A comparison of conflict of interest policies at peer-reviewed journals in different scientific disciplines
Abstract
Scientific journals can promote ethical publication practices through policies on conflicts of interest. However, the prevalence of conflict of interest policies and the definition of conflict of interest appear to vary across scientific disciplines. This survey of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals in 12 different scientific disciplines was conducted to assess these variations. The survey identified published conflict of interest policies in 28 of 84 journals (33%). However, when representatives of 49 of the 84 journals (58%) completed a Web-based survey about journal conflict of interest policies, 39 (80%) reported having such a policy. Frequency of policies (including those not published) varied by discipline, from 100% among general medical journals to none among physics journals. Financial interests were most frequently addressed with relation to authors; policies for reviewers most often addressed non-financial conflicts. Twenty-two of the 39 journals with policies (56%) had policies about editors' conflicts. The highest impact journals in each category were most likely to have a published policy, and the frequency of policies fell linearly with rank; for example, policies were published by 58% of journals ranked 1 in their category, 42% of journals ranked third, and 8% of journals ranked seventh (test for trend, p = 0.003). Having a conflict of interest policy was also associated with a self-reported history of problems with conflict of interest. The prevalence of pub…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The revised guidelines are in line with many journals' policies and will assist authors in complying with information requirements on the ethical review of the research, data presentation and access, statistical methods, and conflicts of interest.
“The revised guidelines are also in line with many journals’ policies and will assist authors in complying with information requirements on the ethical review of the research [48, 49], data presentation and access [50–52], statistical methods [51, 52], and conflicts of interest [53, 54].”
From The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research (2020) · cites this paper as [54]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 22 · Cited by 112
- Authors
- Ancker, J. S., & Flanagin, A.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ancker, Jessica S.
- Venue
- Science and Engineering Ethics
- Published
- 2007-06-07
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 147-157
- ISSN
- 1353-3452 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-5546
- OpenAlex
- W2106950252
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 6.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Science and Engineering Ethics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Pharmacology › Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Keywords
- conflict of interest policies, scientific journals, peer review, publication ethics, financial conflicts of interest, journal impact factor, scientific disciplines
- MeSH terms
- Medicine, Periodicals as Topic, Specialization, Conflict of Interest, Peer Review, Research, Editorial Policies
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
