Public trust's to the process of reviewing and authenticity of published articles particulary depends on successfully resolving of a conflict of interest during the writing of the article, its review and editorial decisions’ making. Conflict of interest occurs if the author (or an organization represented by this author), the reviewer, or the editor has financial or personal relationships that negatively affect their actions.Such relationships are also known as “double-natured relationships”, “competing interests” or “competing loyalty”.Such kind of relationships could vary from insignificant to those with potentially significant influence on decision making.Not all similar relationships entail a conflict of interest, that could undermine the trust to the journal, individual authors and science in general.

Conflict of interest between the authors

In case of an explicit or hidden conflict related to the manuscript, the authors must inform the editors’ office of the journal about it. Conflict of interests could appear in any situation (financial relations of co-authors, work in an institution that has financial or political interest to published materials, job duties, etc.) that can affect the author of the manuscript and lead to the concealment, garbling or  interpretation of the data. The presence of a conflict of interests of one or several authors is not a reason for refusing to publish an article, but the concealment of potential or apparent conflicts of interest which are discovered by the editors may cause a refusal to review and publish the manuscript. Conflict of interests may also arise because of other reasons, for example, due to personal relationships, competition at work or in the scientific environment on an intellectual basis.

Conflict of interest between authors and reviewer

In order to avoid a conflict of interests between authors and reviewer, the Editorial of the journalconducts an independent reviewing, without specifying of the authorings' team and the institution submitted the article for issuing. Anonymity of reviewing is also adhered. In case of remarks made by the reviewer are disputed by the authors, the article should be sent to another independent review. As a result, a collegial decision should be made. Editorial should avoid choosing of an external reviewer with a potential conflict of interest, for example, if this reviewer works at the same department or institute as one of the authors. Authors could inform who, in their opinion, should not offer to review the manuscript because of a potential, or as a rule professional, conflict of interest. Such information is important for Editorial  for futher deciding of the appointment of a reviewer.

Reviewers should also inform the editors of a possible conflict of interest that may influence on their opinion on the manuscript. The reviewer must independently refuse from reviewing if there is a reason for bias. Reviewers should not use the information about the reviewing work in their own interests till the moment it is published.

Conflict of interest between authors and editorial

If a conflict of interest arises between the authors and the editor, the chief editor assesses the situation. Publishing of the article in author's submission without editing is possible  in case of indicating that it wasn't reviewed by editors and the editors do not share the views of the author. Editors also need to decide whether to print the information about a potential conflict of interest which was disclosed by the authors. In ambiguous cases, preference should be given to the publication of these data. The editorial employee who makes the final decision on the manuscript should not have a personal, professional or financial interest in any aspect of the published work and should independently refuse to take decisions if there is a conflict of interest. The Editorial  should not use obtained information with a personal purposes working with manuscripts.

Conflict of interest between editorial and reviewers

All participants of the peer review and publication should disclose relationships that may lead to a conflict of interest. Disclosing such relationships is also important while publishing of editorial and overview articles, since in these types of publications it is more complex to identify bias than in reports related to original research. Editors may use the information specified in the “conflict of interest” and “financial interests” as a basis for making certain decisions. Editors are advised to publish this information if they consider that this may affect the assessment of the manuscript.

In this regard, the authors need to provide information about possible conflicts of interest, including financial, personal and other types of relationships with other individuals or organizations that potentially could  lead to distorting of presented data in the manuscript within 3 years preceding the date of receipt of publication into Editorial. Data on conflicts of interest, as well as a statement of their absence are mention in the relevant section of the manuscript and also in the form on conflicts of interest.