Conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose all actual or potential conflicts that could influence the research, analysis, or interpretation. This includes employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents, grants, and personal or professional relationships with interested parties.

All sources of funding, including the role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis, or the decision to submit, must be stated in the manuscript. If the funder had no such role, say so.

Declare conflicts at submission. If none exist, include a statement that the authors have no competing interests. Undisclosed conflicts discovered later may lead to a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

Reviewers must decline an invitation if they have a recent collaboration, a shared grant, a financial interest, a close personal relationship, or the same institutional affiliation as an author in a way that would reasonably be seen as biasing the review.

If you are unsure, disclose the relationship to the editor before accepting. Do not review a paper in order to delay a competitor, and do not use knowledge of the submission for your own advantage.

Editors must recuse themselves from manuscripts authored by colleagues at their current institution, recent co-authors, family members, or anyone with whom they have a financial or close personal relationship. Guest editors are bound by the same rule.

A recused editor takes no part in reviewer selection or the decision. The manuscript is assigned to another editor.