Authors, recommenders and reviewers for PCI RR must agree to comply with the following rules:
- Recommenders and reviewers for PCI RR should have no financial conflict of interest (see a definition below) relating to the articles they evaluate.
- Authors should have no financial conflicts of interest (see a definition below) relating to the reports they submit to PCI RR. Submitted reports must therefore contain a section indicating that "The authors of this article declare that they have no financial conflict of interest with the content of this article." If authors are unsure whether their article may be associated with financial conflicts of interest, they can send an Email to contact@peercommunityin.org to ask for clarification.
- Authors should have as little non-financial conflict of interest (see a definition below) as possible relating to the reports they submit to PCI RR, although a complete absence of conflict of interest may be difficult to achieve due to the interest in the subject. Such conflicts of interest must be declared by the authors in the “Conflict of interest” section of their submitted report.
- Recommenders for PCI RR and reviewers should have as little non-financial conflicts of interest (see a definition below) as possible relating to the reports they evaluate, although a complete absence of conflict of interest may be difficult to achieve due to the required interest in the subject. For instance, recommenders for PCI RR and reviewers should not evaluate articles written by close colleagues and coworkers (people belonging to the same laboratory/unit/department in the last four years, people with whom they have published in the last four years, with whom they have received joint funding in the last four years, or with whom they are currently writing a manuscript, or submitting a grant proposal), or written by authors whom they know evaluated - as a recommender or reviewer - one or more of their own articles in the last four years, or written by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of their recommendation.
- Reviews, recommendations, comments, and messages should always be respectful to the authors.
- Reviews and recommendations should be of high quality. Reviews should be sufficiently deep and detailed for the PCI RR recommender handling the recommendation process to gain a full appreciation of the qualities, defects, and limitations of the report.
- Authors and recommenders are responsible for ensuring that Stage 2 RR submissions are compliant with the PCI RR TOP guidelines policy.
What is a conflict of interest?
A financial interest occurs when the authors, recommenders or reviewers:
- receive (or have received in the past four years) salaries, reimbursements, fees, a fellowship, grants, or funding from an entity with financial interests that may be affected by the results of the research presented in the article,
- have shares or stocks in an entity with economic interests that may be affected by the results of the research presented in the article or
- hold patents linked to the research presented in the article
Non-financial conflicts of interests include political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual interests of the authors, recommenders or reviewers that may be affected by the results of the research presented in the article.
