Conflict of Interest Policy

Introduction

The policies and guidelines provided here are in place to protect the quality and integrity of forms of scholarly practice and research, as well as the reputations of the publications produced by Cadernos de Linguística.

Conflict of interest - COI has been defined as a set of conditions in which professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as validity of research) can be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain).

If a guest editor, associate editor, or reviewer believes that his/her relationship to an author, if known, or the subject matter of an article, may constitute a conflict of interest for any reason, this must be disclosed to the journal editor.

Definition and Scope

COI exists when a participant in the publication process (author, peer reviewer, or editor) has a competing interest that could unduly influence (or be reasonably seen to do so) his or her responsibilities in the publication process. Among those responsibilities are academic honesty, unbiased conduct and reporting of research, and integrity of decisions or judgments. The publication process includes the submission of manuscripts, peer review, editorial decisions, and communication between authors, reviewers and editors.

Types of Competing Interests

Many kinds of competing interests are possible. Journals often have policies for managing financial COI, mostly based on the untested assumption that financial ties have an especially powerful influence over publication decisions and may not be apparent unless they are made explicit. However, other competing interests can be just as damaging, and just as hidden to most participants, and so must also be managed. The following are examples of competing interests; they do not include all possibilities and they may coexist.

    1. Financial ties: This conflict is present when a participant in the publication process has received or expects to receive money (or other financial benefits such as patents or stocks), gifts, or services that may influence work related to a specific publication. Examples of financial ties to industry include payment for research, ownership of stock and stock options, as well as honoraria for advice or public speaking, consultation, service on advisory boards or medical education companies, and receipt of patents or patents pending. Competing interests can be associated with other sources of research funding including government agencies, charities (not-for-profit organizations), and professional and civic organizations, which also have agendas that may be congruent or at odds with research findings. Financial competing interests may exist not just on the basis of past activities but also on the expectation of future rewards, such as a pending grant or patent application. “Insider trading,” which is the use for one’s financial gain of information obtained through participation in research, review or editing before it is available to the general public, is a special kind of financial COI that has both legal and ethical implications.
    2. Academic commitments: Participants in the publications process may have strong beliefs (“intellectual passion”) that commit them to a particular explanation, method, or idea. They may, as a result, be biased in conducting research that tests the commitment or in reviewing the work of others that is in favor or at odds with their beliefs. For example, if research challenging conventional wisdom is reviewed by someone who has made his or her reputation by establishing the existing paradigm, that person might judge the new research results harshly. Investigators in the same field might make extra-efforts to find fault with manuscripts from competing teams, to delay publication or relegate the work to a lesser journal. While such commitments are not generally part of author’s disclosures, editors should be aware of them and their potential influence on author(s), reviewer(s), and themselves.
    3. Personal relationships: Personal relationships with family, friends, enemies, competitors, or colleagues can pose COIs. For example, a reviewer may have difficulty providing an unbiased review of articles by investigators who have been working colleagues. Similarly, he or she may find it difficult to be unbiased when reviewing the work of competitors. Bonds to family members may be strong enough that their competing interests should be treated as if they are also present for those directly involved with a manuscript.
    4. Political or religious beliefs: Strong commitment to a particular political view (e.g., political position, agenda, or party) or having a strong religious conviction may pose a COI for a given publication if those political or religious issues are affirmed or challenged in the publication.
    5. Institutional affiliations: A COI exists when a participant in the publication process is directly affiliated with an institution that on the face of it may have a position or an interest in a publication. An obvious concern is being affiliated with or employed by a company that manufactures the drug or device (or a competing one) described in the publication. However, apparently neutral institutions such as universities, hospitals, and research institutes (alone or in partnership with industry) may also have an interest (or the appearance of one) in the results of research. For example, investigators may have a COI when conducting research from a laboratory funded by private donors who could have (or appear to have) an interest in the results of the study, on a device for which the participant’s institution holds the patent, when the institution is the legal sponsor of the drug or device trial, or if the institution is in litigation in an area related to the study. Professional or civic organizations may also have competing interests because of their special interests or advocacy positions.

Declaring and Managing COIs

Conflicts of Interest are ubiquitous and cannot be completely eliminated from the editorial and/or authoring process. However, they can be managed constructively so that they exert as little intrusion as possible on the magazine, its content and its credibility. All statements about Conflict of Interest by the author are requested in writing - in the notes to editor field - as a condition for analyzing a manuscript, so that authors will have a high probability of reporting possible conflicts of interest related to the manuscript, if there is.

The consequences for failing to declare COI

Any conflict of interest will be handled based on flowcharts used by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Charts can be downloaded and accessed from the link (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).

Which COIs will result in a manuscript not being considered further?

If any or all types of Conflict of Interest (mentioned above) are detected (a priori, during the peer review process or after publication) in any text evaluated or approved, the manuscript will be suspended until the conflict of interest is resolved.

Responsibilities

  1. Authors: All authors must report any Conflicts of Interest related to their research to the editor
  2. Reviewers: All contributors must report any Conflicts of Interest related to their review assignments to the editor.
  3. Editors: Editors must not make any editorial decisions or be involved in the editorial process if they or a close family member has a Conflict of Interest (financial or otherwise) in a particular manuscript submitted to the journal.

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