Conflict of Interest Disclosure
A Conflict of Interest (COI) is defined as a situation where personal relationships (e.g. friend, colleague or family), business relationships (e.g. working in a competing company), or financial influences (e.g. funding organisation or client) will affect the judgement of any person during the publication of the journal. This means that a Conflict of Interest (COI) takes place when a person's or (author, reviewer, editor) vested interests raise a question of whether their actions, judgment, and/or decision-making can be unbiased.
Authors are required to declare (within the article and to the Editor-in-Chief) any Conflict of Interest (COI) that may have affected their research (e.g. funding) or decision to submit to ABC2.
Reviewers are required to declare if they have any Conflict of Interest (COI) that may affect their judgement of any article they review. The COI may not prevent them reviewing the article but must be declared to the Co-Editors-in-Chief as soon as it is known.
Editors of ABC2 are excluded from any publishing decision in which they may have a Conflict of Interest (COI). For example, if an article by a colleague of the Co-Editors-in-Chief is submitted to the journal, the peer review and all editorial decisions will be managed by another editor.
