Conflict of Interest Policy

Journal of Responsible AI & Ethics (JRAIE)

The Journal of Responsible AI & Ethics (JRAIE) is committed to maintaining transparency, impartiality, scholarly independence, and integrity throughout the submission, peer-review, editorial decision-making, and publication processes.

The journal requires authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and other individuals involved in publication decisions to disclose interests or relationships that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their professional judgment.

For the purposes of this policy, the terms conflict of interest and competing interest refer to circumstances in which financial, professional, academic, institutional, personal, intellectual, or other considerations may affect, or may reasonably be perceived to affect, the objective performance of responsibilities associated with scholarly publishing.

The existence of a conflict of interest does not automatically constitute misconduct and does not necessarily prevent publication. The central requirement is that relevant interests are disclosed transparently and managed appropriately.

This policy is informed by recognized publication-ethics principles, including relevant guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), regarding transparency, disclosure, and management of competing interests.

1. Purpose of the Policy

The purpose of this policy is to protect the independence and credibility of the scholarly publication process by ensuring that relevant competing interests are identified, disclosed, evaluated, and managed appropriately.

JRAIE seeks to prevent undisclosed relationships from improperly influencing research interpretation, peer review, editorial decisions, or readers’ understanding of published work.

Disclosure allows editors, reviewers, authors, and readers to assess whether an external interest may be relevant to the interpretation or evaluation of a manuscript.

2. Scope of the Policy

This policy applies to:

  • Authors and co-authors.
  • Corresponding authors.
  • Reviewers.
  • Editors.
  • Editor-in-Chief.
  • Associate or Section Editors.
  • Editorial board members.
  • Guest editors.
  • Publisher representatives involved in editorial administration.
  • Other individuals participating in manuscript evaluation or publication decisions.

Relevant conflicts should be disclosed regardless of whether the individual believes that the relationship actually influenced their judgment.

3. Types of Conflicts of Interest

Competing interests may arise from:

  • Financial relationships.
  • Employment relationships.
  • Consultancy arrangements.
  • Advisory positions.
  • Research funding.
  • Grants or sponsorship.
  • Stock or equity ownership.
  • Intellectual property interests.
  • Patent ownership or applications.
  • Institutional affiliations.
  • Academic collaborations.
  • Supervisory relationships.
  • Personal or family relationships.
  • Professional competition.
  • Academic disputes.
  • Strong intellectual commitments.
  • Organizational or policy interests.

The presence of a relationship does not automatically indicate inappropriate conduct. Its relevance depends on the nature of the relationship and its connection to the submitted or published work.

4. Author Disclosure Requirements

All authors are responsible for disclosing relevant competing interests associated with submitted work.

The corresponding author should ensure that appropriate conflict-of-interest information has been obtained from all co-authors and accurately communicated to the journal.

A conflict-of-interest declaration should be provided during manuscript submission.

Authors should ensure that conflict-of-interest disclosures are consistent with reported authorship contributions and responsibilities. Any relationship that may influence an author's contribution, interpretation, analysis, or reporting of research findings should be disclosed transparently.

Where relevant interests exist, the declaration should describe them sufficiently clearly for editors and readers to understand their nature.

Disclosure of a competing interest does not automatically disadvantage a manuscript during editorial evaluation.

5. Financial and Nonfinancial Conflicts

Authors should disclose financial relationships that may be relevant to their research, including:

  • Employment.
  • Consultancy.
  • Honoraria.
  • Grants.
  • Sponsorship.
  • Advisory roles.
  • Stock ownership.
  • Patents.
  • Licensing arrangements.

Nonfinancial interests may include:

  • Professional relationships.
  • Academic competition.
  • Institutional commitments.
  • Personal relationships.
  • Intellectual disagreements.
  • Organizational affiliations.

Authors should disclose nonfinancial relationships when a reasonable reader could consider them relevant to interpretation of the research.

6. Funding and Conflict Disclosure

Funding and conflicts of interest are related but separate transparency requirements.

Authors should identify:

  • Funding organization.
  • Grant or project number.
  • Commercial sponsor.
  • Role of funder in research.
  • Role of funder in manuscript preparation.

