A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation or conclusions of an author and lead to publication of literature that is not a true reflection of pure science.
A conflict of interest exists if the circumstances are reasonably believed (on the basis of past experience and objective evidence) to create a risk that a publication may be unduly influenced by other, secondary interests. For instance, any involvement by a pharmaceutical or medical device company employees and medical writers supported by a pharmaceutical or medical device company is considered a CIO and must be disclosed to the Editor in Chief prior to submission.
Authorship and Conflict-of-Interest Statements:
For each author, include in this section his or her category of contribution and list any potential conflicts of interest. These statements will be posted online in the Authorship section.
If the author(s) declare no competing financial interests, this must also be explicitly stated and will be included in all versions of the article. Contributions and COI must appear both in the metadata and in the manuscript text.
The Keloid Research Foundation (KRF), as the publisher, and Keloid Research journal are committed to ensuring the integrity of all their activities. The conflict of interest disclosure policy for Keloid Research contributors requires each author to disclose all relevant financial and other interests, regardless of amount or value, which might be construed as resulting in an actual, potential, or apparent conflict in one’s role as contributor to Keloid Research.
At the time of submission to Keloid Research, authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest, which may include one or more of the following: employment; consultancy within the past two years; ownership interests (including stock options) in a start-up company, the stock of which is not publicly traded; ownership interest (including stock options but excluding indirect investments through mutual funds and the like) in a publicly traded company; research funding; honoraria received directly from an entity; paid expert testimony within the past two years; any other potential financial relationship (e.g., holding a patent or receiving royalties); and/or membership on another entity’s Board of Directors or its advisory committees (whether for profit or not for profit).
Any involvement by pharmaceutical or medical device company employees or medical writers supported by a pharmaceutical or medical device company in the writing of an article must be clearly defined and disclosed in the Conflict-of-Interest Disclosure section of the manuscript (if the individual is an author) or the Acknowledgments section (if the individual is not an author).
For Review Articles: Pharmaceutical or medical device company employees and medical writers supported by a pharmaceutical or medical device company are not permitted to have any role in writing these articles. Please direct any questions regarding this policy to the Editor in Chief prior to submission.
If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and to collectively list ALL pertinent commercial relationships in the manuscript (under the Acknowledgment section or in the Authorship section) and in the metadata of the online submission.
It is important to note that this policy and the disclosure statements will not be regarded as creating a presumption of impropriety in the existence of financial interests or other relationships of a commercial nature. Instead Keloid Research’s purpose is to inform its editors, reviewers, and readers of the existence of financial relationships pertinent to the article in the interest of full transparency in the peer review and publication processes.
During the peer review process any conflicts of interest will be disclosed only to editors and reviewers, who will keep such information confidential.
If the paper is accepted for publication in Keloid Research, all disclosures, including statements of no conflict of interest, will appear in published article, in the Authorship section.
Upon acceptance, all authors are asked to sign their electronic copyright transfer which is available to all authors upon successful initial submission and requires authors to confirm that any relevant conflicts of interest are disclosed in the manuscript. An article will not be published in the journal until all signatures are received.
Principles for publication of medical research involving human subjects
All studies that involve human subjects must abide by the rules of the appropriate institutional review board (or equivalent organization) of the institution in which the research was conducted and by the tenets of the World Medical Association’s most recently revised Declaration of Helsinki.
Published studies that involve human subjects should not provide subjects’ identifying information (e.g., names, true initials, recognizable images) unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or the patient’s parent/guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. If your study requires the appropriate written consent, please submit a patient-signed copy of the consent to our Editorial Office.