Declarations on Conflict of Interest

In order to exclude cases of violation of publication ethics, a conflict of interests of all parties involved in the process of publishing an article should be excluded. A conflict of interest arises when an author, reviewer, or editorial board member has a financial, scientific, or personal relationship that could affect their actions. Such relationships are called dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties.

In order to exclude a conflict of interest, in accordance with the accepted ethical standards of the journal, the following responsibilities are assigned to each of the parties.

The editor-in-chief of the journal should:

·         transfer the text of the article for examination to another reviewer if the initially selected reviewer has a conflict of interest with the author of the article under consideration for publication in the journal;

·         request the information about the possibility of competing interests occurrence from all of the participants of the article publishing process;

·         make a decision on the publication of information specified in the author's letter regarding a conflict of scientific and/or financial interests, unless it is confidential and may affect the assessment of the published work by the reader or the scientific community;

·         ensure the publication of amendments, if information about the conflict of interest was received after the publication of the article.

The Author should:

·         provide in the cover letter existing and possible sources of conflict of interest;

·         indicate the organization affiliated to the author (one or more) and sources of research funding;

·         in case of the absence of a conflict of interest, indicate this in the application for publication.

The Reviewer should:

·         inform the editor-in-chief about the existing conflict of interest (dual commitments, competing interests)

·         refuse to conduct an examination of the text of the article.