Purpose

The purpose of this Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy is to ensure transparency and uphold the integrity, credibility, and objectivity of the Tobruk University Journal of Medical Sciences (TUJMS).

This policy guides the identification, disclosure, and management of conflicts of interest throughout the submission, peer review, and publication process.

Definition of Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest occurs when an individual’s personal, financial, academic, or professional relationships may compromise, or be perceived to compromise, their objectivity, integrity, or judgement in conducting, evaluating, or publishing research. Conflicts may be actual, potential, or perceived and may involve authors, reviewers, editors, members of the editorial board, or the publisher.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Financial relationships (e.g. funding, employment, consultancy, honoraria, stock ownership, patents)
• Personal relationships or rivalries
• Academic competition or intellectual bias
• Institutional affiliations that may affect objectivity

Scope

This policy applies to all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, reviewers, editors, members of the editorial board, and the publisher.

Author Responsibilities

Authors must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest in a dedicated statement within the manuscript. This includes financial and non-financial interests, all sources of funding, and the role of funders in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and manuscript preparation.

Authors should disclose relevant relationships and activities from the past three years.

If no conflicts exist, the following statement must be included:

“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest before accepting a review invitation or as soon as they become apparent. Where a conflict exists or could reasonably be perceived, reviewers must decline the review or inform the editor promptly.

Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality and must not use unpublished material for personal or professional advantage.

Editor Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for ensuring a fair, unbiased, and objective evaluation of all submissions. Editors must declare and manage any conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where a conflict exists.

Editorial decisions must be based solely on scientific merit, originality, methodological rigour, and relevance, and must not be influenced by commercial, financial, institutional, or personal considerations.

Publisher Responsibilities

The publisher supports transparency and ethical publishing practices and does not influence editorial decisions. All editorial decisions are made independently by the editorial team based on scholarly merit and ethical standards.

Management of Conflicts

The editorial board is responsible for evaluating disclosed conflicts of interest and managing them appropriately and transparently. Actions may include:

• Requesting additional information
• Reassigning manuscripts to another editor or reviewer
• Publicly disclosing conflicts of interest within the published article
• Rejecting submissions where conflicts cannot be appropriately managed

Undisclosed Conflicts

Failure to disclose a conflict of interest may result in editorial action, including manuscript rejection, correction or retraction of published articles, notification of the author’s affiliated institution, or restriction of future submissions.

Post-Publication Management

If conflicts of interest are identified after publication, TUJMS will take appropriate action in accordance with its publication ethics policies, which may include issuing corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions.

Policy Review

This policy is reviewed periodically to ensure alignment with international best practices and ethical standards in scholarly publishing.