Xia & He Publishing

A conflict of interest is any influence on an investigator or author that could sway his or her judgment or decisions concerning the investigator’s or author’s research, such as the valid reporting of data or its analysis or interpretation. Potential conflicts of interest include: professional or financial gain; personal or academic relationships or competition; religious, philosophical, or political beliefs; or any factor that prevents the independent preparation or publishing of a manuscript.

The public perception of a conflict of interest is similarly as harmful as an actual conflict of interest. Authors are responsible for reporting any potential or actual conflict of interest upon first submission of a manuscript, with appropriate changes as appropriate in further revisions, if appropriate. A conflict of interest statement should include all sources of financial support (for example, sponsors, and grant numbers) other support for the study (such as collecting, analyzing, or interpreting data), writing or revising the manuscript, or any factor that limited (or will limit in the future) the investigators’ full access to the data and its analysis.

All authors must fill in the ICMJE’s unified disclosure form. Each author should complete a separate form to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the provided information. The corresponding author should create the conflict-of-interest statement for inclusion in the manuscript, by using the form completed by each author. For the initial submission, the COI statement included in the manuscript is sufficient; ff the article is accepted for publication, the completed ICMJE’s unified disclosure forms of all authors will be required. The ICMJE’s form could be downloaded here.

Examples: Conflict of Interest
1. The author is a consultant for and has received consultation fees from A**llas; however, this review is solely the author’s work without any connection with A**llas.
2. One of the authors, xx, has been an editorial board member of xxx journal since May 2021. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to note.
3. The authors have no conflicts of interest related to this publication.

Editors and Reviewers: Any conflict of interest (financial, professional, personal, or otherwise) must be disclosed to the journal’s editorial office as soon as it is recognized or suspected, including, but not limited to, the following: having financial interest with the findings, having competition to publish the same findings, having collaboration or publication with an author in the recent past, working at the same institution with the author, having a dispute with the author, and being a friend/family member/present or previous mentor of the author. This policy applies to all editors, reviewers, and editorial staff.

All peer reviewers are requested to disclose any conflicts of interests before agreeing to review a manuscript and to decline to review any manuscript for which a conflict or appearance of conflict exists. In the event that a peer reviewer recognizes a conflict of interest that may compromise his or her ability to make an unbiased assessment of a manuscript, it is required that the reviewer decline to review the manuscript and inform the editorial office. If the staff or representatives of Xia & He Publishing, Inc. discover potential evidence of a conflict-of-interest violation, the issue will be addressed on a case-by-case basis through investigation and recusal. If a reviewer discloses a conflict of interest but still reviews the manuscript, that review will not be considered in the evaluation of that manuscript, and an alternative review will be arranged.

The academic editor to whom a manuscript has been assigned is asked to disclose to the managing editor any potential conflict of interests that may affect his/her judgement and to decline the assignment. The editorial staff must exclude themselves from participating in editorial decisions regarding manuscripts for which potential conflicts of interest exist.

Submissions from Editors, Editorial Board Members, or Employees: Submissions from editors, members of the editorial board, or employees will undergo the same rigorous peer-review process as other submissions and will be treated no differently from any other manuscripts submitted to the journal. To ensure unbiased review, the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, Editorial Board Member, and the Editorial Staff will not make decisions for, handle, or review his/her own manuscript. All possible measures will be undertaken to avoid any potential conflict of interest in the handling of such manuscripts at all stages including allocation of the handling editor, reviewer selection, decision making and, if required, processing for publication. Moreover, the status of editorial board membership/employment should be declared in the conflict of interest statement of the published article, beginning in September 2021.