Conflict of Interest Policy

JAFTCI Conflict of Interest Commitment

All authors must provide an accurate Conflicts of Interest Declaration, including an explicit declaration when no relevant conflicts exist.

Editors and peer reviewers must disclose relevant competing interests before participating in manuscript evaluation and must withdraw from assignments when their independence cannot be appropriately maintained.

All disclosed conflicts must be evaluated according to their significance and managed through suitable editorial safeguards. Transparency, impartiality, confidentiality, and scientific accountability must be maintained throughout the publication process.

Disclosure Principle: A conflict may be actual, potential, or reasonably perceived. Disclosure allows the editorial office and readers to understand relevant interests and evaluate whether appropriate safeguards are necessary. Declaring a conflict does not automatically disqualify a manuscript from publication.

Mandatory Author Responsibilities

1. Disclose relevant financial, institutional, professional, commercial, academic, or personal relationships that could affect the research or its interpretation.
2. Identify funding organizations, research grants, commercial sponsorship, and relevant financial assistance in the separate Funding Declaration.
3. Explain the involvement of funding organizations or commercial sponsors in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and publication decisions.
4. Disclose relationships with food industries, technology providers, agricultural enterprises, aquaculture businesses, biotechnology companies, or other stakeholders with interests in the research findings.
5. Declare relevant patents, patent applications, licensing arrangements, product development interests, or intellectual property rights related to the research.
6. Ensure that all co-authors are informed of and agree upon the declaration submitted with the manuscript.
7. Update the editorial office promptly when a relevant competing interest becomes apparent during manuscript evaluation or after publication.
8. Provide additional information or clarification when reasonably requested by the responsible editor.
9. Include an explicit statement declaring the absence of conflicts when no relevant competing interests exist.

Mandatory Article Declaration

Every manuscript must contain a Conflicts of Interest Declaration, whether or not any competing interest exists. A disclosure must reflect all relevant authors and must not be omitted, left blank, or replaced with a misleading statement.

Editorial Conflict of Interest Requirements

1. Disclose relevant competing interests before accepting responsibility for manuscript evaluation.
2. Withdraw from editorial handling when a conflict could reasonably compromise independent judgment.
3. Avoid evaluating or deciding upon their own submitted manuscripts.
4. Avoid handling manuscripts submitted by close relatives, significant personal associates, recent collaborators, or parties with whom a material conflict exists.
5. Ensure that manuscripts are assigned to qualified and independent editors when recusal is required.
6. Refrain from exploiting unpublished research information for personal, commercial, institutional, or academic advantage.
7. Prevent inappropriate influence by sponsors, authors, publishers, institutions, and external stakeholders.
8. Maintain confidentiality regarding manuscript information and sensitive conflict-of-interest disclosures.
9. Ensure that final decisions reflect scientific merit, peer-review evidence, and compliance with publication ethics.

Editorial Independence: Membership of the editorial board does not provide preferential treatment, accelerated acceptance, or exemption from independent peer review. All manuscripts must meet the same scientific and ethical requirements.

Peer Reviewer Responsibilities

1. Disclose relevant financial, personal, academic, professional, commercial, or institutional relationships connected to the manuscript.
2. Decline a review invitation or consult the responsible editor when a conflict may compromise independent assessment.
3. Notify the editor promptly if a potential conflict becomes apparent after the review assignment has been accepted.
4. Avoid reviewing manuscripts authored by individuals with whom the reviewer has a close relationship, recent collaboration, supervisory relationship, or other significant competing interest.
5. Refrain from using confidential manuscript information to obtain research, commercial, financial, or professional advantages.
6. Avoid recommending unnecessary citations for the purpose of increasing personal, institutional, journal, or associate citation metrics.
7. Base scientific assessments exclusively on the quality, originality, methodology, evidence, relevance, and scholarly contribution of the manuscript.
8. Maintain confidentiality concerning manuscript contents, review findings, and editorial correspondence.
9. Inform the responsible editor if the reviewer's knowledge of an author's identity creates a potential conflict within the double-blind review process.

Reviewer Impartiality: Peer review must not be used to settle academic disputes, undermine competitors, promote personal research, gain unauthorized access to unpublished work, or advance commercial interests.

Publisher and Management Responsibilities

• Respect the scientific independence of the Editor-in-Chief and authorized academic editors.
• Avoid influencing editorial acceptance or rejection decisions for commercial or institutional purposes.
• Disclose relevant sponsorship or organizational relationships that could materially affect journal governance.
• Ensure that financial arrangements do not create preferential publication opportunities.
• Maintain an appropriate mechanism for independent assessment of complaints involving editorial leadership.
• Protect confidentiality and authorized access to manuscript records and editorial information.
• Support transparent documentation of relevant conflicts and the measures taken to manage them.

