Draft: Conflict of Interest

This document is a proposal, and does not (yet) reflect current policy of the R Journal

What is a conflict of interest?

For the R Journal, it is important that all decisions taken on papers are based as much as possible on objective arguments. A conflict of interest is any situation that may hamper the objectivity of such a decision. Examples are:

you are a collaborator in the work discussed in the submission;
you are a collaborator in a work that somehow competes with the submission;
one or more of the authors of the submission is a co-author or collaborator;
one or more of the authors are friends, family, or colleagues;
one of the authors has had influence on your professional life, for example via funding.

What to do in case of conflict of interest?

The most important principle is to be transparent.

For Associate Editors

If you are asked to handle a paper, and you feel there may be a conflict of interest, always consult the handling executive editor. The EE will decide whether someone else needs to handle the submission. Regardless of the decision, the notification and decision will be archived by the EE.

For Editors

If you are asked to handle a paper, and you feel there may be a conflict of interest, consult the Editor-in-Chief. The EE will decide whether someone else needs to handle the submission. Regardless of the decision, the notification and decision will be archived by the EE.

For the Editor-in-Chief

If a submission comes in and you feel there may be a conflict of interest, never handle the paper yourself. Hand it over to an EE and explain and archive the conflict of interest.

How to archive a conflict of interest

Conflicts of interest, and decisions surrounding conflict of interest should be described in a plain text file called conflicts.txt and stored in the correspondence folder with the submission. The description should at least contain:

Date
Reason for possible conflict of interest
Decision of the executive editor