A reader suspects an author’s undisclosed conflict of interest which becomes apparent after publication. The flowchart offers the editor a step by step process on handling this issue.
Key points
- At the time of submission an author may have declared no potential conflicts of interest or an incomplete list.
- The editor should communicate with the author and reader during the investigation.
- The author's institution should be involved when the author denies an alleged conflict of interest or to inform an institution in cases of suspected misconduct.
- A published article may need a correction or to be retracted, dependent on whether the editor considers the conflict of interest to have affected the peer review process or the article. Retraction should be consistent with COPE's retraction guidelines.
Related resources
- Undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted article
- Handling competing interests, COPE discussion document
- Editorial conflicts of interest, COPE Forum discussion 2022
- Retraction guidelines
Core practices:
About this resource
Cite this as
COPE Council. COPE Flowcharts and infographics - Undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article - English.
https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.7
©2021 Committee on Publication Ethics (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
https://publicationethics.org
Version history
Version 2: July 2021
Version 1: 2006
Full page history
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8 November 2022
Version 2 of flowchart published.
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6 July 2021
Changed title to match revised ALL Flowcharts PDF
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11 February 2021
Sabah title