Global Academic Spectrum requires complete transparency regarding any financial, personal, or professional relationships that could inappropriately influence or bias research conduct, peer review, or editorial decisions.
Universal Disclosure Mandate: Authors, peer reviewers, and editors must declare any real, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest upon submission, review invitation, or assignment.
1. Definition of Conflicts of Interest
A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as research validity or objective evaluation) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain, personal rivalry, or academic competition).
2. Author Responsibilities
Authors must submit a formal Conflict of Interest statement at the time of manuscript submission. If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly declare: “The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.”
3. Reviewer and Editor Responsibilities
Reviewers and editors must recuse themselves from evaluating manuscripts where they have recent collaborative ties, co-authorship within the past 3 years, shared institutional affiliations, or competitive commercial interests with any of the authors.