Policy on Conflict of Interest

To maintain public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of the published work, it is important that the author shares any relevant information about conflicts of interest when submitting a manuscript. The conflict of interest may be of a personal, commercial, political, academic or financial nature, and may arise when authors, reviewers or editors have interests that, directly or indirectly, may influence the preparation or evaluation of the manuscript.

In order to manage possible conflicts of interest, it is the responsibility of the authors to:

• Indicate all financial support for carrying out the work and/or other financial or personal connections related to the research; 
• Inform the contributions of people mentioned in the acknowledgments, attesting their consent and describing the type of contribution; 
• Declare whether or not there is a conflict of interest in the act of submitting the manuscript. 

In turn, reviewers should: 

• Reveal any competitive conflicts of interest or substantive interpretative divergences that may compromise or influence the evaluation process;
• Declare that it is not fit to evaluate the manuscript if the evaluation may be compromised due to conflict of interest or identification of authorship.

The editors, on the other hand, require:

• In the case of the editor-in-chief: inform the Editorial Board that they may suggest a more appropriate name to accompany the evaluation of the manuscript;
• In the case of the executive editor responsible for monitoring a manuscript: inform the editor-in-chief that it is necessary to forward the article to another executive editor, if necessary.

For more information, see the regulations followed by Espirales Journal: Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest.