Conflict of Interest Policy
RLSS is committed to ensuring the disclosure of competing interests in published manuscripts. The author(s) may have a potential conflict of interests that could affect or be seen to affect their manuscript. Therefore, the author(s) must declare a conflict-of-interest statement during the manuscript submission, enabling a written statement to be recorded within the paginated published article. A potential conflicting interest might arise from the relationships, allegiances, or hostilities to particular groups, organizations, or interests, which may influence excessively one’s judgments or actions. The issue is particularly sensitive when such interests are private and/or may result in personal gain. Examples of conflicts of interest might include, but are not limited to, receiving fees for consulting, receiving research funding, being employed by a related company holding stocks or shares in a company that might be affected by the manuscript, or having received funds or reimbursement for attending a related symposium or talk. If there are other interests that the reasonable reader might feel have affected the research, the author(s) must declare it at least before acceptance of the manuscript. The manuscripts are evaluated relatively and accepted when competing interests are not declared until necessary by the policy. The editorial team does not expect details of the financial arrangements to be disclosed when a competing interest is declared. The author(s) must check the Manuscript Submission Guidelines to ensure compliance with the specific requirements needed by the journal. The author(s) are required to certify at a particular stage that:
- All forms of financial support are given due acknowledgment in the contribution.
- Any commercial or financial involvement that might present a conflict of interest related to the contribution is recorded during submission.
- Any potential conflict of interest shall be discussed with the Editor to decide whether its information will be disclosed in the manuscript.
- The author(s) did not sign any agreement with any sponsor of the research submitted to the journal that prevents the author(s) from publishing both positive and negative results or that forbids the author(s) from publishing the research without prior approval of the sponsor.
- The author(s) have checked the manuscript submission guidelines for a Declaration of Conflicting Interests requirement and have complied with specified requirements.
The author(s) must include such a declaration at the end of the manuscript after any acknowledgments and before the Funding Acknowledgement, Notes (if relevant), and References under the heading ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interest.’ If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. The same obligations apply to the editors or guest editors writing an editorial that will be published in the journal and to the peer reviewers, where applicable.