Excerpt from the P.I.E. Guidelines for Reviewers – Conflicts of interest

1 A conflict of interest may not preclude the peer reviewer from studied assessment. In the case of any potential or suspected competing interest, a full and honest disclosure of the details must be submitted and declared to the publisher before the review can be conducted.

2 A conflict may be of personal, financial, intellectual, political,religious, professional or otherwise, in nature. This applies regardless if they are uncertain whether an aspect constitutes a relevant self-interest. The efficacy of the review must be unhindered by self-serving influence.

3 A pre-requisite of the peer reviewer will be that they do not deliberately extrapolate negative conclusions from the text. The journal must be responsible for making its own judgment regarding the position of the reviewer.

4 Whereby the review is double-blind, with identities of author and reviewer concealed, the reviewer must notify the journal if they suspect the identity of the author and it raises any potential conflict of interest.

5 The reviewer must agree to follow the designated policy of the journal and notify them beforehand if they work at the same institution as the author, or envisage working there in the future. If, within the past 3 years, they have acted in the position of mentor, mentee, a close collaborator or joint grant holder or have a close personal relationshipwith an author, this may constitute a breach of policy.