A declared interest is managed; an undeclared one is a breach
A conflict of interest is not misconduct. Failing to declare one is. A declared interest can be assessed and managed; an interest that emerges later damages the credibility of the article, the reviewer, and the journal. SJS requires a declaration from every author, every reviewer, and every editor on every manuscript, including when there is nothing to declare.
What counts as a conflict of interest
A conflict exists where a secondary interest could reasonably be thought to influence judgement about the work — whether or not it actually does. The test is not whether the person feels impartial, but whether an informed reader would want to know.
Financial interests
- Employment, consultancy, honoraria, proctoring or speaker fees, membership of a speaker bureau or advisory board, and paid expert-witness work.
- Research funding, grants, and contracts, including funding that paid for implants, instruments, disposables, imaging, or statistical analysis.
- Supply in kind by a party with a commercial interest in what is studied — implants, prostheses, grafts, meshes, staplers, energy devices, robotic or laparoscopic systems, navigation or imaging equipment, sutures, or dressings provided free or at a discount, including loan equipment for the duration of a study.
- Patents, patent applications, or royalties relating to a device, implant, instrument, or operative technique reported in the manuscript.
- Ownership of shares or equity in a company that manufactures or distributes a product examined, or a competing product.
- A financial interest in a hospital, surgical centre, or clinic that stands to benefit from the findings.
- Payment for writing, editorial, statistical, or language assistance, and any involvement of a medical-writing agency.
Non-financial interests
- Unpaid roles: office in a surgical society or college, membership of a guideline, formulary, credentialing, or accreditation committee relevant to the subject.
- Clinical dual roles. Recruiting the author’s own patients, or patients under the care of the author’s unit, where the clinical relationship could affect a patient’s freedom to decline. State who sought consent and when, relative to the operation.
- A declared position on a contested surgical question — an operative approach, an implant choice, open versus minimally invasive technique — that the manuscript supports or contradicts.
- Academic competition with the authors of work under discussion, and institutional interest in validating a local protocol, a departmental technique, or a flagship service.
- Personal, family, or close professional relationships with the authors, reviewers, or editors concerned.
The period to be declared
Declare every relevant interest held during the conduct of the work and in the 36 months before submission, following the ICMJE recommendation. Interests arising while the manuscript is under consideration are reported as soon as they arise. An interest that predates that period but remains material — a patent in force, continuing royalties, an equity holding, a continuing advisory role — is declared regardless of when it began.
Obligations of authors
- Every author completes a declaration at submission, in the manuscript and in the cover letter; the corresponding author collects the declarations of all co-authors and confirms each has been consulted.
- A nil declaration is still a declaration. Where no author has anything to declare, the manuscript states so. Silence is not accepted; see Publication Ethics.
- All funding is named — funder, programme, grant or contract number — or the absence of external funding is stated, together with the funder’s role in design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and the decision to publish.
- Device and implant studies. State who supplied the device, whether it was supplied free or at a discount, who held the data, who performed the analysis, and whether the investigators had unrestricted access to the full dataset. Off-label use is identified as such, with the source of supply declared.
- Where there is doubt, declare it and let the editor decide. No manuscript has been declined for declaring too much.
Obligations of reviewers
- A reviewer examines the manuscript for conflicts before accepting the invitation and declines where an interest would make the assessment, or its appearance, unsound.
- Grounds for declining include work in direct competition on the same technique, device, or indication; a current or recent collaboration, co-authorship, supervisory relationship, or shared unit with any author; a paid or unpaid relationship with a manufacturer whose product is examined or displaced; and any personal relationship that would make a dispassionate reading difficult.
- Where an interest is real but may be manageable, the reviewer discloses it to the editor rather than deciding alone.
- A reviewer must not use the manuscript, its data, or its technique for any purpose of their own, and must not delay a review to gain advantage for competing work. Coercive citation is itself misconduct; see Similarity and Plagiarism Policy.
Obligations of editors and the editorial board
- An editor with any interest in a manuscript recuses entirely: it is reassigned to an editor with no interest, and the recused editor has no access to reviewer identities, reports, or the decision.
- Editors do not handle manuscripts from their own unit, their current or recent collaborators, their trainees or supervisors, or their family members.
- Editors may not use information obtained while handling a manuscript in their own work, or share it with anyone.
- Editors and board members declare their own interests on appointment and update them when they change.
- Decisions rest on scholarly and ethical grounds alone; neither the publisher nor APC revenue influences them. See Ownership and Management Information and Publisher and Editorial Governance.
Submissions from editors, board members, and reviewers
Members of the editorial team and the reviewer panel may submit their own work, assessed by the same standard as any other manuscript. The submission is assigned to an independent editor; the submitting editor takes no part in reviewer selection or the decision; the same minimum of three independent reviewers applies; and the author has no access to reviewer identities or editorial correspondence. These safeguards are recorded in the submission file; see Peer Review Policy.
Publication of declarations, and undeclared interests
The competing-interest and funding statements are published in every article as part of the version of record. An interest that emerges after submission, acceptance, or publication is examined under Publication Ethics, following the applicable COPE flowchart, and the authors are given the opportunity to respond before any finding is recorded. Depending on the evidence, the journal may require the declaration to be completed, decline the manuscript, publish a correction amending the declaration, publish an expression of concern, retract the article where the interest is material to the findings, or notify the authors’ institution and funder. The mechanisms are set out in Corrections, Retractions and Article Updates.
The response is proportionate: an honest omission is corrected; deliberate concealment is not treated as an oversight. Readers who find a declaration unclear may write to sriwijayajournalsurgery@gmail.com.
Standards followed
This policy applies the ICMJE Recommendations on disclosure of financial and non-financial relationships, the COPE Core Practices, and the requirements of Indonesian national journal accreditation.
Read together with Publication Ethics, Authorship, Peer Review Policy and Ownership and Management Information. This policy is reviewed at least once a year.