commercial interest in a product or publication discussed.
  • Institutional — a paper about your own institution, department, programme or curriculum; evaluation of a project you are employed on.
  • Personal — a close relationship with an editor or a likely reviewer; a supervisory relationship, current or recent.
  • Intellectual — a public position, affiliation or commitment that bears directly on the argument, including a formal role in a tradition, maṭha, sampradāya or institution the paper assesses.
  • Access — privileged access to a manuscript, collection or community that other scholars cannot obtain, and the terms on which it was granted.

Authors

  • Declare at submission, for every author. Where there is nothing to declare, say so.
  • The declaration is published with the article, as a statement before the references.
  • A conflict discovered after publication is corrected under Corrections and Retractions.

Reviewers

  • Decline the invitation where you have a conflict — or disclose it and let the editor decide.
  • Decline where you have collaborated with, supervised or been supervised by an author within the last three years, so far as you can tell from an anonymised manuscript.
  • Decline where you cannot assess the work impartially, for any reason. You need not say what the reason is.
  • Do not use anything learnt from a manuscript under review for your own advantage before the work is published.

Editors

  • An editor with any interest in a submission is removed from the file, and another editor handles it end to end. The conflicted editor sees neither the reviewer identities nor the reports.
  • Submissions from editors and editorial board members are handled by an editor with no connection to the author, reviewed by external reviewers only, and the arrangement is stated on the published article.
  • Editors do not handle submissions from their own institution.
  • The Siddhanta Knowledge Foundation takes no part in the assessment of any submission. See Publication Information.

Where a declaration is disputed

Concerns may be sent to journal@siddhantaknowledge.org. They are considered by an editor who is not involved, the author is given the chance to respond, and the outcome is recorded in the editorial file.