Conflicts of Interest

JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Conflicts of Interest

A transparent framework for declaring, managing and addressing competing interests in research, peer review and editorial decisions.

Readers of the Journal of Engineering and Technological Sciences (JETS) need to be able to trust that what they read was reported, reviewed and selected on its scientific merits. Declaring competing interests openly is how authors, reviewers and editors earn that trust.

Having a competing interest is not wrong in itself. Much valuable engineering research is funded by industry, carried out by people who hold patents, or reviewed by experts who know the authors' field and often the authors themselves.

What matters is that such interests are disclosed and, where necessary, managed. An interest that is concealed and discovered later does far more damage than one declared at the outset.

Scope of this policy

This policy follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). It applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members and journal staff.

Definition

What Counts as a Competing Interest

A competing interest exists when a person's judgement about a piece of work could be influenced, or could reasonably be seen as influenced, by something other than the quality of the work itself.

A simple test

If a reader, reviewer or editor learned about this relationship only after the article was published, would they feel they should have been told?

If the answer might be yes, declare it.

Competing interests fall into two broad groups.

Financial Interests

Research funding, grants, contracts or donated equipment and materials from an organisation that could gain or lose from the results.
Employment, consultancy, advisory roles or paid lectures for such an organisation.
Shares, share options or other ownership in a company whose products, processes or services are studied or compared in the work.
Patents granted or pending, licences or royalties related to the work.
Paid work as an expert witness or technical assessor on a matter connected to the work.

Non-financial Interests

Close personal relationships, including family members, with people involved in the work or its evaluation.
Close academic relationships, such as current or recent collaboration, supervision or co-authorship.
Membership of a government, standards or advisory body whose decisions the work may inform.
Involvement in a competing project, product or unpublished manuscript.
Strongly held professional or public positions on the subject that could affect objectivity.

Examples in Engineering Research

Situations common in engineering research that should be declared include testing or benchmarking a commercial product, material, instrument or software package made by an organisation with which an author has a relationship; reporting on a plant, structure or site owned or operated by an author's employer or client; work arising from a consultancy or government project in which the authors were paid; and evaluating a method or device that the authors have patented or plan to commercialise.

Authors

2.1 What Authors Must Declare

All authors must declare every financial and non-financial interest that relates to the submitted work and that arose within 36 months before submission, or that is expected in the near future.

Interests of immediate family members that relate to the work must also be declared.

Authors must also state every source of funding for the research and the preparation of the manuscript, including grant numbers, and describe the role, if any, that each funder played in:

The design of the study.

The collection, analysis and interpretation of data.

The writing of the manuscript.

The decision to submit it for publication.

If a funder had no such role, this should be stated.

2.2 How Authors Declare

Complete the JETS Declaration of Competing Interest form and upload it at submission. Every author's interests must be covered.

Include a "Declaration of Competing Interest" section in the manuscript, after the Acknowledgements.

Include a "Funding" statement listing the funders and grant numbers.

If an author's interests change during review or revision, the corresponding author must update the declaration before the next version is submitted.

2.3 Example Statements

No competing interest

"The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper."

Competing interest declared

"A. Pratama has received consultancy fees from PT Contoh Energi, which operates the plant studied in this work. S. Wibowo is a named inventor on Indonesian patent application P00202XXXXXX covering the membrane module evaluated here. The remaining authors declare no competing interests."

2.4 What Happens Next

Declared interests are shared with the handling editor and taken into account when reviewers are chosen and when the manuscript is evaluated.

The declaration is published with the article. In most cases a declared interest does not affect the decision.

In rare cases, where an interest is so significant that readers could not rely on the work, the editor may decline to consider the manuscript.

Peer Review

Reviewers

3.1 When Reviewers Should Decline or Tell the Editor

Before accepting an invitation, reviewers should tell the editor if any of the following applies to them:

They are working on, or have submitted, closely competing research.

They have already reviewed the manuscript for another journal, or advised the authors on it.

For any other reason they do not feel able to give an impartial assessment.

Same institution does not automatically mean a conflict

Working at the same large institution, such as ITB, but in a different faculty with no working relationship, is not in itself a conflict. Reviewers should still mention it so that the editor can decide.

3.2 After Accepting

If a conflict becomes apparent after the review has started, the reviewer should stop and inform the editor straight away. The editor will decide whether the review can continue.

Reviewers must not use the review to advance their own interests, for example by requesting citations to their own work that are not needed or by delaying a competing manuscript.

Editorial Independence

Editors and Editorial Board Members

4.1 Handling Manuscripts

An editor must not handle any manuscript in which they have a competing interest of the kinds listed in Sections 1 and 3.1.

This includes manuscripts from their own research group or department, and from recent collaborators or former students.

When a conflict exists The manuscript is reassigned to another editor, and the conflicted editor has no access to its review records and no part in the decision.

4.2 Manuscripts Submitted by JETS Editors

Editors, editorial board members and staff may publish in JETS, but their manuscripts receive no special treatment.

The manuscript is handled by an editor with no connection to the submitting editor.

The submitting editor has no access to the reviewers' identities or the editorial discussion.

The manuscript is reviewed to the same standard as any other.

The published article states that an author is a member of the JETS editorial team and that the manuscript was handled independently.

If the Editor-in-Chief is an author, the manuscript is handled by an associate editor nominated by the editorial board.

The journal monitors the share of articles authored by its own editors to guard against any appearance of self-favouring.

Publisher

The Journal and the Publisher

JETS is published by Institut Teknologi Bandung. Editorial decisions are made by the editors alone and are independent of the publisher's commercial, institutional or reputational interests.

In particular:

Manuscripts from ITB authors are evaluated by the same standards as those from any other institution.

Payment of the Article Processing Charge is requested only after acceptance, and editors do not take into account whether or how the fee will be paid.

Funders, sponsors and partner organisations have no influence over which articles are accepted.

Transparency

Undisclosed Interests

If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light, the editors will ask the people concerned for an explanation.

Before Publication

The declaration will be corrected; if the interest affects the evaluation, the manuscript may be re-reviewed or declined.

After Publication

A correction will be published adding the missing declaration. If the interest raises doubts about the reliability of the work, the journal may publish an expression of concern or retract the article.

Reviewer A reviewer who concealed a conflict will have their review set aside.

Editor An editor who concealed a conflict will be removed from the handling of the manuscript, and the decision may be reconsidered.

Deliberate concealment Deliberate concealment is treated as misconduct under the JETS policy on allegations of misconduct.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality and Records

Declarations made to the journal are used only to manage the review and publication of the work, and to inform readers through the published statement.

JETS keeps a confidential record of declarations and of how conflicts were managed.

JETS Editorial Office