A conflict of interest (COI) occurs when an individual’s personal, financial, or professional interests could influence their decisions or actions. Managing COI is essential to maintain transparency, integrity, and public trust in academic, clinical, corporate, and research environments. The primary method of COI management is full disclosure, where individuals openly declare any financial ties, relationships, or external commitments that may affect their objectivity. In cases where the conflict is significant, the person must recuse themselves from decision-making processes such as peer review, grant evaluation, recruitment, procurement, or data interpretation. Institutions often implement independent oversight, such as assigning neutral reviewers or committees, to ensure unbiased outcomes. COI must also be regularly updated, usually yearly or whenever new financial interests or collaborations arise.

Declaration guidelines require individuals to clearly report any relevant interests—such as stock ownership, consulting fees, patents, honoraria, family relationships, sponsored travel, or advisory roles—at the start of a project, during ethics review, while submitting manuscripts, or when participating in evaluation committees. A COI declaration should describe the nature of the conflict, its extent, and steps taken to avoid bias. Transparent reporting, proper documentation, and adherence to institutional policies help prevent ethical violations and ensure credibility. Failure to disclose conflicts may result in disciplinary action, loss of funding, or retraction of research. Thus, clear COI management and declaration practices play a vital role in maintaining ethical standards across all professional settings.

Examples:

Gift (Honorary) Authorship

This occurs when someone’s name is added as an author without making any real intellectual or scientific contribution to the work. For example, adding a senior professor, head of department, or influential colleague only to gain favor, improve publication chances, or avoid conflict—even though they did not participate in study design, data collection, analysis, or writing. This practice violates authorship criteria and undermines the contributions of genuine researchers.

Duplicate / Multiple Publication

A researcher conducts a single study on the antimicrobial activity of a plant extract and publishes the full results in Journal A. A few months later, the same researcher submits another paper to Journal B using the same data, same results, and same conclusions, but slightly changes the title, rearranges the text, and adds minor modifications. Even though the wording is changed, the study is essentially the same work published twice, which misleads the scientific community and inflates publication records. This is a classic case of duplicate publication, also known as self-plagiarism.

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Sourish Chatterjee

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Conflict of interest management and declaration guidelines