Conflict of Interest Policy

A conflict of interest may arise when financial, professional, personal, institutional, or other interests could influence, or appear to influence, research activities, manuscript evaluation, peer review, or editorial decisions.

The existence of an actual, potential, or perceived conflict does not automatically indicate misconduct. However, relevant interests must be disclosed and appropriately managed to support transparency, impartial evaluation, and informed editorial decisions.

All authors must disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests when submitting their manuscripts. Disclosures should identify relationships or activities that may influence, or be perceived to influence, the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or reporting.

• Disclose relevant financial, personal, professional, and institutional interests.
• Declare funding sources and explain the funder's role in the study, where applicable.
• Provide accurate and complete disclosure statements in the manuscript and submission system.
• Inform the Editorial Board promptly if a relevant conflict arises or changes during editorial processing.

Authors should disclose relevant interests even when they believe those interests did not influence the research.

Reviewers must disclose relevant conflicts of interest before accepting a review assignment and inform the editor if a conflict becomes apparent during the review process.

• Decline or withdraw from reviewing when a conflict could compromise impartiality.
• Inform the editor of relevant personal, financial, institutional, or professional relationships.
• Maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and the peer-review process.
• Do not use confidential manuscript information for personal, professional, or financial advantage.

Editors and Editorial Board members must disclose relevant conflicts and recuse themselves from handling manuscripts when their impartiality could reasonably be questioned.

• Assign conflicted manuscripts to another qualified editor without the relevant conflict.
• Ensure that editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, evidence, and journal policy.
• Protect editorial independence from financial, institutional, commercial, and personal influence.
• Ensure that conflicts affecting reviewers or other participants are appropriately assessed and managed.

A disclosure does not automatically require rejection of a manuscript. The appropriate management measure depends on the nature and seriousness of the conflict.

All submitted manuscripts must include a Conflict of Interest declaration. Authors must explicitly state whether relevant conflicts exist. The declaration should be consistent with the information provided in the submission system and any applicable funding statement.

Funding disclosures should be provided separately where required, including the funder's role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication, as applicable.

Failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest may result in a request for clarification, correction of disclosure statements, reassignment of editorial responsibilities, or further examination, depending on the circumstances.

If a significant undisclosed conflict is identified after publication, BMB will assess whether a correction, expression of concern, or other editorial action is warranted to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Any action will be proportionate to the evidence and circumstances, consistent with the journal's publication ethics policies, and documented appropriately. A failure to disclose should be assessed in context rather than treated automatically as proof of research misconduct.