Declaration Requirements

1. Include an explicit Conflicts of Interest heading in the manuscript.
2. Identify relevant interests held by any of the authors.
3. Describe the nature and relevance of disclosed financial, professional, institutional, personal, or commercial relationships.
4. Declare explicitly when no relevant conflicts exist.
5. Provide a separate Funding Declaration identifying relevant grants and financial support.
6. Explain the role of funders or sponsors in the reported study, where applicable.
7. Ensure that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the declaration.
8. Update the disclosure if relevant circumstances change during editorial evaluation or after publication.

Important: A Conflicts of Interest Declaration does not replace the Funding, Author Contributions, Generative AI Use, Ethics Approval, or Data Availability declarations required under JAFTCI's Research Ethics & Article Declarations Policy.

Step 1. Identification and Disclosure

The relevant author, editor, reviewer, publisher representative, or other participant identifies and discloses any actual, potential, or reasonably perceived competing interest.

Step 2. Preliminary Editorial Assessment

The responsible editor evaluates the nature, relevance, and potential significance of the disclosed relationship and determines whether it could reasonably influence the manuscript evaluation or publication process.

Step 3. Risk Assessment and Safeguards

Depending on the circumstances, the editorial office may request additional disclosure, appoint an independent reviewer, transfer editorial responsibility, restrict the participation of a conflicted individual, or require other proportionate safeguards.

Step 4. Independent Editorial Handling

Where a conflict affects a handling editor, the manuscript is reassigned to an appropriately qualified editor without a relevant competing interest. Where a reviewer cannot provide a sufficiently independent evaluation, the reviewer must be replaced.

Step 5. Documentation and Editorial Records

The editorial office records relevant disclosures, supporting explanations, conflict assessments, changes in editorial assignment, and decisions concerning appropriate safeguards.

Step 6. Final Editorial Decision

The manuscript receives an independent scientific evaluation based on research quality, methodological rigor, originality, relevance, evidence, and compliance with publication ethics. Disclosed interests must not improperly influence the final editorial decision.

Editorial Assessment Procedures

1. Examine the original Conflict of Interest Declaration and related manuscript records.
2. Request clarification from the relevant authors, editors, reviewers, or other individuals.
3. Evaluate available evidence concerning the undisclosed relationship.
4. Determine whether the conflict affected manuscript assessment or scientific reporting.
5. Consult an independent editor or appropriate institutional representative where necessary.
6. Select an appropriate corrective or administrative response based on the available evidence.
7. Document the investigation findings, editorial decisions, and relevant communications.

A. Declaration When No Conflict Exists

"The authors declare that they have no financial, personal, professional, commercial, institutional, or other relevant conflicts of interest that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, analysis, interpretation, or publication of this manuscript."

B. Declaration When a Conflict Exists

"The authors disclose the following potential conflicts of interest: [identify the relevant authors and describe the financial, commercial, institutional, professional, or personal relationships]. These interests have been disclosed to the JAFTCI editorial office in accordance with the journal's Conflict of Interest Policy."

C. Declaration of Commercial or Industrial Relationships

"[Author name] has a relevant professional or commercial relationship with [organization], which operates in [relevant industry or research field]. The nature of this relationship is [describe the relationship]. The authors have disclosed this interest to the editorial office and remain responsible for the accuracy, independence, and integrity of the reported research."

D. Declaration of Patent or Intellectual Property Interests

"[Author name] is associated with [patent, patent application, licensing agreement, or other intellectual property interest] relevant to the technologies or findings discussed in this article. This relationship has been disclosed to the JAFTCI editorial office."

E. Funding and Research Independence Declaration

"This research received financial support from [funding organization and grant number, where applicable]. The funding organization [describe its actual role or absence of involvement] in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and decision to submit the article for publication."

Accuracy Requirement: The statements above are examples only. Authors must replace placeholders with factual information and must not use standardized statements when they misrepresent actual relationships, sponsorship arrangements, intellectual property interests, or funding circumstances.

Documentation and Transparency Requirements

• Maintain relevant Conflicts of Interest Declarations submitted by authors.
• Record material disclosures concerning editorial and peer-review assignments.
• Document changes to reviewers or editors made because of identified conflicts.
• Protect confidential financial, personal, institutional, and research information.
• Publish appropriate author declarations in the final article.
• Maintain consistency between manuscript declarations, editorial records, and published article information.
• Correct published disclosures when material errors or omissions are confirmed.
• Preserve relevant evidence and editorial decisions concerning disputed or undisclosed competing interests.