CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY

Conflicts of interest / competing interests:

A competing interest, also known as a ‘conflict of interest’, can occur when you (or your employer or sponsor) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, that could influence your research.

Full disclosure is required when you submit your paper to a Foundation University Journal of Rehabilitation Sciences. The chief editor will firstly use this information to inform his or her editorial decisions. The editorial board may then publish such disclosures to assist readers in evaluating the article. Or, instead, the editor may decide not to publish your article on the basis of any declared competing interest. You can declare the competing interest in the author declaration form available on the website.

All manuscripts for articles, original research reports, editorials, comments, reviews, book reviews, and letters that are submitted to the journal will be accompanied by a conflict-of-interest disclosure statement or a declaration by the authors that they have no conflicts of interest to declare. All articles that are published in the journal will be accompanied by a conflict-of-interest disclosure statement or a statement that the authors have replied that they have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Competing interests can be financial or non-financial in nature. To ensure transparency, any associations which can be perceived by others as a competing interest must also be declared.

Any financial relationship from the past three years (dating from the month of submission) of any size should be disclosed. These potential conflicts of interest can be but are not limited to:

  • Direct employment, either full or part-time.
  • Grants and research funding (this includes grants from trade associations and non-profits substantially (50 percent or more) funded by private sector firms.
  • Travel grants, speaking fees, writing fees and other honoraria.
  • Paid expert testimony for one side in an adversarial proceeding (this does not include testimony as a factual witness in a civil or criminal case).
  • Patents granted, pending and applications, whether or not generating royalties.
  • Membership on private sector scientific or other advisory boards, whether paid or unpaid.

In addition, any current negotiations regarding future employment or current job offers, either full- or part-time, must be disclosed.

Non-Financial Conflicts of Interest may be personal, political, or intellectual and may include any expression of strongly held views relevant to the subject of the submission. Discloseable non-financial conflicts of interest would also include membership or affiliation with non-governmental organizations that have an interest in the submission.

In cases of a failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest, the editor-in-chief will investigate the allegation. If true, the editor-in-chief will determine the cause of the failure to disclose a relevant conflict. In all cases of failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest, the editor-in-chief will publish an editor’s note that becomes part of the permanent record of that article. In those rare cases where the editor-in-chief uncovers a willful desire to hide financial conflicts of interest, the editor-in-chief will consider appropriate penalties, such as refusing to allow that author to publish in the journal for a specified period.

When considering whether to declare a conflicting interest or connection we encourage authors to consider how they would answer the following question: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

Editor’s conflict of interest:

FUJRS expects its journal editors to declare competing interests at the point of agreeing on their position and update them annually. FUJRS’s standard editor agreement obliges the editor to declare any potential conflict of interest that might arise during the term of editorship prior to entry into any agreement or position.

Editors are required to recuse themselves from individual manuscripts if they themselves have a potential conflict of interest and to avoid creating potential conflicts of interest through the assignment of handling editors or peer reviewers.

Reviewers/referees' conflict of interest:

We encourage editors to consider potential conflicts of interest when assigning reviewers. The journal includes wording in their invitation to review stating that acceptance of the invitation implies no competing interest.  Where a reviewer declares a potential conflict of interest the editor will select alternative reviewers. Failure to declare a conflict of interest may result in the removal of the reviewer from the journal database.