Where the funder had no role in research design, analysis, interpretation, or publication decisions, authors may state this clearly.

7. Reviewer Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must provide independent and impartial evaluations.

A reviewer should disclose potential conflicts before accepting a review assignment.

Potential conflicts include:

  • Recent collaboration with authors.
  • Same institutional affiliation.
  • Personal relationships.
  • Financial interests.
  • Direct professional competition.
  • Significant academic disputes.

Reviewers should decline assignments where impartial assessment cannot reasonably be assured.

Reviewers should also disclose any relationship with artificial intelligence platforms, software providers, datasets, commercial technologies, or organizations directly evaluated or discussed in the manuscript where such relationships could affect impartial assessment.

8. Reviewer Confidentiality and Personal Benefit

Reviewers must not use confidential information obtained during peer review for:

  • Personal advantage.
  • Academic advantage.
  • Financial benefit.
  • Competitive purposes.

Unpublished ideas, methods, datasets, results, and interpretations must not be used without appropriate authorization.

9. Editor Conflicts of Interest

Editors must maintain independence and impartiality.

Editors should not handle manuscripts where conflicts exist due to:

  • Financial relationships.
  • Institutional connections.
  • Personal relationships.
  • Academic collaboration.
  • Professional competition.

Where a conflict exists, the manuscript should be assigned to another qualified editor.

10. Manuscripts Submitted by Editors or Editorial Board Members

Editorial affiliation does not provide preferential treatment.

Editors or editorial board members submitting manuscripts must not participate in:

  • Editorial assessment.
  • Reviewer selection.
  • Peer-review communication.
  • Decision-making.
  • Acceptance or rejection processes.

Such manuscripts should be handled by an independent editor.

11. Artificial Intelligence Research Conflicts

Because JRAIE publishes research involving artificial intelligence, additional competing interests may arise from:

  • AI technology companies.
  • Model providers.
  • Dataset owners.
  • Software organizations.
  • Consulting relationships.
  • Commercial partnerships.

Authors should disclose relationships when their research evaluates, promotes, criticizes, audits, or examines technologies or organizations with which they have a material association.

Such disclosure allows readers to interpret findings with appropriate context.

12. Intellectual Property Interests

Authors should disclose relevant:

  • Patents.
  • Patent applications.
  • Software ownership.
  • Proprietary algorithms.
  • Commercial systems.
  • Licensing interests.

Intellectual-property interests do not automatically prevent publication but should be transparently reported where relevant.

13. Undisclosed Conflicts

If an undisclosed conflict is identified during review or after publication, the journal may:

  • Request clarification.
  • Replace reviewers.
  • Reassign editorial handling.
  • Request updated disclosures.
  • Publish a correction or disclosure statement.
  • Take other appropriate action.

14. Conflict Declaration During Submission

During submission, authors should provide a conflict-of-interest declaration as part of required manuscript information.

The declaration should indicate whether relevant competing interests exist and provide sufficient details where applicable.

Suggested statements:

No Conflict:

The authors declare that they have no known financial or nonfinancial competing interests that could have influenced the work reported in this article.

Conflict Exists:

The authors disclose the following competing interests: [provide details].

15. Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions at JRAIE are based on:

  • Scholarly merit.
  • Methodological quality.
  • Relevance to journal scope.
  • Originality.
  • Ethical acceptability.
  • Contribution to knowledge.

Editorial decisions are not influenced by undisclosed financial, personal, institutional, political, or commercial interests.

16. Policy Principle

The Journal of Responsible AI & Ethics (JRAIE) considers transparent disclosure and appropriate management of competing interests essential to trustworthy scholarly publishing.

The journal does not assume that every professional, financial, academic, or personal relationship creates bias. The objective is to ensure that relationships capable of influencing scholarly judgment are identified and managed transparently.

Authors: Relevant competing interests must be disclosed.
Reviewers: Conflicts affecting impartial evaluation must be disclosed.
Editors: Conflicted manuscripts must be handled independently.
Published Articles: Relevant disclosures should remain visible as part of the scholarly record.