Conflict of Interest

CULTIVATE : Journal Of Agriculture Science requires authors, reviewers, and editors to disclose relationships or circumstances that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, their professional judgment.

Definition

A conflict of interest may arise from financial, professional, personal, institutional, or other relationships that could affect the objectivity of research, peer review, or editorial decision-making.

Examples include employment, consultancy, honoraria, grants, stock ownership, personal relationships, academic competition, and institutional affiliations.

Authors

Authors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest when submitting a manuscript. They should also disclose funding sources and explain the role of any sponsor in research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and publication decisions.

If no relevant conflict exists, authors should provide an explicit declaration stating that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Reviewers

Reviewers must inform the editorial office if a personal, professional, financial, or academic relationship could compromise their impartiality. The editor may appoint an alternative reviewer when necessary.

Reviewers must not use unpublished information obtained through peer review for personal advantage.

Editors

Editors must recuse themselves from handling a manuscript when a conflict could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, their judgment. An alternative editor should manage the review and decision-making process in such cases.

Disclosure and Management

The existence of a conflict does not automatically imply misconduct or invalidate a study. The journal will assess the disclosure and determine whether additional measures are required.

Relevant declarations will be published with the article or otherwise recorded as appropriate under the journal's policies.