CONFLICT OF INTEREST (COI) POLICY

The Link journal of Speech, Language and Audiology (JSLA) is committed to ensuring integrity, transparency, and impartiality across editorial assessment, peer review, and publication. Conflicts of interest are common in modern research environments and are not inherently unethical; however, failure to disclose relevant relationships can undermine trust, distort interpretation, and compromise the credibility of decision-making. JSLA therefore requires full disclosure of any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest from authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff, and applies structured management procedures to protect the objectivity of editorial outcomes and the integrity of the scholarly record.

Definition of Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment regarding research conduct, manuscript evaluation, editorial decision-making, or publication could be influenced, or reasonably perceived to be influenced, by financial, personal, academic, institutional, or professional relationships. JSLA treats perceived conflicts as important because they can affect reader confidence even when no improper influence has occurred. Disclosures are used to enable transparent interpretation and to allow the journal to manage risk through recusals, additional oversight, or disclosure statements, rather than to exclude research solely because relationships exist.

Conflicts of Interest Categories

1.1 Financial

Financial conflicts include relationships or interests that involve monetary benefit or financial exposure connected to the topic, intervention, device, service, or outcomes reported in the manuscript. Such interests may include research funding from commercial entities, consulting fees, honoraria or paid speaking engagements, stock ownership or equity interests, patents, patent applications, licensing arrangements, royalties, paid advisory roles, or any other financial relationship that could be affected by the publication’s findings or conclusions.

1.2 Non-Financial

Non-financial conflicts include relationships or circumstances that may influence objectivity without direct monetary benefit. These may include close personal relationships, family connections, academic rivalry, professional competition, strongly held intellectual positions that may impair neutrality, political or ideological commitments relevant to the manuscript topic, or affiliations with advocacy or stakeholder groups that could benefit from a particular interpretation of results.

1.3 Institutional

Institutional conflicts arise when an author, reviewer, or editor is employed by, supervised by, trained within, or otherwise closely linked to an organization that has an interest in the manuscript’s outcomes. These may include employment at organizations with commercial or reputational stakes related to the subject matter, training or supervisory relationships, institutional funding or incentives tied to study outcomes, or departmental or organizational commitments that could influence study reporting or interpretation.

COI Disclosure by Authors

Authors must disclose all conflicts of interest that could reasonably be viewed as influencing the work. This includes all sources of funding and support, financial relationships past or present that relate to the manuscript topic, personal or professional relationships that could affect interpretation, institutional or departmental incentives, and any role of sponsors or affiliated organizations in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript drafting, or the decision to submit for publication. JSLA expects authors to provide disclosures that are specific and complete, and to update disclosures if circumstances change during review or after acceptance.

Where Disclosure Appears

Conflict of interest disclosures must be provided during submission through the journal’s submission system and must also be included within the manuscript in a designated “Competing Interests” or equivalent section. Where a paper is accepted, the disclosed conflict statement is published with the final article to ensure transparency for readers. JSLA may request clarification or revision of disclosures if a statement appears incomplete, overly general, or inconsistent with funding and contributor information.

No Conflict Statement

If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly state that there are no competing interests. JSLA accepts a clear statement such as: “The authors declare that they have no competing interests.” This statement should appear in the manuscript and be consistent with information declared during submission.

COI Disclosure by Reviewers

Reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that could affect, or be perceived to affect, their ability to provide an impartial review. Where a conflict is material, reviewers must decline the invitation. Conflicts that typically require declining include recent collaboration with the authors, employment in the same department or institution, current supervisory or trainee relationships, financial or professional ties to the study sponsor, direct competition where professional benefit could arise from acceptance or rejection, or strongly held personal beliefs that prevent neutrality. As an operational safeguard, reviewers are generally expected to decline when they have collaborated with an author within the last three years or have another relationship that would reasonably call impartiality into question. Reviewers must communicate potential conflicts to the editor immediately so that the journal can decide whether reassignment is necessary.

COI Disclosure by Editors

Editors must recuse themselves from handling any manuscript when a conflict of interest could compromise impartial decision-making or create a reasonable perception of bias. Circumstances that typically require recusal include recent collaboration with the authors, employment at the same institution, close personal relationships, financial stakes in the results or related products, direct academic competition, or any other relationship that could influence editorial judgment. When recusal occurs, the manuscript is reassigned to an independent editor without relevant conflicts, and appropriate safeguards are applied to ensure that confidential information and reviewer identities remain protected.

COI and the Publisher

The publisher of JSLA confirms that it does not influence editorial decisions and that financial operations are separate from editorial processes. Publication fee payments have no role in acceptance, rejection, or editorial prioritization decisions, and the journal maintains editorial independence to protect the integrity of peer review and to prevent real or perceived financial influence on publication outcomes.

Handling Undisclosed COI

If an undisclosed conflict of interest is discovered during review or after publication, JSLA evaluates the severity and materiality of the omission and determines the appropriate corrective action. Depending on the circumstances, actions may include requesting an updated disclosure, rejecting the manuscript prior to publication, publishing a correction or erratum to disclose the conflict, issuing an expression of concern when the integrity of interpretation is in doubt, or retracting the article in serious cases where non-disclosure is judged to have materially compromised trust or the validity of the scholarly record. In cases involving significant misconduct or repeated non-disclosure, the journal may notify the author’s institution or apply proportionate submission restrictions in line with its ethics governance.

COI for Special Issues / Guest Editors

Guest editors must complete conflict of interest disclosures and must not handle submissions from colleagues, close collaborators, students, trainees, supervisors, or individuals with whom a relationship could compromise impartiality. Where conflicts exist in special issues, JSLA assigns an independent editor to manage the submission and ensures that peer review and decision-making follow the same standards applied to regular issues. Sponsorship of special issues, where applicable, is disclosed transparently, and sponsors are not permitted to influence editorial decisions, reviewer selection, or journal policies.