A conflict of interest exists when an author’s financial, professional or personal interests could influence, or be seen to influence, what they write.
Authors
When submitting, authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest, for example:
- Employment, consultancy or funding from a company whose products or services are mentioned
- Shares or other financial interests
- Personal relationships or professional rivalries
- Membership of organisations relevant to the topic
Declared conflicts will be published with the article. If there are none, we will state “The author declares no conflicts of interest.”
Editorial team
Members of the editorial team must declare conflicts and step aside from decisions on submissions where they have a conflict, including their own submissions.
Sponsored content
If we ever publish sponsored content, it will be clearly labelled as such.